Free Astrology Software

Minderwiz

We get a number of questions about Astrology software and as I'm also launching a new thread on Horary, which invites participation, I think a thread on the installation of one or more free Astrology programs. There are several programs out there but two of these get frequent mentions here. The first is Morinus and the second is Riyal which Dave has had input into. There are other low cost programs - John Halloran's Astrology for Windows being an excellent example - but I'm not going to look at those, simply concentrating on the free programs.

I'll cover installation and operation for Morinus and hope that Dave will contribute on Riyal
 

Minderwiz

Downloading and installing Morinus

There are two versions of Morinus - one that caters for most forms of Astrology and one that is aimed at Traditional Astrologers. Biecause the Horary thread is based on the tradition, I'll confine myself to that version but the process is exactly the same for the general version, should you wish to try it

The website is

https://sites.google.com/site/tradmorinus/morinus

The latest version was released on December 21 2011

Scroll to the bottom of the page through the list of revisions and at the very bottom you'll get the download link for

MorinusWin.zip

NB the version listed immediately above - Morinus.zip is written for linux machines, do not download it unless your computer is linux based. There is no version as yet for Apple Macs.

Once you have downloaded it you can extract the files - Windows will treat it as a zipped directory I've put my extracted files in a directory which I, rather originally, called Morinus.

For those of you using WinZip or WinRar double clicking on the download file will enable you to extract to wherever you want to put Morinus.

That's it!!!

If you wish you can create a shortcut to the program exe file - morinus.exe and place it on the desktop. Double clicking on the program file or the shortcut will launch Morinus.

As it comes Morinus does not use the Swiss Ephemeris - and that is fine for Horary work where virtually all your questions are for very recent dates. Indeed the inbuilt ephemeris is good for virtually all the work you are likely to do as a student. If you want to use the Swiss Ephemeris a suitable version is available on the main Morinus page:

https://sites.google.com/site/pymorinus/

Again scroll to the bottom and you will find 4 zip files , Ephem 1 to Ephem 4. These are dated October 11 2010. Download all 4 (the author could not get the ephemeris into one file) and then extract them into your Morinus directory. They go into the directory

SWEP/Ephem

within your Morinus directory

If you have any issues with the download and installation either post your query in the thread, as others may also have the problem or drop me a PM.

In later posts I'll talk about setting your preferences so that you get just what you want.
 

kalliope

Great thread idea!

I just wanted to pipe up with some info for my fellow Mac users: you can run both Morinus programs reasonably well using an emulator like Crossover. Some things are finicky, but it's better than nothing. Crossover comes with a 30 day trial, and they often email a discount code a week or two after you let it expire.

This is generally cheaper than buying a copy of windows to use in a virtual pc program (like the free VirtualBox), although this way would probably allow the programs to work more seamlessly. I plan to try this out in the next few weeks.

Looking forward to the post about setting the programs' preferences.
 

Minderwiz

Thanks for that information, kalliope - there are Mac users on here and it's good to know that Morinus can be run successfully - I've been telling people it can't and I'll now change that advice.

However on checking the main page I see that they've released a mac version of the main program (released last November) so you might well be better downloading that version and customising it for the Horary thread.

This will also be worth doing for those who want to use Morinus but include the outer planets, etc. For Windows users the file is MorinusWinEng.zip The full version has all the same features but requires more customisation as it caters for a wide range of methods.

I also have a copy of this, so if anyone chooses to use it in preference to the Traditional Verson I can answer queries on setting it up for other work.
 

Minderwiz

Morinus settings

Morinus can be customized to meet your own approach and the systems that you use. I’m going to show how it could be set up so that you can follow the latest Horary thread and get the same results, if you want to cast the same chart. All settings are easily changed so you can switch to something else for natal work. With the Traditional Version you will find that the outer planets are not shown, nor can they be switched on. If you want to use them at some point download the full version from the main page (link in the previous post)

Horary Astrology has and does use a variety of house systems, and at least two versions of the dignities, Triplicity, Terms and Face or Decan. This isn’t surprising considering it was a technique in use for nearly 2,000 years Indeed the small amount of variance is quite remarkable. The settings here are simply to provide consistency and allow you to check charts and dignities. Please feel free to use other settings, but remember these may produce some differences from the comments made by me or others.

Find the file morinus.exe in your morinus directory - its icon is a miniture portrait of head and shoulders of the Astrologer J B Morin - and double click on it. This opens the Morinus screen which has a big version of the portrait and a menu of four items - Horoscope, Tables Options and Help.

‘Horoscope’ allows you to Load an existing chart or create a New chart and also to amend the data or save the results. We’ll load the default chart for the purposes of this post. Click ‘Horoscope’ and select ‘Load’ from the list on offer. If you’ve not played with Morinus already, you will see one file presented to you – Morinus.hor – select this and click ‘Open’

You should now see the natal chart of Jean Baptiste Morin, the Seventeenth Century Astrology. To customise the program for the Horary thread, we’ll simply play with ‘Options’ menu item. If you click on this you will get a long list of options to change. Go to ‘Appearance I’ and check the boxes for Terms and Decans (near the top on the left)

Now go down to ‘Minor Dignities’ and from the fly out select ‘Triplicities’ In the box that opens go to the first drop down box, which has ‘Dorothean’ listed and change it to ‘Ptolemaic’

Now repeat this for ‘Terms’ and change the first drop down box from ‘Egyptian’ to ‘Ptolemaic’ Leave the ‘Decans’ at the default setting. You now have the Triplicities, Terms and Decans (Face) as used by Lilly and as shown in the sticky on Essential and Accidental Dignities.

Go down to ‘House Systems’ and select ‘Regionmontanus’

Go to Lot of Fortune and make sure the second option is selected, that is giving a different calculation depending on whether it’s a diurnal (day) or nocturnal (night) chart.

That will give us common settings and avoid confusion. As you get into Horary you will see that the other settings are used by different Astrologers, especially Hellenistic and Arab Astrologers – I tend to use the Dorothean Triplicites and Egyptian Terms in my own work but I’m looking for some commonality with what is given on Skyscript and in Lilly

There are two final things you can do. Firstly click on the option near the bottom for ‘Automatic Save’ which protects your setting each time you exit Morinus and optionally you can pay with the colours – I like a white background as it works better for posting on Aecectic but you can choose whichever you like.

All these settings can be changed back and forward as you wish. Just remember that the above settings are the ones that I’ll be using in any comments in the Horary thread.
 

inanna_tarot

Brilliant walk through Minderwiz - downloaded Morinus and set it up as you advised :D
 

Minderwiz

Casting a chart with Morinus

Brilliant walk through Minderwiz - downloaded Morinus and set it up as you advised :D

Great here's how to set up a chart, using your Horary chart :)
Here’s how to set up a chart in Morinus:

If you have the default chart open in Morinus, then click on ‘Horoscope’ and go to the ‘close’ option and click it. This will take you back to the opening screen.

Otherwise, open Morinus by clicking on either your shortcut or the program icon in your Morinus directory.

From the opening screen click on ‘Horoscope’ and then click ‘New’

This takes you to the data entry screen. The first box is ‘Name’ For a Natal chart you can enter the person’s name. For a Horary or other Chart enter a name that can be remembered. I’ll use Inanna_tarot’s chart from her thread

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=170226

In the Name box enter ‘Inanna Horary’

For Gender click on ‘Female’ in the ‘Type’ drop down box, select ‘Horary’

For the date enter

2012 for year, 1 for month and 15 for day.

Enter 7 for Hour and leave the minutes and seconds as zeros


The chart was cast for Shrewsbury , UK and the co-ordinates are:

Longitude 002 degrees 45 minutes West
Latitude 52 degrees 43 minutes North

(make sure you have changed the default Longiture setting from East to West.)

Leave the defaults as ‘Gregorian’ (calendar) and Zone (time system) and under the GMT+ box make sure the hour is 0 and the minute as 0. There is no daylight saving in place in Winter so don’t enter anything here. That completes the essential data entry.

Click OK to get the chart

If you wish you can save the location to the list of places for which Morinus has the geographical coordinates. Clicking on ‘Place’ brings up the database and you can enter the same information as above, click ‘add’ and then OK. For Inanna ths would save having to enter the information each time she casts a chart for Shrewsbury.

For your own work you will need to know your own longitude and latitude, time zone offset from GMT and remember to check the daylight savings radio button if daylight saving is in force.

To save your chart go to ‘Horoscope’ and click ‘save’. If you wish you can save the chart diagram by clicking ‘Save as bitmap’

To see the details of the chart click on ‘Tables’ and select ‘Positions’ This will give you a list of planetary positions plus the ASC. MC and the intermediate house cusps.
 

Minderwiz

That's as far as I'm going to take it at the moment but some of the other features I'll be covering during the Horary thread, such as the fixed stars, Arabic Parts/Greek Lots and antiscia (though not all at once LOL)

For the moment till we start on the Horary thread on Monday, try casting some charts, including your own natal one just to get familiar with the process.

Any questions with the software please post your questions here.

Finally as a check that you're entering data correctly compare your results with a known accurate source - hence the suggestion of doing your own natal chart. If you haven't got a copy of it then check your Morinus results against astro.com.

Data entry is the main source of error, even experienced Astrologers such as myself have been known to enter the data incorrectly :(. The most common faults are entering a morning time as though it were evening, e.g. 7 pm instead of 7 am. The sure way to check is to look for the Sun. If it's 7 am the Sun will be somewhere near the Ascendant (depending on season and time of year), if it's 7 pm the Sun will have set in Winter, that is below the Descendant or near setting in Summer.

The other common error is on the GMT offset. This is set in Hours in Morinus If you were born in the USA your offset is GMT- because you are behind GMT if you were born in Australia your offset is GMT+ because you are ahead of GMT. The further West or East you are of GMT the greater the offset in hours (GMT- and GMT+ respectively)
 

inanna_tarot

Playing with the settings I managed to 'search' for my location and add it to the favourites list to the right - rather than having to manually put in the co-ordinates for my location (happy sunny Shrewsbury :) )