Stellarium astronomy software with constellations

[Arena]

I've just recently downloaded Stellarium software (http://www.stellarium.org/) for astronomy and am having lots of fun with it.

I place myself in an accurate position on earth and then I can look around, see which stars are above the horizon and to which direction. It shows quite a different picture than does astrological software, but it is fun to look at and play with. If you know the software, please share your experience and if you know how accurate it is. Online info tells me it is very precise.

Now I have confirmed that looking at the sky from Giza, Egypt approx half an hour or a bit more before sunrise on the day of VE, the heliacal rising sign is indeed Aquarius as I've suggested when discussing the astrological ages.

I looked at the planets in the sky at my recorded birthdate/time from coordinates of birth place and I can see that the sign directly to the east is Aries (it's horns/beginning are right on E), but Venus is placed right on the horizon with Saturn considerably above it. Sun is just slightly below the horizon to the north, just setting and the sky is still pretty bright...the Sun doesn't go far below the horizon at that time up north. It's setting in N and comes up again shortly after in NE.

[Jim Eshelman]

I used it years ago. If you get it set up right, it's quite accurate. The only performance problems I experienced were due to network issues, e.g., slow response or GPS not realigning very quickly. As a result of these, it was always a bit off (especially because I'd worsen the problem by wanting to look at the sky in places with no city lights, which are places where signal sucks worse). My trick was to find an object or two in the sky, near the horizon, that I clearly knew, then find it on the phone or tablet screen, and then I'd know how much to adjust (in my mind) where I was looking.

Since your natal Ascendant has an azimuth 12° from due north, it does make sense that due east (78° east of there) would be a couple of signs earlier. I would have thought late (astrological) Pisces would have been due east. Based on altitude, something is a little off on the planets, because your Venus is almost 4° below the horizon, Saturn less than a degree above it. (This is different from, say, PV position - it's straight altitude, which is what you would be seeing looking at the horizon that way.) Venus doesn't rise until 12:56 AM (or, if you take it visually, 12:47 AM), which would, of course, put Saturn higher in the sky.

[DDonovanKinsolving]

Arena, you didn't say whether you're using Stellarium as a stand-alone or through Solar Fire. If you have both (for those who don't know) you can open SF, select View > Stellarium, and access Stellarium that way. There's a learning curve to using it. Unless there's a trick I haven't stumbled across, you can't highlight a chart and have Stellarium open up with a view of it, but that wouldn't be Solar Fire's fault.

[Arena]

I was just playing with Stellarium as stand-alone. Didn't know it could be used within SF.
I didn't change any settings, just opened it, went to my birth town and looked at the sky. The strange thing is that I now closed it and opened again and it shows me a slightly different picture now... with Venus a bit under the horizon and East is indeed in Pisces... don't know why this is different now since I did take a look at it a few times yesterday, possibly some settings were different, not sure which settings though.

[DDonovanKinsolving]

I believe that Stellarium opens showing the sky at the current date and time at some (default?) location.

Move the cursor to the left edge of the screen and menu options appear. Click on the glyph of the wrench and star. The Navigation tab lets you set the date and time at startup. If you want to play around with your natal chart for awhile, click on Other and enter your birth date and time with the calendar. I have forgotten how to set the default location.