Category : A Collection of Games for DOS and Windows
Archive   : ASTRO95.ZIP
Filename : HELP2.AST

At the Calculate Charts option, enter the date of birth as the
prompt (MM.DD.YYYY) shows, e.g., you would enter October 16, 1985
as 10.16.1985. June 9, 1961 can be entered as 6.9.1961. March
20, 4 B.C. would be entered as 3.20.-3. You can exit without
calculating by entering X at this prompt.

Respond to the AM*PM birth time prompt by typing in either AM or
PM.

The TIME prompt asks for the time as recorded on the birth
certificate, which should be Standard Time. Astrologers who
"know too much" should not enter Mean Local Time as the program
automatically makes this adjustment. However, if Daylight
Savings Time was in effect when the time was recorded it is
important that an hour be subtracted from the birth time before
entering the time. You can make a notation to this effect in the
Remarks field when saving the chart. If the birth occurred
between either midnight or noon and 1 o'clock, the time is not
12.xx but 00.xx, e.g., 12:42 at night would be AM and 00.42. The
program will make this conversion automatically now. If the birth
time is unknown, enter PM and 0 for the time of birth.

TIME ZONE IN HOURS refers to the distance in hours between
Greenwich Time and the time zone in which the birth time was
recorded. Hours for the U.S. Standard Time zones are as follows:

Eastern 5
Central 6
Mountain 7
Pacific 8
Alaska-Hawaii 10
Bering 11

Although zones sometimes have irregular boundaries, the general
rule is that time changes by 1 hour every 15 degrees of
geographical longitude. The time zones indicated by moving the
cursor on the U.S. map are those given by Doris Chase Doane for
Jan. 1, 1963. Since the U.S. adopted Standard Time zones in 1918
there has been a tendency for the boundaries to creep to the
west. For states on the boundaries, check Doane's Time Changes
in the U.S.A. or Tom Shanks' American Atlas. Zones east of
Greenwich Time are entered as negative hours, e.g., the zone in
Paris, France is -1. Enter the time zone as a whole hour. The
prompt HH.MM includes the minutes only for regions which are
standardized to the half-hour, such as India at -5.30.

Geographical LONGITUDE should be taken from an atlas. Effective
with Release 9.4, the program features atlases for both the
United States and the world. Obtain approximate longitudes and
latitudes by using the cursor keys to move the point cursor to the
desired location. The same menu includes interactive tables for
obtaining the exact longitude, latitude, and time zone for the 50
largest U.S. cities and 50 large world cities. Longitudes west of
Greenwich are positive. Longitudes east of Greenwich are negative.
The longitude of Los Angeles, which is 118 degrees 15 minutes West,
is entered as 118.15. The longitude of Paris, France is entered
as -2.20.

Geographical LATITUDE is positive north of the equator, negative
south of the equator. The latitude of Los Angeles is 34.03. The
latitude of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is -23.00.

That's it. Be patient while it says `Calculating...'. On a PC
or XT the program takes about 6 seconds to calculate a chart. On
an AT it takes only about 2 seconds to calculate and print the
planetary positions and house cusps to the screen in text format.
If you want to save a hard copy of your results, the program
provides prompts for printing to your printer or to a file.

For information on customizing the hardcopy output format from
printer to file, substituting different house systems for the
Placidus house system, using the Sidereal zodiac instead of
the Tropical zodiac, calculating and displaying the moon's nodes
and Part of Fortune with the planets, or displaying the chart in
graphic chartwheel format, see the section on Customizing the
Program.

Effective with Release 9.3, the program uses a faster and more
accurate planetary routine. The calculations are now accurate to
within a minute for all planets between 1800 and 2000 A.D. With
the exception of Pluto, calculations for distant time periods
will be accurate to within several minutes. Pluto should be
accurate to within about two degrees.