Solar Fire Gold V8

Solar Fire runs on Intel Macs! Click here for details.

SOLAR FIRE V8 FULL VERSION - ONLY $360 $325

UPGRADES

$50 $45 from v. 7.3
$99 $89 from v. 7.0 or 7.1
$129 $115 from v. 5 or 6
$225 $199 from v. 2, 3 or 4
$325 $295 from v. 1 or DOS Nova

IT'S A SIMPLE TWO-STEP PROCESS

1) Pay on this page via PayPal, or call 828-338-9852 to pay by credit card

2) Physical discs will be promptly mailed. Registration details AND YOUR DOWNLOAD LINK will be emailed to you during the next business day (or two) if you purchase of a download.

Solar Fire Gold is an exciting culmination of years of hard work and creativity. This astrology program for Windows was first produced in 1992 and has been expanding ever since to become a world leader. Earlier versions brought an unprecedented level of ease to casting and working with astrological charts. The current version adds many more calculations, extra convenience features, more interpretive text, and exciting new kinds of graphic displays.

Our software is the leader in ACCURACY and DYNAMIC software solutions. Download our progressive patches for the freshest most up-to-date software. Our software evolves with your needs.

SOLAR FIRE GOLD contains something for everyone. For Advanced Astrologers and professionals, it has a great variety of high-precision astrological calculations, and an exceptional degree of user-customization. For Novices, its innovative point-and-click chart interpretations provide an enjoyable way to learn, and its many easily-explored options are an invitation to experiment with new techniques.

SOLAR FIRE is designed for both novice and expert astrologers providing easy access to high quality chart production—easy in the Windows environment; SOLAR FIRE GOLD uses state of the art planetary calculations from the highly accurate Swiss Ephemeris. You can create charts galore!

Solar Fire's capabilities include natal, progression, directed, any planet or asteroid return, pre-natal, rising/setting, lunar phase, locality, heliocentric, composite, harmonic and harmonic arc transform charts and more…

Why the loyal following? It all begins at Solar Fire’s main screen, which makes the most of Windows visual and easy-to-use environment. Immediately you feel a certain calm and order, a restful respite from information overload. And yet, somehow, it’s all there. You can immediately see the current state of the program, what charts and options are currently selected and every one of the huge array of program functions is accessible from this deceptively simple main screen’s menu bar. How did such awesome power get packed into so simple and easy an interface? The secret is consistency, and thoughtful, careful planning.

The data files that Solar Fire uses are simple, straightforward and, most important, similar to each other. This means that once you learn how to select an aspect set, for example, selecting any of the myriad of other options is pretty obvious.

Entering the place, zone, latitude and longitude also couldn’t be simpler, because Solar Fire comes with the built-in ACS International Atlas. Just type in the data and place and the latitude, longitude and time zone are automatically looked up for you.

Once saved, a chart is simple to find, because of a number of thoughtful touches. You can group charts into any number of files – files for you, your family, your first-time clients, your ongoing clients, your research projects or books. In addition to the file name, you can write an 80-character description of what’s in the file; this appears on the screen to jog your memory each time the file is selected. Even though a file can contain more than a thousand charts, you can locate a chart quickly by typing the first few letters of the name, or re-sorting the file into various alphabetical orders, by date of birth, or by when the chart was added to the file. And if you don’t remember which file a chart is in, no problem – Solar Fire will look for the chart in all your files at once. Files are easily reorganizedby moving, copying, deleting and editing charts. Plus, for every chart you store, you can keep unlimited comments that you can read and edit whenever the chart is selected.

WHEELS - PLAIN AND FANCY: Solar Fire lets you change the appearance of the charts. You can assign any color that your computer screen offers to each individual planet, sign and aspect type. You can pick unusual fonts for the birth data and ‘Compliments of’ text. And you can pick from an exciting new array of wheels, from maximally readable to maximally colorful and exotic. 

In case none of these wheels suit you, Solar Fire has a unique, innovative Wheel Designer that lets you easily design your own. Let’s face it: most of us don’t need 200 wheels, we just need a few that we like. Using the Wheel Designer, you can have the fun of changing the size and number of circles and charts on each wheel, the line style, cusp style, placement size and type style and dozens of other attributes, and really create the wheel of your dreams. The neatest thing about it is that you can see the changes take place as you make them. No waiting and no unpleasant surprises!

You can also choose from an array of page designs to suit your needs. Take your pick from a range of high-quality page layouts or design your own page complete with unique wheels, reports and even your own logo. You can find a page to suit your needs whether you are a horary, medieval, psychological or esoteric astrologer! Astrological publishing has never been this easy.

CHART ART GALORE: Our team of Solar Fire designers and artists has added a range of 110+ Chart Art to create beautiful back-drops for your chart work. See our beautiful array of designs by Celine Lawrence (designer), Kay Steventon (artist), Hank Friedman (artist) and Eila Laurikainen (designer) and then choose your favorites. Since first releasing our Solar Fire Gold we have added new Chart Art with themes - Love Art for Relationship Astrology Work and Child Art for children's charts. So please make sure that you update with our dynamic software. 

SOLAR RETURN CHART ART: We have exciting news with a brand new set of Solar Return Chart Art. This is a thrilling new concept straight from the desk of a working astrologer in association with a graphic designer. The Solar Return Chart Art is a set of 12 illustrated templates with a brief interpretation of the Solar Return Sun in each House. These colorful pages can be printed out with a current Solar Return of a client, friend or family member. The background colors for each page graphic are in keeping with traditional house colors and the brief keyword text has been written by a professional, working astrologer.

50 Standard Points are available throughout the program. These include Sun through Pluto, North and South Lunar Nodes (mean or true), Part of Fortune (fixed or different day/night), Asc, MC, Vertex, and Equatorial Asc (“East Point”); Earth, Chiron, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Hygeia and Astraea; 8 Uranian planets, Transpluto, Vulcan (D. Baker or L.H. Weston version), and the Black Moon Lilith (mean position). Also included are points such as Eris, Sedna, Selena (White Moon), Polar Ascendant and much more.
You can include any or all of these points in the main ring of wheels and in virtually all other options of Solar Fire, including the astro-location maps and planetarium view. You can create and save different point sets for different uses, and in Solar Fire’s lists and tables you can have the points arranged in the order that you prefer.

30 House Systems include Placidus, Koch, Campanus, Meridian, Morinus, Porphyry, Regiomontanus, Topocentric, Whole Signs, Alcabitius and Hindu Bhava. There are also equal houses from the Ascendant; equal with the Ascendant in the center of the 1st; equal with any planet, the lunar north Node, the Part of Fortune, the Equatorial Ascendant, 0° Aries or 0° of the Sun sign on the 1st; and equal with the MC on the 10th or the Vertex on the 7th. Houses can be calculated for geographic or geocentric latitude. In addition, Gauquelin sector positions are available in tables and in the chart and electional searches.

Fantastic Aspect Support! 26 predefined aspects for the first 12 harmonics (conjunctions through semisextiles, plus septiles, noviles, undeciles and their multiples), and also parallels and contraparallels. Each predefined aspect has its own glyph, and can have its own color and line style. You can also define additional aspects with their own arc widths, orbs, colors, line styles and alphabetical symbols. You can set different orbs for natal, transiting and progressed use, and different orbs for the luminaries vs. other points. Or, you can create different orbs for each individual pair of points by choosing Solar Fire’s “planet ratio” orbs. Other available ways of doing aspects include moieties, unidirectional, sign-to-sign, and “3-D” (off-the-ecliptic) aspects. You can create and store an unlimited number of different aspect sets for different purposes.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: We have taken the best of Devores’ Encyclopedia and added our own new definitions to make up the Solar Encyclopedia.

Students of astronomical cycles will like the ingress, lunar-phase, rise/set, and return charts. Returns can be for any planet or asteroid, or to any specified point in the zodiac, and you can do a whole string of returns automatically from one input. You can also find ingresses and eclipses in the dynamic search option, and can create custom ephemeris pages for any period in history.

BIRTHDAY POP-UP REMINDERS: Now you can select friends, family and clients’ charts for a special pop-up birthday reminder! Every day that you open your Solar Fire Gold your selected reminders will pop-up and jog your memory for the birthdays of clients, family and friends. 

CHART DATA: 2000+ Rodden-rated charts in new chart categories including Entertainment, Politics, Sports, Literature, Corporate, Science, Infamous and more.

ASTRODYNES (also known as Cosmodynes): Astrodynes can be viewed and printed in the Report View tabulation list and have also been added as 8 different page objects. These can be added to a page using the Page Designer.

Writers and editors can easily send both graphics and text to word processing and DTP programs. Wheels and aspectarians come out beautifully sharp as Windows Metafiles, and keep their clarity at any size. Listings and interpretations come out as text, which you can edit and format just like any other text. These include natal charts, transits, progressions, firdaria and synastry reports. Professionals can send some or all of the 20-odd pages of interpretations on each chart to a word processor as a starting-point for an individualized written interpretation. They can also rewrite the text database itself. Novices will find the point-and-click and hit list interpretations a delightful way to learn. You can also link directly to the illustrated range of purpose-built Solar Writer report writers (as well as other professional astrology tools).

Natal, Synastry, Transiting, Progressed, and Firdaria Interpretations by Stephanie Johnson. You can get pop-up interpretations of individual aspects and other factors by clicking on planets and other items in the chart wheel or hitlist. You can also view, edit and print complete multi-page reports through your favorite word processor. If you wish, you can put your own stamp on the interpretations by rewriting and adding to the text database itself. Alice Portman has added comprehensive Vertex interpretations to the Natal interpretation file.

UK Astrologer Julian Venables has also written Midpoint Interpretations exclusively for Solar Fire Gold. And world-renowned Sabian expert Lynda Hill has written Sabian Oracle and Sabian NatalInterpretations text.

Solar Fire’s 25 - 50-page Natal Report includes short paragraphs about a very wide variety of factors -- not only planets in signs, houses and aspects, but also in degrees (Sabian Symbol and Ebertin-style medical meaning), decanates, elements, modes, quadrants and hemispheres. There is also text about house cusps, dispositors, rays, and lunar phases. Also, there are now Sign and House interpretations for Chiron, Eris, Sedna, Selena and the 6 standard asteroids, and aspect interps for Chiron. This report is updated with each new version becoming more and more comprehensive.  In the latest Solar Fire Gold text for the Vertex has been written by Alice Portman, an Australian astrologer and expert on this subject. The Solar Fire interpretations text is continually updated and improved for your enjoyment. You can find all types of information by clicking on the Chart’s Displayed Points or producing a report in your Word Processor.

The 18-page (approx) Synastry Report is a comprehensive interpretation of the relationship between the planets in two people's charts. It is written mainly from the perspective of a romantic attachment, but can shed light on other types of relationships.

Solar Fire also contains comprehensive interpretations reports for Transits and Progressions. These are designed to outline the energies at any given time. Aimed primarily at astrologers, they can also be given to clients.

If you are a fan of Midpoints then you may enjoy the interpretations by UK Astrologer Julian Venables. His years of expertise make this feature a welcome addition to any astrologers' tool kit.

A Firdaria report is also contained in Solar Fire Gold. This ancient tradition is based on "periods" of time being ruled by different planets. The Firdaria report is available as a single interpretation for the current period (approx one page), as a report for the Previous, Current and Next period or for a lifetime.

Sabian Interpretations are also available in the form of a handy Oracle and for your Natal Chart work. These interpretations have been written by world-renowned Sabian expert Lynda Hill.

PREDICTIVE ASTROLOGERS can make sense of mountains of timed hits, thanks to Solar Fire’s Time Map graphs, graphic ephemeris and its great sorting capabilities. Besides sorting timed hits in the usual chronological order, you can sort with the slowest-moving transits first. Or, try grouping natal points to see how each is affected by transits during the period. Or, put exact and leaving hits upfront with the entering hit to see the whole course of each transit as it starts. Or, sort transits, progressions, directions, ingresses, stations and eclipses into separate sections. Dynamic lists have the same advanced options (tertiaries, minors, quotidians, Bija correction, etc.) as individual charts, and there’s a full selection of return charts, including precession-corrected and converse. Also note our new calendar complete with short text.

THE PLANET OR ELECTIONAL SEARCH: You can search through your chart files one at a time to discover charts with similar features. You can look for planets in the same signs, house, aspects and/or position. The powerful time search capability enables you to use a wide range of astrological criteria and chart data criteria. Solar Fire makes it all so easy and the results are fascinating. NEW SEARCH FACILITIES - If you were already delighted with Solar Fire’s electional and chart search facilities, then you are likely to be amazed by the new search conditions in the latest versions. Now you can search for Chart Shapes, Unaspected planets, Day of Week and Midpoints! Some chart shapes also allow selection of which planet is key (eg. Lead planet in a Locomotive, Handle planet in a Sling or Bucket). And if that is not enough Solar Fire Gold now allows for full Boolean logic support! And there’s more…

DYNAMIC REPORTS: Such a simple addition but such a welcome one is the ability to define your own dynamic report columns and now include AGE! And now you can see aspects already in Orb at the start of each report. This means that long term transit hits are always visible in report, even if no E/X/L event occurs during report period. Our Dynamic events now always have highest accuracy possible, including for large time steps. Auto DST adjustments are now applied to report events and a timezone column added to show which timezone applies to each event.

CALENDAR: See your personal and/or daily transits and interpretations in our elegantly designed Calendar. You can easily and quickly display any dynamic report in calendar format, for a day, week or month at a time. You can print your Solar Calendar or email it to your family, friends or clients. Your interpretations can be shown as popup hint bubbles, or as a separate report. The Calendar can also be produced as a PDF file and then easily exported as calendar events into other calendar programs such as MS Outlook, or any other calendar applications that are compatible with the iCalendar or vCalendar formats.

All Kinds of Forecasting Charts Solar Fire Gold lets you cast all types and variations of forecasting charts and save them for future use. You can choose from:

Transiting Charts: Direct or converse, tropical, sidereal or precession-corrected. 

Progressed Charts: By secondary, tertiary (mean or true), minor or user rate. MC progressed by solar or Naibod arc in either longitude or right ascension, or by Q2 (“daily houses”) rate. Progressed day type may be standard or Bija. Can also be direct or converse, tropical, sidereal or precession-corrected.

Directed Charts include solar, Ascendant, Vertex and user-defined arcs, and these can be direct or converse, with whole, half, double or reverse arcs.

You can view any forecasting chart either by itself or in a multi-ringed wheel along with the natal and other charts. You can also cast forecasting charts with extra points and view them using Solar Fire’s extra-points wheel rings and tables.

Return Charts include returns of the Sun, Moon or any planet or standard asteroid to its natal or any other specified position. Returns can be tropical, sidereal or precession-corrected; direct or converse; full, demi, quarti, or any other harmonic; and you can do a whole string of returns from any starting date. Other types of return include progressed solar returns and Wynn Key Cycles.

Lunar-Phase Charts include progressed and transiting lunar phases, eclipses, phase returns, and Pessin lunar phase families.

Age-Harmonic Charts create a harmonic chart for a given moment in someone’s life from the person’s exact age at the time. You can do these for the person’s age, or age plus one year.

Animated Charts let you put natal and forecasting charts on the same multi-wheel, and then click forward or back in time to watch the changes in the transiting, progressed and/or directed (and even profected) planets and aspects. Solar Fire's aspect highlighting feature makes the changes even more dramatic, thickening an aspect line as the aspect builds in intensity, and then changing it to a broken line as soon as the aspect separates. Not only can you animate chart wheels, you can also animate aspectarians and even whole pages in order to watch their tables of dignities, arabic parts, rays and a lot more change through time. You can also animate dials, get point-and-click interpretations, and print out any chart that you see on the screen. This simple and direct way of looking at charts could well become your favorite way to forecast!

A Real-Time Chart shows you a wheel or page with constantly updating current planetary positions. To get it, you simply put the animated chart on automatic update. (This is in addition to the constantly updating planet, MC and Asc positions that you can have always visible on Solar Fire’s Main Screen.)

Dynamic Hit lists are extraordinarily flexible and complete in Solar Fire Gold. You can do transits (to natal, transiting, progressed or directed positions), progressions (secondary, tertiary, minor and user-defined, to natal or progressed positions), arc directions (solar, Ascendent, Vertex or user-defined whole, double, half or reverse arcs), sign and house ingresses, stations and eclipses. You can also include parallels of declination or latitude, primary directions (mundane or Van Dam), annual profections, and void-of-course Moon times. You can do any of these by themselves or mix them in one timed list, and you can gain even further flexibility by merging hit lists.

As points, you can include both moving and natal asteroids, hypothetical planets, midpoints, and even the moving Asc, MC, Vertex and Equatorial Ascendant. Plus, as natal points you can include intermediate house cusps, Arabic parts, and any fixed points that you specify. You can use different point sets for transits, progressions/directions, and the natal chart, and can use different aspects and orbs for transits vs. progressions/directions.

Other choices include natal or relocated; geo or helio; tropical, sidereal or precession-corrected; regular or converse; and timing to either the day or the minute. Once you set up all your selections for a given purpose, you can name and save them for future use.

Once a hit list is calculated, Solar Fire’s sorting capabilities help you to make sense of it. Besides sorting timed hits in the usual chronological order, it’s useful to sort with the slowest-moving, most important transits first. Or sort by natal points to see how each factor in the chart is affected by the transits during that period. Or sort by the moving point to see what each moving point is doing to all the planets in a chart. Or group entering, exact and leaving dates together to see the whole course of each transit as it enters orb, perfects and separates. Or sort by type of aspect. Or sort transits, progressions, directions, ingresses, stations and eclipses into separate sections.

For more information about a hit, you can click on it to see other instances of the transit, a paragraph of interpretation, or a full chart wheel for the moment. 

Dynamic Interpretation Reports: In addition, for the entire period covered by the hit list, you can view and print a multi-page transiting and/or progressed interpretation report. You can also copy just the hits themselves to a word processor or spreadsheet, where you can edit them, manipulate them in tables, etc. 

These reports aren’t intended for batch processing and commercial applications, but they’re great for getting your interpretive juices flowing, promoting your services, and giving to a client as an extra along with your consultation. And for beginners, they’re an easy and pleasant way to learn astrology.

“Time Maps” show the whole hitlist in graphic form. Using a horizontal bar to indicate the duration of each event, these graphs make it easy to visualize how the transits, progressions, directions, and other events overlap in time.

Graphic Ephemerides: Ebertin-style graphs of planetary motion give you an additional way to make sense of transits, progressions or directions. Making it immediately obvious how fast each planet is traveling, and in what direction, they vividly depict planetary stations and complexes or “knots” of aspects. You can do graphic ephemerides with or without a natal chart, and you can view them not only in longitude (in 360-, 30-, 45-degree or any other modulus) but also in latitude and declination.

In Solar Fire Gold you can move the cursor to see the exact date and zodiacal degree of any point on the graph. Even better, you are free to scroll these graphs forward and back in time as much as you wish without needing to return to the selection screen.

Custom Ephemeris Tables use state-of-the-art accuracy and go way beyond what you can get in books! Over any timespan and in whatever time zone and time intervals you choose, you can generate your choice of longitude, latitude, right ascension, declination, and daily motion not only for planets, but also for the MC, Asc, Part of Fortune, midpoints, regular and extra asteroids, stars and hypothetical points. You can do these in geo or helio coordinates; in the tropical, draconic or any sidereal zodiac. Your printouts can also include the sidereal time and day of the week, and they can be precise to either minutes or seconds of arc. You can also generate ephemerides in decimal-degree format for export to spreadsheets and other applications.

Life-Event Lists attached to the natal chart make it easy to store and organize a person’s whole life history and keep adding to it whenever you wish. Just click on the main screen’s Chart Preview window to enter the dates and times of these events. From then on, they stand ready for instant recall as transiting, progressed or directed charts. Life-event lists also enable you to jump to the time of these events instantly in the animated chart view.

Solar Fire contains all of the features that you would like for your relationship astrology work - Synastry Grids and Interpretations, Composite Charts, and more.

Composite Chart Art Solar Fire Gold v8 also includes 12 new Chart Art pages have been designed displaying key notes for the house location of the composite Sun.

RELATIONSHIP COUNSELORS will be fascinated by what the multi-person composite charts (of up to 15 people) and four-chart dials reveal about groups. A synastry grid with orbs lets you quickly spot the issues. Or you can make a Synastry interpretations report.

Ashtkoot Compatibility System The Ashtkoot Compatibility System is a system that has its roots in India and is primarily used in Vedic astrology. Vedic and Relationship Astrologers will love this simple calculation that compares two people’s charts and comes up with a compatibility score. Anything over 18 is a green light. Try your charts and see how you go. As Solar Fire’s own Neville Lang explains: “Ashtkoot” simply means “8 factor”. The scoring within this system is based on the position of the sidereal Moon (Lahiri) of the two people and the 8 factors are scored on the integration of these two Moon positions. The maximum score is 36. The implementation of this system in Solar Fire Gold v8 allows a user to select two charts from either the chart files or ones that have been entered and if a zodiac used in those charts is one other than the Lahiri zodiac then Solar Fire Gold v8 automatically converts the Moon position to the Lahiri (sidereal) position internally and the scores calculated. Neville Lang has studied about 100 couples over a 10 year period (still a small sample size) using the Ashtkoot Compatibility system he has come up with some tentative boundaries of the Total score. If you think about using traffic lights as a quick indicator then the Red light will represent scores of 40% of the maximum 36 (a score of 14.4) and lower, the Orange light will represent the range from 40% (14.5) to 69% (24.7), and the Green light will represent scores of 24.8 and higher. Basically, the Red light indicates a warning for the long term viability of the relationship, the Orange light means that is it “middling” and requires more analysis of the two individual charts while the Green light indicates a high degree of compatibility for the relationship to run for the long term.

Traditional Astrologers will enjoy the growing body of features included to enable you to explore the ancient world of astrology.

Solar Fire traditionalists have a choice between a round chart wheel or a Traditional Square one. A round wheel can display the Decans and Terms while Traditional Square Charts are included in a dozen pages designed specifically for Classical Astrology.

Traditional House Systems include Whole Signs, Alcabitius, Regiomontanus and other appropriate houses.

Traditional Aspect Types include moieties and sign-to-sign aspects. In Solar Fire you can choose to use a Traditional Square Chart with Traditional Planets only and Sign-to-Sign Ptolemaic Aspects.

Traditional Tables include complete Essential Dignity scores; the almuten (Ibn Ezra) and Essential Dignity (Ptolemy and Dorothean/Egyptian) total for each planet; mutual receptions (including by exaltation, triplicity, term and face); house almutens; chart hylegs (Ptolemy, Omar and Bonatti versions); planetary sect; tables of aspects to the Moon, fixed stars or Arabic parts; horary considerations; the chart’s planetary hour, day, and year; planetary hours for the entire day; and nearest lunar phases or eclipses. In addition, flexible lists of planets, stars and Arabic parts can include your choice of columns for house rulership, dispositor, dispositor’s house, antiscion, contra-antiscion, tropical and sidereal Arabic Lunar Mansion, Planetary Sect and other relevant information.

Our unique Dignities Editor also enables you to explore the world of Classical Astrology with pre-designed almutens and dignities, as well as the ability to design your own. You can set the editor and produce your own set of ancient calculations from a simple Essential Dignities score to a more complicated Chart Almuten.

Traditional Planet Sets and Rulerships are available, plus unlimited user-definable Arabic parts (which include the traditional Part of Fortune and other Parts that differ for day and night births). The Arabic Parts Editor enables you to modify more than 100 pre-defined parts and also create new ones, each with its own name and abbreviation. The factors in the A+B-C formulas can be planets, house cusps, rulers, dispositors, other Parts, the prenatal lunation or any specified degree in the zodiac -- and the formulas can differ for day and night births. You can create and store different sets of Arabic parts for different uses.

A Rulership Editor also enables you modify the included Modern, Traditional, Esoteric and Hierarchical rulership schemes or create new ones.

There are also Fixed Stars, including a set of the 31 stars described by Ptolemy. Likewise, the Fixed Star Editor lets you add traditional star meanings to those already in the program. Needless to say, there’s also a horary page with full Lilly-style dignities, almutens of houses, planetary hours, and the day or night Part of Fortune.

Traditional Predictive Techniques include Firdaria (Schoener and nodal variation types), annual profections, Directions by Egyptian or Ptolemaic terms, and Primary Directions (Ptolemy degree-for-a-year, Naibod, and natal solar rates as well as modern Van Dam primaries). You will also find Firdaria interpretations, written by Stephanie Johnson. These can be produced for current period, the current, previous and last or for a lifetime.

Chart and Electional Searches will find charts and time periods that have any of 7 horary considerations -- Sun above the horizon, Asc near a sign boundary, and Moon void (by standard or Lilly method), waxing, fast or in the Via Combusta. These search features can also find charts where a given planet, cusp or other point (or its ruler, almuten, antiscion or contra-antiscion) is in any of 20 specified types of dignity. In addition, they can do things like finding charts where a planet, point or cusp (or its ruler, almuten, etc.) is a given planet, or is in a given sign or house, or is in a given aspect to any other point or specified degree.

Solar Fire Gold also contains a Temperament tabulation. This Temperament tabulation can be done for any chart. and contains the four temperaments weighted according to Lilly – Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic, Phlegmatic.

Solar Fire Gold v8 now contains new Traditional Wheel Designs. Now you can view Face rulers, Terms rulers, Egyptian rulers and Nakshatras on your Solar Fire Chart wheel! The previous version of Solar Fire Gold supplied a wheel style displaying decanate rulers. This version now extends this concept to include wheels displaying rulers used in Classical astrology. To display the decanate ruler wheel, on the “View Chart” screen you can simply select the DecRuler.wh1 wheel style from the “Wheel Style” button. Now you can choose either of the following:

   • Face rulers 
   • Ptolemy Term rulers 
   • Egyptian rulers 
   • Nakshatras

ESOTERIC ASTROLOGERS can work with esoteric and hierarchical rulerships, ray interpretations, and the esoterically important hypothetical planet Vulcan. Solar Fire includes both the Douglas Baker and LH Weston calculations for Vulcan.

Solar Fire enables esoteric astrologers to include the heliocentric position of the planet Earth on your geocentric charts. You can also explore other esoterically important planetary bodies including Sigma, Morya, Pan, Isis, Hermes, Osiris, Midas and Lion.

You can display graphs of Ray distributions of the planetary placements by sign using either weighted or unweighted planets. You can also display planet and sign colors based on the esoteric ray through the signs and planets.

Solar Fire enables you to select esoteric aspects such as the Quintile, Septile, Novile and more!

You can calculate 18 kinds of prenatal chart, including E H Bailey and Charles Jayne-type charts for conception and quickening.

You may also enjoy displaying your Birth Charts using the beautiful designs of Esoteric Astrologer Eila Laurikainen and other artists.

COSMOBIOLOGISTS, SYMMETRICAL AND URANIAN ASTROLOGERS will love the Cosmobiology Dials in Solar Fire complete with pointers, as well as the ability to do transits to midpoints and watch the midpoints transiting. You can also do midpoint sorts, lists and trees in any modulus, and can include the Aries Point along with Uranian planets. You can also adapt the Arabic Parts Editor to do Uranian A+B-C pictures. The Dials, which you can customize, can hold 1 to 4 charts and are fully functional in both the static and the animated chart views. 

Midpoints: There are midpoint trees and lists of midpoint axis structures; midpoint lists sorted by planet, modulus or mode; and Munkasey Midpoint Weighting Analysis tables that show which midpoints are the most active. You can also include selected midpoints in the extra-points ring of wheels and dials. You can also find Midpoint Interpretations written by UK Astrologer Julian Venables.

For forecasting with midpoints, Solar Fire’s dynamic hitlists, time map graphs and Ebertin-style graphic ephemerides can all include not only natal but also transiting, progressed and directed midpoints. In addition, you can generate table-style ephemerides that show the positions of transiting midpoints at regular intervals.

Arc Directions: In directed charts, hitlists, time maps and graphic ephemerides, you can do solar arc and other directions by forward or reverse whole, half or double arcs. In addition, you can use solar-arc-directed graphic ephemerides to create Cosmobiology “life diagrams.”

Graphic Modulus Sort Strips are like linear dials. They let you see at a glance how the chart points relate to each other in various harmonics. You can create sort strips in any modulus (for example 360-, 30-, 45- 72- and 90-degree) and arrange strips for different moduli on the same page.

Planetary Pictures: Solar Fire’s Arabic Parts Editor enables you to create unlimited Uranian A+B-C combinations to appear as sensitive points in wheels and tables.

Sorted Difference Listings of all pairs of points in a chart are a simple and elegant way to see both midpoint axes and planetary pictures. They sort the near and far arcs between every planetary pair in order of arc size. Pairs with nearly the same arc are on the same midpoint axis -- which means that they form a planetary picture.

Other Cosmo features include:

Watch the celestial sphere appear before your very eyes. Solar Fire’s Planetarium is a unique method to rediscover the ancient realm of the Fixed Stars. It also includes the text for 50 stars by Bernadette Brady, Author of Brady's Book of Fixed Stars, and co-author of JigSaw, the astrology program for rectification, research and family patterns.

290 Major Stars are included, with coordinates, magnitude, spectral class, and in many cases keywords and interpretations. Plus, it’s easy to enter info for additional stars. You can also add black holes, quasars, etc. . If you are not satisfied with Solar Fire’s Planetarium you can link to an internet Stellarium via the Solar Fire menu.

The Fixed Stars Editor enables you to enter data for additional stars or deep-space objects, sort them in various ways, print out star tables, find their positions in eras remote from our own, and create special sets of stars for different uses. You could even use the Fixed Stars Editor to enter the day-by-day positions of a comet (which you could then display in the Planetarium View, with or without the planets of a natal chart).
The Planetarium View enables you to view the starry sphere either by itself or with a chart’s planets overlaid. This shows the true spatial relation of stars to a chart. You can click on a star (or on the planet nearest to it) to see the star’s name, constellation, catalog number, coordinates, magnitude, spectral class, and in many cases, its meaning. Also shown are the star’s rise/set/culminate/anticulminate times for the date and place of the birth chart. These can provide a clue as to whether the star is making parans with other bodies in the chart.

Star Aspect and Paran Lists are available in the main body of the program. These show either aspects or parans between stars and the other points in a chart. (When a star is located a long way from the ecliptic, parans provide the most reliable way to show how it relates to the chart’s planets.)

Star Interpretations are available for 50 of the most prominent stars, you can point and click in the planetarium to see a carefully thought-out modern interpretation by star expert Bernadette Brady. Brief traditional designations are also given for the set of 31 stars mentioned by Ptolemy.

Stars in Chart Wheels and Pages: Special extra-points rings enable you to embellish chart wheels with whatever stars you wish, and next to the chart wheels you can place flexible extra-points lists that give a key to the stars’ abbreviations and show their coordinates and other data that you think is relevant.

Ephemeris Tables of Stars. You can use Solar Fire’s Ephemeris Generator to list the changing longitudes, latitudes, right ascensions and declinations of stars over long periods of time. (You can also adjust star positions for precession and proper motion by entering a new date in the Fixed Stars Editor.)

Solar Fire Gold v8 now has 65 asteroid glyphs for display on your Chart. These beautifully designed glyphs have been supplied by Asteroid expert Roderick Kidston in Australia. Some of the glyphs are in common usage and where there were no glyphs for some asteroids, Solar Fire uses Roderick’s glyphs. The 65 asteroid glyphs are:- Abundantia, Aditi, Adonis, Adorea, Amor, Amphitrite, Anubis, Apollo, Arachne, Aten, Atlantis, Atropos, Bacchus, Cupido, Diana, Eros, Europa, Fama, Flora, Fortuna, Frigga, Gaea, Ganesa, Ganymed, Gilgamesh, Gilgame, Gratia, Harmonia, Harmoni, Hathor, Haumea, Hebe, Hekate, Hephaistos, Hephais, Herculina, Herculi, Hidalgo, Horus, Icarus, Imhotep, Iris, Isis, Jubilatrix, Jubilat, Kleopatra, Kleopat, Klotho, Lachesis, Lachesi, Lilith, MakeMake, Midas, Moira, Neith, Nephthys, Ops.You can select various Asteroids and their glyphs for display in your Chart Wheel or you can select all 65 asteroids that have glyphs within the Extra Ring. You can also add up to 50 astrological points to the main Solar Fire wheel! Over the years, many of you have asked whether or not you could add asteroids, fixed stars, Arabic parts, midpoints and various other points onto the main wheel of Solar Fire, instead of using the Extra Ring. In response to these requests, a new feature in this latest major update now allows for up to 50 user-defined points to appear on the main wheel along with Sun, Moon, Mercury, and so on. Now you can add up to 50 points such as your favorite Asteroids.

Solar Fire Gold traditionally included Ceres, Pallas, Juno Vesta, Hygeia, Astraea and Chiron (for those who call Chiron an Asteroid) in the standard point set. Positions, from the Swiss Ephemeris, extend from 5401 BC to 5399 AD and have a likely accuracy to a few arc minutes in 3000 BC. These bodies have their own glyphs, and you can include them in virtually every part of the program, including the regular wheel rings and tables, dynamic hitlists, astro-mapping and planetarium views, and the new chart and electional searches.

Asteroid interpretations include both natal and transiting sign and house interps for all 7 bodies, plus natal, transiting and synastry aspect interps for Chiron.

1,081 Extra Asteroids and minor planets are also supplied with Solar Fire Gold. Besides bodies in the asteroid belt, these include the Centaurs and newly discovered transneptunian objects like Quaoar and Sedna. Positions are from the Swiss Ephemeris and extend from 1500 to 2100 AD. You can add ephemerides for more centuries and more asteroids from any source that is in Swiss Ephemeris or pre-2003 Pottenger format.

LOCATIONAL ASTROLOGY is also featured with world mapping features, relocated, Johndro and Geodetic charts, and links to the comprehensive astro-locality program, Solar Maps. Features include:

New and improved maps; zoom in to much greater precision of coastlines and lakes.

Step any chart (natal, transits, progressed) through time while your astro-mapping lines are displayed on any map of the world.

Midpoint Astro-mapping Lines

Planet Aspects Astro-mapping Lines

Parans Lines and Reports

Dynamic Map Features: Transits, Progressions (Secondary & Tertiary) and Solar Arc directions against the backdrop of the natal angles.

Hurricane and earthquake tracking with sample data included and ability to import more from the web.

Now you can retain the natal local space line directions when you relocate the chart.

Copy options to save image as BMP/GIF to clipboard/file or email attachment.

VEDIC ASTROLOGERS can enjoy the North Indian and South Indian square charts, dasas, bhuktis, Whole Sign and Hindu Bhava Houses (Sri Pati), Lahiri, Krishnamurti and other ayanamsas. It is also possible to cast various Vedic divisional charts and to view the Nakshatras (Vedic lunar divisions) in the Solar Fire Gold tabulations which shows the Nakshatras for the current chart according to the default sidereal zodiac. The names and types of the mansions are given, as well as a few keywords describing the attributes of each mansion.

Dasas for Natal Charts Solar Fire Gold v8 contains two new pages can now be displayed showing the Dasas for a natal chart - A major dasa cycle runs for 120 years and it is further sub-divided into sub-dasas also known as bhuktis. If you open a natal chart and use a Vedic zodiac, like Lahiri, you can now display the dasa periods for that natal chart.

Ashtkoot Compatibility System The Ashtkoot Compatibility System is a system that has its roots in India and is primarily used in Vedic astrology. Vedic and Relationship Astrologers will love this simple calculation that compares two people’s charts and comes up with a compatibility score. Anything over 18 is a green light. Try your charts and see how you go. As Solar Fire’s own Neville Lang explains: “Ashtkoot” simply means “8 factor”. The scoring within this system is based on the position of the sidereal Moon (Lahiri) of the two people and the 8 factors are scored on the integration of these two Moon positions. The maximum score is 36. The implementation of this system in Solar Fire Gold v8 allows a user to select two charts from either the chart files or ones that have been entered and if a zodiac used in those charts is one other than the Lahiri zodiac then Solar Fire Gold v8 automatically converts the Moon position to the Lahiri (sidereal) position internally and the scores calculated. Neville Lang has studied about 100 couples over a 10 year period (still a small sample size) using the Ashtkoot Compatibility system he has come up with some tentative boundaries of the Total score. If you think about using traffic lights as a quick indicator then the Red light will represent scores of 40% of the maximum 36 (a score of 14.4) and lower, the Orange light will represent the range from 40% (14.5) to 69% (24.7), and the Green light will represent scores of 24.8 and higher. Basically, the Red light indicates a warning for the long term viability of the relationship, the Orange light means that is it “middling” and requires more analysis of the two individual charts while the Green light indicates a high degree of compatibility for the relationship to run for the long term.

Appointments Manager Our exciting newest feature is a built-in system for managing your clients’ appointments, sessions and details. Our Appointments Manager enables you to make a session time in the Solar Fire calendar, email appointment reminders and record the session as a .wav file (audio file) to send to your client later. You can time your sessions and set a rate of pay that enables you to generate and then send a receipt to clients afterwards. You can also manage all your clients’ details and send group emails.

50 User-Defined Points   Now you can add up to 50 astrological points to the main Solar Fire wheel! Over the years, many of you have asked whether or not you could add asteroids, fixed stars, Arabic parts, midpoints and various other points onto the main wheel of Solar Fire, instead of using the Extra Ring. In response to these requests, a new feature in this latest major update now allows for up to 50 user-defined points to appear on the main wheel along with Sun, Moon, Mercury, and so on.  Now you can add up to 50 points from your list of Extra Points.  You can add points to existing Displayed Points files or create your own favorite selection. 

Asteroid Glyphs   Solar Fire Gold v8 now has 65 asteroid glyphs for display on your Chart. These beautifully designed glyphs have been supplied by Asteroid expert Roderick Kidston in Australia. Some of the glyphs are in common usage and where there were no glyphs for some asteroids, Solar Fire uses Roderick’s glyphs.  You can select various Asteroids and their glyphs for display in your Chart Wheel or you can select all 65 asteroids that have glyphs within the Extra Ring. The 65 asteroids are: Abundantia, Aditi, Adonis, Adorea, Amor, Amphitrite, Anubis, Apollo, Arachne, Aten, Atlantis, Atropos, Bacchus, Cupido, Diana, Eros, Europa, Fama, Flora, Fortuna, Frigga, Gaea, Ganesa, Ganymed, Gilgamesh, Gilgame, Gratia, Harmonia, Harmoni, Hathor, Haumea, Hebe, Hekate, Hephaistos, Hephais, Herculina, Herculi, Hidalgo, Horus, Icarus, Imhotep, Iris, Isis, Jubilatrix, Jubilat, Kleopatra, Kleopat, Klotho, Lachesis, Lachesi, Lilith, MakeMake, Midas, Moira, Neith, Nephthys, Ops.

Ashtkoot Compatibility System   The Ashtkoot Compatibility System is a system that has its roots in India and is primarily used in Vedic astrology.  Vedic and Relationship Astrologers will love this simple calculation that compares two people’s charts and comes up with a compatibility score. Anything over 18 is a green light. Try your charts and see how you go.  As Solar Fire’s own Neville Lang explains: “Ashtkoot” simply means “8 factor”. The scoring within this system is based on the position of the sidereal Moon (Lahiri) of the two people and the 8 factors are scored on the integration of these two Moon positions. The maximum score is 36. The implementation of this system in Solar Fire Gold v8 allows a user to select two charts from either the chart files or ones that have been entered and if a zodiac used in those charts is one other than the Lahiri zodiac then Solar Fire Gold v8 automatically converts the Moon position to the Lahiri (sidereal) position internally and the scores are then calculated. Neville Lang has studied about 100 couples over a 10 year period (still a small sample size) using the Ashtkoot Compatibility system and he has come up with some tentative boundaries of the Total score. If you think about using traffic lights as a quick indicator then the Red light will represent scores of 40% of the maximum 36 (a score of 14.4) and lower, the Orange light will represent the range from 40% (14.5) to 69% (24.7), and the Green light will represent scores of 24.8 and higher. Basically, the Red light indicates a warning for the long term viability of the relationship, the Orange light means that is it “middling” and requires more analysis of the two individual charts while the Green light indicates a high degree of compatibility for the relationship to run for the long term.

Solar Maps v4  In recent times you have been able to access Solar Maps Lite with your Solar Fire. Now you can access the full Solar Maps which has been included for your enjoyment and astrological work. All of the features of Solar Maps v3 have been included in Solar Fire including the Relocation reports, the Zoom facility and more….

Teacher/Student feature   Teachers – you can now send your preferred Solar Fire settings to your students! Students – you can now receive your teacher’s Solar Fire settings as a single file. No more fiddling around! Yes, in an effort to assist astrology teachers and students with setting up Solar Fire for students, we have now provided a new feature that enables a teacher to scan Solar Fire for the current settings used for teaching and to create a single *.zip file. The ZIP can either be sent directly to any student who already has Solar Fire Gold v8, or the ZIP file can be sent to Esoteric Technologies where it can be placed on a new Teacher webpage located at www.esotech.com.au on the “Resources” side menu.  Students from anywhere in the world taught by that teacher can then simply download the ZIP file and have their Solar Fire Gold v8 automatically updated with the teacher’s settings. At any point in time, a student can easily switch from the teacher’s settings back to their regular settings and then back to the teacher’s settings.

Vertex Interpretations   Up until this version of Solar Fire, there were no natal interpretations for the Vertex. Text for the Vertex has been kindly supplied by Alice Portman, an Australian astrologer and expert on this subject. The Solar Fire interpretations text is continually updated and improved for your enjoyment. You can find all types of information by clicking on the Chart’s Displayed Points or producing a report in your Word Processor.  These reports can be sold or given to your friends, family and clients however we recommend you edit them first as they have been written for astrological edification. For fully comprehensive reports for more general use please see our Solar Writer range which can be used seamlessly with Solar Fire or on their own.

New Traditional Wheel Designs   Now you can view Face rulers, Terms rulers, Egyptian rulers and Nakshatras on your Solar Fire Chart wheel! The previous version of Solar Fire Gold supplied a wheel style displaying decanate rulers. This version now extends this concept to include wheels displaying rulers used in Classical astrology. To display the decanate ruler wheel, on the “View Chart” screen you can simply select the DecRuler.wh1 wheel style from the “Wheel Style” button.  Now you can choose either of the following:

New for Financial astrologers   Financial astrologers are likely to appreciate the inclusion of two new Dial styles – 24 and 120 degree dials which can be used in harmonic trading work plus the new Commodities Arabic Parts file.

New Chart Art   Solar Fire Gold v8 now has a wide range of new Chart Art designs including starry skies, art work by contributing artists and twelve beautiful black and white Renaissance depictions of the signs. Family, friends and clients love these beautiful depictions of their charts.

ACS Atlas – Each version of Solar Fire is updated with the latest Time Zone and Place information made available in the ACS Atlas. Solar Fire Gold v8 now has these latest changes. You can also edit your ACS Atlas information to update yourself whenever a country changes its Time Zones.

Astrology Schools item on the Help menu   Solar Fire Gold v8 now assists a user by providing a direct link to a webpage on Esoteric Technologies’ website where a list of schools, the principal(s) and a classification of what type of astrology the school focuses on is displayed.  At present, there are only a small number of schools but in time this list will grow.  Contact admin@esotech.com.au if you would like to be included.

An Alternative Glyph for Neptune   An alternative glyph for Neptune has been added to Solar Fire Gold v8. In previous versions of Solar Fire, the glyph selection was on the “Misc” tab in the Preferences. Now, a new tab called “Glyphs” has been added to the set of tabs in the Preferences.

New Location button on the Animate screen   Now you have control over the location (and timezone) of the subsidiary charts or transit charts in the Animate module. With the introduction of the “Location” button, you now have full control over the location and time zone of any of the charts in the Animate Module. As an example, if you open a natal chart from a chart file, have it highlighted in the Calculated Charts list then click on Dynamic > Animate QuadriWheel, Solar Fire automatically calculates and displays the Natal, the Secondary Progression, the Solar Arc and the current Transit chart, all with the same natal location and time zone.

Composite Chart Art  Solar Fire Gold v8 also includes 12 new Chart Art pages that have been designed displaying key notes for the house location of the composite Sun.

Dasas for Natal Charts  Two new pages can now be displayed showing the Dasas for a natal chart. A major dasa cycle runs for 120 years and it is further sub-divided into sub-dasas also known as bhuktis. If you open a natal chart and use a Vedic zodiac, like Lahiri, you can now display the dasa periods for that natal chart.

Animate Charts You asked for it and we have delivered! We have added an Animate Chart button on the View Chart screen so now you can easily View your chart and then click on Animate directly from the View Chart screen.

Animate Charts  A “Weeks” option has now been added to the Step By dropdown in the Animate module  You can now step an animate screen by a number of weeks, with the addition of this new menu item.

Updated Aussie Database   A new Australian database has been supplied where a number of entries have been added and changed. This chart file is called Aus2011.SFcht.

Microsoft 2010 Compatibility   Solar Fire Gold v8 works with Word 2010 and Outlook 2010