Janus 5

1
A brand new upgrade, Janus 5 is available for sale and a reasonable price for a big full astrology program. The link is below and I suggest looking at the screen shot of the new features. Looks great and FYI I have no financial interest in the company or the program. I do like it though. Check it out. They offer a 30 day free trial. Current Janus users can upgrade for a very reasonable price.

https://www.janus5.com/index.htm

Janus 5

2
Well I upgraded to Janus 5 and it stopped my study of Jyotish and Bazi for a period. I had so much fun with it and love the new look. Much cleaner and faster. Wonderful page designer module with the Medieval and Greek square charts added. Nice graphic menus and a full Calendar program giving all the raw data etc. The old standards are there though but with more goodies and better well thought out means of saving or pasting images of both pages and wheels. They even have a simple Vedic module with all the usual Ayanamsha and the Vimshottari Dashas. Still haven't comprehended all the stuff yet but a great job! :'
Join the stream of Universal Life!

4
Sadly Janus 5 doesn't work for me and I've uninstalled it to stick with Janus 4.

I was very disappointed that there are far fewer asteroids in Janus 5. I work with minor named asteroids a la Jacob Schwartz and wanted more asteroids not fewer !

I also work extensively with fixed stars and there seem to be fewer of these also. Certainly no increase.

The only advantage to me personally was that you can now use Galactic Centre 0 degrees for sidereal charts but I would lose too much to upgrade just for that.

I didn't investigate much further after finding so few asteroids and fixed stars which are the mainstay of my work. It would be a retrograde step for me.

5
Tom wrote:
A brand new upgrade, Janus 5 is available for sale and a reasonable price for a big full astrology program. The link is below and I suggest looking at the screen shot of the new features. Looks great and FYI I have no financial interest in the company or the program. I do like it though. Check it out. They offer a 30 day free trial. Current Janus users can upgrade for a very reasonable price.

https://www.janus5.com/index.htm
Thanks Tom,

I have used Solar Fire as my main software for well over a decade and upgraded a couple of times. I am wondering if another generic astrology programme like Janus offers anything I am missing out on with SF?

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

6
[quoteI have used Solar Fire as my main software for well over a decade and upgraded a couple of times. I am wondering if another generic astrology programme like Janus offers anything I am missing out on with SF?

Mark[/quote]

Hi Mark, Your question is a very good one, but alas, it went unanswered!! Janus 5 seems to be a great, all-purpose program, and many seem to think it is especially easy to use. But, is it enough to 'replace' Solar Fire? Are there features in Janus 5 that are not in Solar Fire or that may exceed Solar Fire in quality? I understand that Janus' interpretations are also very helpful.

I've also been told that it MAY run with CrossOver or a Wineskin on a Mac--anyone have an experience of that?

Anyone have thoughts on all this?

7
Mark,

I never saw this post until today.

I lean toward Solar Fire because I've used it longest, and perhaps because of that I find it most intuitive. The Janus traditional module has always been very useful especially the printout which listed firdaria, a dignities table, almutem and a quick and dirty temperament calculation plus other stuff.. The new one lists the elements of the planets and sect and whether the planet is placed in a strong or weak house.

This is not WYSIWYG. Only the chart comes up on the screen, but all other list features come up as pop up windows, if you don't wish to print. There is also available for the traditional module a pop up list of fixed stars, Arabic Parts as they continue to call them, and profections once you pop in the date. All are very useful. Some primary directions can be printed out easily enough and everything is fully customizable. I like the clean screens and printouts.

Janus offers a free 30 day trial. It isn't a crippled version, but the whole program can be downloaded and used for free for 30 days. After that it stops working.

I have a few programs and each have features I like that might not be available on others or aren't as easy to use. I like Delphic Oracle for several things including, but not limited to primary directions and zodiacal releasing. It also quickly and easiy calculates other Time Lord Systems.

I use Rumen Kolev's Placidus for all the things humanly possible to do with primary directions. However Kolev calculates converse directions in the neo converse method, - the planets are directed against the zodiac. Delphic Oracle does it the way it used to be done or both if you wish. Placidus also has a big Babylonian astrology calculation module should you be interested in that.

I used to have a few of the free programs as well, but rarely used them.

Solar Fire has an Arabic Parts editor that I used to use quite a bit. Janus has a healthy list, but does not include all of them or all the formulae for the parts that have more than one.

Admittedly, one can spend quite a bit of money in order to have each of the features one wants at the fingertips, but upgrades generally aren't too expensive, so the initial cost is the one that stings a bit. Janus is less expensive than Solar Fire, but not by a ton.

Kolev's program is now distributed by Esoteric Technologies, the Solar Fire folks. That baby is expensive. Rumen is available via Skype for technical help. I've always enjoyed excellent technical service from all the vendors. Curtis Manwaring is really patient with me as I'm not a techie at all.

Try Janus for free. You may like it.