Additional Planets

[mikestar13]

Proposal: allow a limited number of user selected planets in addition to the usual Moon through Pluto, Eris, and Sedna. I intend to provide ephemeris files for the more popular ones--this will have no effect other than the the use of a little drive space, and to set up a procedure to download and install files for more obscure bodies--automated if feasible and legal, I will need to consult Alois Trendl about the legal aspects. It will take a while to develop this, it surely won't be ready before version 1.1 (Noviens) and may be later. I would love to hear suggestions for which planets to have preinstalled and how small to make the small number. I'm thinking perhaps not to put these bodies in the chart wheel but to show them in the planetary data, aspectarian, and cosmic state report. Minimum standard: only bodies observed astronomically and orbiting the sun will be considered.

[Jim Eshelman]

Chiron is high popularity. Chiron is large enough (compare it to Pluto) that it's been reclassified as a minor pmabetm Vesta is reasonably big for small bodies (and has a measurable influence eniugh I can predict some results. Off the top of my head...

[mikestar13]

I''m fairly sure the first four asteroids Ceres (now reclassified as a dwarf planet), Vesta, Pallas, and Juno will be included as they are pretty much built in to the Swiss ephermeris and have a single set of ephemeris files for all four and Chiron is a gimme. I'm think to have a good selection of candidate dwarf planets, and such other objects as may be popular. I'm pretty sure none of these bodies should go in the wheel itself until and unless we have at least Sedna level confidence in a body. Of course having them readily available to experimenters may hasten the day when some of these bodies achieve this level of confidence.

[Jim Eshelman]

Looking at what Solar Fire 8 offers... I understand SF9 offers much more... just to see what other people in the larger (mostly Tropical) community have had. - There aren't actually all that many (not counting the almost open-ended supplementation of asteroids).

Some that I specifically recommend against are Vulcan, the eight Trans-Neptunian Planets (TNPs) of Uranian astrology, and Transpluto (all are fictional).

I think Hygeia and Astraea are the asteroids by those names - with Astraea being one of the largest of the asteroids (maybe next largest after the "big four"?). I've done no work with them and (like anything else here) my mentioning them is not a request for their inclusion; but at least they are real astronomical bodies.

"Black Moon Lilith" is actually an astronomical verity. It's the position of the minor focus of Moon's orbit. (Moon's orbit is an ellipse. An ellipse has two foci (or focal points) that define the ellipse. Earth is one focus of Moon's orbit; "Black Moon Lilith" is the other one. Because the same direction identifies Moon's apogee, I've used this mathematically to identify Moon's apogee and perigee passages. Astrologically, I don't find it inconceivable that this has some kind of legitimacy (which would, of course, open the door to dozens of other structural elements of other planets' orbits). My main objection to it isn't the point itself but, rather, the people who tend to use it, who usually are undiscriminating, low skepticism people who don't really know how to read a horoscope. (There are some exceptions among them, but mostly this is who we find.) Despite the taint of its usual proponents, this point makes more sense than most others on a theoretical basis and is probably built into SE. (It's especially popular with some Tropicalists in synastry, which kinda makes sense as "another Moon of sorts," but they then usually try to wrap lots of Lilith and Garden of Eden mythology around it.)

SF also has Selena. I'm not sure what this is. A couple of links describe it as the opposite of Dark Moon Lilith, i.e., Moon's perigee point, but calculation from SF doesn't show it opposite Dark Moon Lilith. This remains a mystery to me. I see no reason to enable this pointedly.

[Jim Eshelman]

Asteroids open giant cannisters of worms. Some of what's done with them is luridly absurd. (It's gotten to where an astrologer will use the asteroid Russia to see what the nation Russia is going to do in Ukraine, or the asteroid California to see what the California legislature might do.)

Still, some of them - especially those with long-standing names derived from mythology - may have mythic themes that show in the psyche. I can't say I've confirmed any of these, but I can say I find it harder to outright reject some of them, after looking at only a few examples. There are also a tiny number that have held my attention primarily because of their importance in my own chart, so I've noted them as of possible interest. Some of these are also astronomically unique asteroids of unusual physical or orbital characteristics.

My favorites of these include Bacchus, Eros, Icarus, and Minerva. I notice with curiosity that "extra versions of the Moon" including asteroids Isis and Diana, are, in Marion's chart, mere minutes from hard aspect to my Sun.

Others might be popular (surely Amor has its following, for example), but one doesn't hear much about them. The asteroid Lilith btw shouldn't be confused with "Dark Moon Lilith." Some, that have strong, important mythic themes in theory, haven't held up on the few cases where I thought those themes might be a big deal in someone's life (i.e., they don't appear to work), such as Apollo, Arachne, Circe, Orpheus, Panacea, Pandora, Phaeton, or Urania.

[mikestar13]

...

Some that I specifically recommend against are Vulcan, the eight Trans-Neptunian Planets (TNPs) of Uranian astrology, and Transpluto (all are fictional).

I think Hygeia and Astraea are the asteroids by those names - with Astraea being one of the largest of the asteroids (maybe next largest after the "big four"?). I've done no work with them and (like anything else here) my mentioning them is not a request for their inclusion; but at least they are real astronomical bodies.

As a matter of fact Hygeia and several other asteroids are larger than Juno. Juno is very bright so it was discovered before many larger asteroids. But that really has no bearing on which bodies may or may not have astrological significance great enough to bother with. Completely agree about fictional planets and they will never be in TMSA. Ditto Dark Moon Lilith: the Moon's Nodes have a very long history of being treated as if they were planets, but there I draw the line: apart from the Node, TMSA will not list elements of orbital mechanics as planets.

As a matter of interest, the IAU may need to redefine "hydrostatic equilibrium" which currently means "would be a sphere but for such flattening as may be caused by rotation". Haumea is quite egg-shape but apparently meets the strict definition if its apparent diameter and mass are reasonably correct--it rotates extremely fast; however, recent measurements, indicate many very reasonable dwarf planet candidates are not in strict hydrostatic equilibrium and neither are the Moon or Mercury. The definition does not allow for shape distortion due to the gravitational pull of the body's primary (particularly noticeable with some of Saturn's moons), but IMHO, it should.

[mikestar13]

I really hope that there is no demand for Gǃkúnǁʼhòmdímà, an extended scatted disc object orbiting between Eris ans Sedna with a 620 year orbital period. The language is Juǀʼhoan, a dialect of !Kang spoken by San Bushmen. English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, and even Asian languages if transliterated into Roman characters are reasonably pronounceable by speakers of any of those languages-- not so any of the !Kang languages which contain sounds such as a variety of click, that virtually can't be learned by adults. San people learn these sound when they are young children. I question this wisdom of this naming choice, though I agree with objective of honoring the San people, quite possibly the oldest tribal group still in existence.

Astronomers are inclined to believe G! is not a solidified body, therefor outside the definitions of planets, dwarf planets, and small solar system objects. Whether or not it is a valid astrological body is of course not determined by astronomical status given that, whatever it is, G! actually exists.

[mikestar13]

Lilith and Selena are nonsense IMO, but they are defined correctly in SF and won't necessarily be exactly opposite each other (though they should be close). Selena is indeed the lunar perigee, which is the point in space the moon would occupy if the moon were in perigee at the moment. Lilith OTOH, is not the lunar apogee, but if the other focus other the moons elliptical orbit, the first being the earth-moon barycenter. Which accounts for the slight variance. In essence, we are dealing with the difference between geocentric and barycentic. Which is trivial at say the distance of Neptune, but significant though small at the distance of the moon. Of course one may argue that the definition of Lilith is wrong and should be the apogee, but then again what is the correct definition of something that doesn't exist?