31
fleur and michael,

thank you both.. and sorry for the delay in not responding.. my life got busier the past while and hasn't slowed down much especially the past few months.. i wish it would but i suppose a combo of astrological factors is contributing to this!

fleur, i think it might have been subninum on the other thread that said it best - astrology is an art, as opposed to hard science - or something like that.. what others use to articulate their perceptions on charts and life will be subjective and personal as i see it.. however, i can't wrap my head around such a huge emphasis on a hypothetical body, so we will have to agree to seeing astrology from a different angle here with regard to the use of isis/transpluto..

michael.. thanks man.. that was what i was curious about and you helped clarify this for me.. i too have looked into the uranian hypothetical planets and saw some relevance.. i still have alfred wittes book on planetary pictures and although i am not a uranian astrologer by a long shot, i was interested in it enough to study it to a degree.. now, i am mostly stuck on the main bodies that both traditional and modern astrology often rely on and see the merits on the lesser number of bodies, while continuing to be receptive to the significance of the outer planets, even eris, chiron and maybe some others.. i haven't studied ceres - i think fleur mentions this large asteroid - but then i haven't really studied eris either, even though it is conjunct my sun according to the software.. i remain receptive and accepting of a fair degree of ambiguity..

i really latched onto the relevance of the moons nodal axis in the past few years.. i can't believe how i missed the importance of this axis which at this point, i feel is very important to any chart analysis... so, to each there own i suppose, when it comes to what points, planets, bodies, hypotheticals and etc. etc. - they opt to work with.. michael - hope you are doing good and i miss our conversations from the past..

32
Michael you said :-

" Now many esotericists have stated that there are numerous bodies orbiting in the solar system that have their existence entirely on a subtle plane, yet they do have an influence in astrological terms. Well, how could we exclude this possibility? As astrologers, we are frequently factoring in things that aren't there in a physical sense. "

Yes I would totally agree with that. I haven't studied the Uranian "hypothetical" planets but I think I might now, after your experience.

My main experience with another "hypothetical" planet which certainly can't exist in our material dimension is with Vulcan. So often I see this in mundane astrology with earthquakes etc. In my own chart it is situated between a close Sun/Mars conj. Mars is Lord 6 and Vulcan has symbolised a veritable earthquake in my health (or lack of it !).

Yes James the nodal axis is worthy of much neglected study with me also.

I have also in recent weeks discovered the importance of planetary nodes. I hope to be able to post about that. Highly revealing and illuminating.

Very interesting thread. Isistranspluto has had a significant placement over the two World Wars moving through late Cancer which Rhetorius saw as the "gateway of the gods" and early Leo moving to the Beehive cluster (Praesepe). This area of the zodiac symbolises a kind of portal to another dimension. Many millions (more than at any other time in history) passed through this portal during the World Wars and this is what TP symbolised.

33
james_m wrote:fleur and michael,

thank you both.. and sorry for the delay in not responding.. my life got busier the past while and hasn't slowed down much especially the past few months.. i wish it would but i suppose a combo of astrological factors is contributing to this!

fleur, i think it might have been subninum on the other thread that said it best - astrology is an art, as opposed to hard science - or something like that.. what others use to articulate their perceptions on charts and life will be subjective and personal as i see it.. however, i can't wrap my head around such a huge emphasis on a hypothetical body, so we will have to agree to seeing astrology from a different angle here with regard to the use of isis/transpluto..

michael.. thanks man.. that was what i was curious about and you helped clarify this for me.. i too have looked into the uranian hypothetical planets and saw some relevance.. i still have alfred wittes book on planetary pictures and although i am not a uranian astrologer by a long shot, i was interested in it enough to study it to a degree.. now, i am mostly stuck on the main bodies that both traditional and modern astrology often rely on and see the merits on the lesser number of bodies, while continuing to be receptive to the significance of the outer planets, even eris, chiron and maybe some others.. i haven't studied ceres - i think fleur mentions this large asteroid - but then i haven't really studied eris either, even though it is conjunct my sun according to the software.. i remain receptive and accepting of a fair degree of ambiguity..

i really latched onto the relevance of the moons nodal axis in the past few years.. i can't believe how i missed the importance of this axis which at this point, i feel is very important to any chart analysis... so, to each there own i suppose, when it comes to what points, planets, bodies, hypotheticals and etc. etc. - they opt to work with.. michael - hope you are doing good and i miss our conversations from the past..
James, I am glad that the presentation of my views helped you clarify some of yours. And I am most certainly available for further conversations, both on and off the board! :)
_________________

Visit my blog:
https://michaelsternbach.wordpress.com/

34
Vicki wrote:Michael you said :-

" Now many esotericists have stated that there are numerous bodies orbiting in the solar system that have their existence entirely on a subtle plane, yet they do have an influence in astrological terms. Well, how could we exclude this possibility? As astrologers, we are frequently factoring in things that aren't there in a physical sense. "

Yes I would totally agree with that. I haven't studied the Uranian "hypothetical" planets but I think I might now, after your experience.
In that case, don't forget to share what you find! :)
My main experience with another "hypothetical" planet which certainly can't exist in our material dimension is with Vulcan. So often I see this in mundane astrology with earthquakes etc. In my own chart it is situated between a close Sun/Mars conj. Mars is Lord 6 and Vulcan has symbolised a veritable earthquake in my health (or lack of it !).
What ephemeris for Vulcan are you (or is your software) using?

I always found Vulcan fascinating. And while his existence as a planet can indeed be ruled out, it is noteworthy that some astronomers continue to search for one or more asteroids in the Sun's vicinity.
Yes James the nodal axis is worthy of much neglected study with me also.

I have also in recent weeks discovered the importance of planetary nodes. I hope to be able to post about that. Highly revealing and illuminating.
Based on my own limited experience with planetary nodes, I fully agree. Again, I am looking forward to reading your insights.
Very interesting thread. Isistranspluto has had a significant placement over the two World Wars moving through late Cancer which Rhetorius saw as the "gateway of the gods" and early Leo moving to the Beehive cluster (Praesepe). This area of the zodiac symbolises a kind of portal to another dimension. Many millions (more than at any other time in history) passed through this portal during the World Wars and this is what TP symbolised.
However, in that view, Cancer provided the gateway of incarnation, whence souls descended to Earth, whereas the gateway of excarnation was opposite to it in Capricorn.
_________________

Visit my blog:
https://michaelsternbach.wordpress.com/

35
Thank you Michael for your reply.

I looked at the Transneptunian "planets" and found Hades to be exactly conjoining my natal Mercury (Lord 8 in the 6th!). That gave me a bit of a jolt because it seemed very apposite. However I'm not sure I'll make a habit of using these. The chart can get too cluttered.

I use Janus software and that has Isistranspluto and Vulcan as well as the Trans neptunians.

I take your point about Cancer but I tend to regard the Cancer/Capricorn, 4/10 axis as a general pathway to another dimension. I'm not too fussed about ins and outs !
Just yesterday I found the 29th degree of Cancer described as the "Wedding of the Gods" in the Liber Hermetis which ties in with Rhetorius and his 29 Capricorn "Gateway to the Gods".

I hope to post about planetary nodes in due course. That wretched Mercury of mine does restrict me !
:( :D

Planetdance Freeware - Phaethon Ephemeris

36
Hi there - Jean Cremer's freeware program now includes a function for working with Phaethon. If you would like to explore this interesting hypothetical body, you can download the software from Jean's site at www.jcremers.com.

Phaethon Ephemeris

I have been able to program an ephemeris and chart wheel function for Phaethon, the hypothetical body described by Eric Morse and Bernard Fitzwalter in Dark Stars. The script calculates a daily, monthly or annual Ephemeris for Phaethon, starting from the current date. This setting can be altered to the user's choice. Two charts can be calculated, a chart for the current day, or a natal chart from the main Planetdance window. The following screenshots show the functions.

Phaethon Ephemeris
Image
Phaethon Wheel with Current Position of Phaethon
Image
Phaethon Wheel with Natal Position of Phaethon
Image
For further information on Planetdance, please see the main Skyscript thread.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9913

Many thanks for your interest. Ed
"...the motions that are akin to the divine in us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe."

Plato, Timaeus, 90.

Re: Planetdance Freeware - Phaethon Ephemeris

37
astralwanderer wrote:Hi there - Jean Cremer's freeware program now includes a function for working with Phaethon. If you would like to explore this interesting hypothetical body, you can download the software from Jean's site at www.jcremers.com.

Phaethon Ephemeris

I have been able to program an ephemeris and chart wheel function for Phaethon, the hypothetical body described by Eric Morse and Bernard Fitzwalter in Dark Stars. The script calculates a daily, monthly or annual Ephemeris for Phaethon, starting from the current date. This setting can be altered to the user's choice. Two charts can be calculated, a chart for the current day, or a natal chart from the main Planetdance window. The following screenshots show the functions.

Phaethon Ephemeris
Image
Phaethon Wheel with Current Position of Phaethon
Image
Phaethon Wheel with Natal Position of Phaethon
Image
For further information on Planetdance, please see the main Skyscript thread.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9913

Many thanks for your interest. Ed
That is stunningly amazing. I have the constant frustration of having to look up Phaethon in a separate little ephemeris, and even then it is only given for the first of the month, so I tend to mark its mid month position in the margin of my paper ephemeris, and sometimes even its quarter month position. I have sometimes written out its roughly calculated positions for each day for a month, when it is moving at its normal speed of approximately 12 degrees per month, but this gets difficult when it is heading into or away from a station.

I am constantly frustrated that Phaethon isn't automatically put into charts, as I have to look it up in a book for each chart, and then mentally remember it, as there is no way to record it when you are 9.999% of the time looking at charts online as opposed to paper versions.

I get so frustrated with ephemerides, my best compromise is one that doesn't waste space on asteroids or Ceres but includes Chiron and the Mean Node's positions for once a month only. My ideal ephemeris would have daily positions for Chiron, the Mean Moon's Node, IsisTranspluto and Phaethon, and not waste my time with asteroids or Ceres. I am curious about Sedna and it would be nice to have it in an ephemeris, but I am not ready to use it all the time yet, and it moves very slowly, so maybe just have that once a month. I suppose IsisTranspluto moves so slowly that giving its position only once a month would make more sense. But only showing Chiron and the Mean Node once a month is a constant source of frustration, as is having to look up Phaethon separately and even then only having its position once a month.

Phaethon Ephemeris

38
Hi Fleur - thanks for your comment. I'm really pleased we managed to get this out in Planetdance. The positions are generally within a few minutes of arc of the Dark Stars printed ephemeris. I will keep working on the algorithm to try and get it to match the printed longitudes. It's nice to be able to see Phaethon's position in the chart too. If you do download Planetdance, you will find the routine in the main Horoscope menu under Various. There's a lot of interesting features in the programme. I can recommend it. I'm continuing to develop new scripts with Jean so the program is regularly updated. At the moment I don't think Transpluto is included but I'll see if it's possible to put it in as it is in the Swiss Ephemeris calculations.

By the way, it is possible to incorporate Sedna into Planetdance through the Options menu.

All the best. Ed
"...the motions that are akin to the divine in us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe."

Plato, Timaeus, 90.

39
Astrolog supports Transpluto and other less common or hypothetical bodies. Here are a few examples:

Vulcan (using the L.H. Weston ephemeris) and Uranians: These are default objects in Astrolog, and can be selected in the UI.

Isis-Transpluto: This isn't a default object in Astrolog, but Astrolog can be configured to display it using command switches, by replacing some unused object. The orbital elements for Isis-Transpluto and other hypothetical bodies are in the Swiss Ephemeris seorbel.txt file that comes with the program, so it's just a matter of telling Astrolog to use it. Display Transpluto with the switches: "-Ye Cup 9 _R Cup"

Eris and Sedna: These aren't default objects in Astrolog either, but Astrolog can be configured to display them. As real physical bodies, their positions are stored in external ephemeris files. To display Eris, download ftp://ftp.astro.com/pub/swisseph/ephe/a ... 136199.se1 and place it in your ephemeris files directory, and then do "-Yeb Cup 136199 _R Cup" to show it. To display Sedna, download ftp://ftp.astro.com/pub/swisseph/ephe/ast90/se90377.se1 and place it in your ephemeris files directory, and then do "-Yeb Cup 90377 _R Cup" to show it.

Phaeton: This is harder, but can still be done. Phaeton is NOT in the latest Swiss Ephemeris seorbel.txt file. However, if one understands orbital elements and can determine them for Phaeton to a reasonable degree of accuracy based on its printed ephemeris, then those numbers can be added to seorbel.txt, and Astrolog can be told to use them. If somebody does determine quality orbital elements for Phaeton, then we could propose adding it to seorbel.txt in future versions of Swiss Ephemeris, so everybody can access it.
Astrolog 7.60 freeware downloads: http://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm :)

40
Cruiser1 wrote:Astrolog supports Transpluto and other less common or hypothetical bodies. Here are a few examples:

Vulcan (using the L.H. Weston ephemeris) and Uranians: These are default objects in Astrolog, and can be selected in the UI.

Isis-Transpluto: This isn't a default object in Astrolog, but Astrolog can be configured to display it using command switches, by replacing some unused object. The orbital elements for Isis-Transpluto and other hypothetical bodies are in the Swiss Ephemeris seorbel.txt file that comes with the program, so it's just a matter of telling Astrolog to use it. Display Transpluto with the switches: "-Ye Cup 9 _R Cup"

Eris and Sedna: These aren't default objects in Astrolog either, but Astrolog can be configured to display them. As real physical bodies, their positions are stored in external ephemeris files. To display Eris, download ftp://ftp.astro.com/pub/swisseph/ephe/a ... 136199.se1 and place it in your ephemeris files directory, and then do "-Yeb Cup 136199 _R Cup" to show it. To display Sedna, download ftp://ftp.astro.com/pub/swisseph/ephe/ast90/se90377.se1 and place it in your ephemeris files directory, and then do "-Yeb Cup 90377 _R Cup" to show it.

Phaeton: This is harder, but can still be done. Phaeton is NOT in the latest Swiss Ephemeris seorbel.txt file. However, if one understands orbital elements and can determine them for Phaeton to a reasonable degree of accuracy based on its printed ephemeris, then those numbers can be added to seorbel.txt, and Astrolog can be told to use them. If somebody does determine quality orbital elements for Phaeton, then we could propose adding it to seorbel.txt in future versions of Swiss Ephemeris, so everybody can access it.
Thanks, I will look at that.

Phaethon - Orbital Elements

41
Hi there - I have done a lot of work on creating a reasonable set of orbital elements for the hypothetical Phaethon. The work was done as part of a couple of attempts to create a program in Basic that would produce an ephemeris. The most recent attempt is the Phaethon Ephemeris module in Planetdance.

I created a dat file for Solar Fire, using the following orbital elements. This works by adding Phaethon as a user created point in Solar Fire Charts and routines.

"***Name Abbr Symbol", "Phaethon", "PH", "P"
"BaseYr/Epoch/Geo/Prec.", 19000101.0, 0, 0, 0
"Semimajor Axis", 2.7377, 0, 0, 0
"Eccentricity", 0.00185, 0, 0, 0
"Inclination (Degs)", 5.4756, 0, 0, 0
"Perihelion (Degs)", 68.576, 0, 0, 0
"Node (Degs)", 8.4955, 0, 0, 0
"Mean Anomaly (Degs)", 170.18, 0, 0, 0

The full set of orbital elements used in the PD script is as follows:

Longitude of Phaethon at Epoch 19000101 midnight = 170.18 degrees
Duration of Phaethon's orbit = 4.5301 years
Phaethon's semi-major axis = 2.7377
Duration of Earth's orbit = 1.00004 years
Longitude of Earth at Epoch 19000101 midnight = 102.23
Inclination of Phaethon's orbital plane = 5.4756
Longitude of Phaethon's Ascending Node at Epoch = 8.4955 degrees
Eccentricity of Earth's orbit = 0.0169
Eccentricity of Phaethon's orbit = 0.00185
Longitude of Earth's Perihelion = 102.775 degrees
Longitude of Phaethon's Perihelion = 68.576 degrees
Julian Date at Epoch = 2415020.5

This script reproduces the printed ephemeris produced by Eric and Bernard to a fairly high degree of accuracy (within 15-30 minutes of arc). I don't think the orbital elements are quite right, but I got the original data from Bernard himself.

You are welcome to use these to try and create a better software function.

If you want the full BASIC script let me know.

I used the algorithm from Duffett-Smith's book to create the program. The calculation is based on the long form of the algorithm to determine the position of planets described in Peter Duffett-Smith's book Practical Astronomy With Your Calculator (# 54, pp. 103-110).

Best wishes. Ed
"...the motions that are akin to the divine in us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe."

Plato, Timaeus, 90.

Re: Phaethon - Orbital Elements

42
astralwanderer wrote:Hi there - I have done a lot of work on creating a reasonable set of orbital elements for the hypothetical Phaethon. If you want the full BASIC script let me know.
Thank you for your work with Phaethon, and for providing its orbital elements. :' Yes, I would be interesting in seeing the full BASIC script.

As a test case, I assume that the specific positions listed above match what Solar Fire produces with the custom addition? For example, today on March 7th 2018 at 0:00 UTC Phaethon is at 8Sco15'24" (geocentric, tropical).

Also I assume that "Longitude of Phaethon at Epoch 19000101 midnight = 170.18 degrees" means that the zodiac position of Phaethon on 1/01/1900 at 0:00 UTC is 20Vir10'48" (heliocentric, tropical)?
Astrolog 7.60 freeware downloads: http://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm :)