Astro Gold MacOS 5 User Guide

Dynamic Listings and Time Graphs are reports of dynamic events occurring for a chart over a period of time, e.g. transits, progressions etc.

Dynamic Listings are generated by using one or more Dynamic Jobs. Astro Gold ships with eight kinds of Dynamic Jobs. A Dynamic Job contains all the instructions, settings and parameters to determine which dynamic events to generate in a Dynamic Listing.

This tab in Preferences allows the selection and editing of preset Dynamic Jobs. Note that the dynamic listing start date and duration which are set in a Dynamic Job are there as a default to make report generation quick, but they can always be overridden when actually generating a Dynamic Listing. Other items that may be set are the transiting points, radix points and aspects included in the report, as well as a few optional extra event types which may be included or not in the reports.

Below the "Dynamic" tab in the Preferences dialog is selected, displaying the Dynamic Jobs that ship with Astro Gold.

 

>> To re-order Dynamic Jobs in the list

1.Select the Dynamic Job you want to reposition in the list, and either

a.click one or more times on either the Up or Down arrow key button under the list

    OR

b.drag the Job to where you want it to be in the list

 

 

>> To edit, delete or create a new Dynamic Job

1.Click the Preferences icon in the toolbar to display the "Preferences" dialog box.

2.Click on the Dynamic tab which will display a list of Dynamic Jobs.

 

 

3.Clicking on a Dynamic Job selects (highlights) it and then you can...

➢ Edit the selected Dynamic Job by clicking on the Edit... button. This will open the "Edit Dynamic Job" dialog box where all the main components of the job can be edited.

 

 

Components that can be edited are:

1."Name"

2.Time Span. Click on the ... at the right hand end of the "Time Span" textbox. This opens the dialog below.

Setting the Listing Start Date

Unless modified the Base date is the starting date. By default that is now ("Current Date").

To change that click in the Base Date dropdown list and select from Chart Date or Fixed Date. If you choose "Fixed Date" then a textbox appears to the right of the Base Date where you can enter a specific date as the Base Date.

If you want the Base Date to be the starting date click in the "Go To Start Of" dropdown list and select Day. Otherwise, if you select "Month", "Quarter" or "Year" then the start date will be at the beginning of the month, quarter or year that the Base Date falls in.

If you want the final start date to remain at the Base Date, in the "Then Adjust By" textbox enter a 0, and you have finished setting the start date.

Otherwise enter the positive or negative number of years, quarters, months or days to adjust the Base Date by in the "Then Adjust By" textbox, and finally select the "Years", "Quarters", "Months" or "Days" in the dropdown list to the right of that.

Setting the Duration

Enter the number of years, months or days in the textbox under Duration, and select "Years", "Months" or "Days" from the dropdown list to the right of that

Click on Save to use this start date. Click on Cancel if you want to leave the start date settings as they originally were.

 

NOTE: the timespan for dynamic events can be up to 1000 years duration.

 

3.The last remaining component of a Dynamic Job is the "Dynamic Methods" it employs.
 
It must have at least one dynamic method, but can have several. All of the events represented by each particular dynamic method will be searched for and displayed in the end report, whether that's a Dynamic Listing, Time Map or on the Graphic Ephemeris.

To edit an existing "Dynamic Method" select it first then click on the Edit... button, or to add a new one to a Job click on the Add... button. Either way, the "Edit Dynamic Method" dialog box is displayed.

 

 

A "Dynamic Method" is itself composed of the following items:

a)"Dynamic Type"

Choose from...

•Transits to Radix (the radix chart is the Base chart, usually a Natal or Event chart, but can also be other types of chart e.g. a Return chart etc)

•Progressions to Radix

   => then click on the Progression Type dropdown menu to the right and select the type
 

 

•Directions to Radix

   => then click on the Direction Type dropdown menu to the right and select the type. Prof. stands for Profections, look here in Astro Sheets for more info on them.
 

 

•Transits to Transits

•Progressions to Progressions

   => then (as above) click on the Progression Type dropdown menu to the right and select the type
 

•Transits to Progressions

   => then (as above) click on the Progression Type dropdown menu to the right and select the type
 

•Transits to Directions
 
=> then (as above) click on the Direction Type dropdown menu to the right and select the type

b)"From Points" (transiting/progressing/directed).

c)"Aspects" (manually select the aspects to use. The set of aspects created here is a different set to the main Aspect set created in Preferences).

d)"To Points". Radix points only can be selected, so only applies when a radix chart is receiving the dynamic influence (you can include Extra Points as well, see below for info regarding this).

e)"Enter/Leave Orb Events"  (when ticked specifies ... for the aspect use an entering & leaving orb, or not ticked then just show exact aspect hits)

f)"House Ingress Events"   (show when a planet or point changes houses)        

g)"Sign Ingress Events"   (show when a planet or point changes signs)

h)"Planetary Stations"   (show when a planet or point changes direction from direct motion to retrograde motion, or vice versa)

i)Eclipses (can be included as events searched for when the Dynamic Type starts with Transits to... )

j)Perigees/Apogees (when the faster moving planet is closest to or furtherest away from the planet it is orbiting)

 

"From Points", and "To Points" Extra Points

When you are selecting "From" and "To" Points for a Dynamic Method, as well as the usual range of planets and points you can include Extra Points (e.g. midpoints, stars etc). See Displayed Points for info on what is available.

Included in Extra Points available for a Dynamic Listing are Apsides (apogees/perigees). These are local minima and maxima of distance and typically occur twice per year each for outer planets, and more irregularly for inner planets. For these types of events, in the dynamic listings, the Pos1 column shows the zodiacal longitude at which the event happens, and the Pos2 column shows the distance of the event in Astronomical Units (AU). Also note that these are generally different distances than shown in the minimum and maximum geocentric orbit data for apsides (as pop-up info when clicking on an entry in the Apsides/Nodes List Astro Sheet), because these are local perigee/apogee events rather then the long timescale min/max theoretically possible shown in the Astro Sheet list.

 

To change all these items either enter a value, click on the and select the item off the dropdown list, or click to the right of the item on the "..." to change the value(s), or simply click on the item.
For more information on Points, Aspects and four of the items of a Dynamic Method (e to h) see below.

When you are finished editing the Job components and their items click on the Save button in the bottom right of the screen, or (to abort all changes) the Cancel button in the bottom left of the screen. This will return you to the "Preferences" dialog.

➢ Delete the selected Dynamic Job by clicking on the Delete button.

➢ Create a new Job by clicking on the Create or Clone button (when the "Clone" button is clicked a new Dynamic Job is created which is a replica of the Job currently highlighted in the list). The "Edit Dynamic Job" dialog box is opened. You can then alter any or all of the components and their items of that Job to make the new Job unique. Even if you alter nothing else it is a good idea to at least give the new job a different name, in order to avoid having two Dynamic Jobs with exactly the same name which might be confusing later on.

 

Dynamic Listings - Editing the Dynamic Type, Points, Aspects and Extra Events

 

Dynamic Event Type

In summary ... a Dynamic Listing uses a pre-created "Dynamic Job" to generate the event data for the dynamic list.

In turn a Dynamic job has "Dynamic Methods" that must be executed by the job. There are no limits to how many methods a "Dynamic Job" can have.

Each "Dynamic Method" corresponds to a fundamental type of dynamic event, which is specified by the method's "Dynamic Event Type". It is the "Dynamic EventType" that determines what events the "Dynamic Method" needs to search for.

You must therefore have at least one "Dynamic Method" so a Dynamic Job knows (via the method's "Dynamic Event Type") what types of events to search for, and can therefore display something.

However if you want you can set up many "Dynamic Methods" that, between them, use all the different possible "Dynamic Types". Then the resulting "Dynamic Listing" would potentially have a great variety of different dynamic astrological events in it. Or a "Dynamic Job" could just use one "Dynamic Method" (which always has only a single "Dynamic Type") and thus produce a correspondingly very simple kind of listing e.g. one that just has mundane transits in it.

 

Points

You can see at a glance how many From and To points are used for a "Dynamic Job" - it's written alongside each dynamic method's title in a Job's list of "Dynamic Methods".

As well, when you are actually editing a "Dynamic Method" it is written in the "From Points" and "To Points" textboxes - see the graphic below on the right.

To change which points are used for a "Dynamic Method" click the "..." to the right of the From Points or To Points textbox, which will open the "Point Selection" dialog box (see the graphic below on the left) . To change any of these simply click on them to turn them ON (light) or OFF (dark). Below shows editing the "From Points", and it's exactly the same to edit the "To Points".

 

Aspects

You can see at a glance how many aspects are used for a "Dynamic Job" - it's also written alongside each dynamic method's title in a Job's list of "Dynamic Methods" - see the graphic above.

As well, when you are actually editing a "Dynamic Method" it is written in the "Aspects" textbox. To change which aspects are used for a "Dynamic Method" click the "..." to the right of the textbox which will open the "Aspect Selection" dialog box. To change any of these simply click on them to turn them ON (light) or OFF (dark).
 

 

Extra Events

These last five Dynamic listing items allow you to fine tune the kind of events that are generated in the "Dynamic Listing".

Click in the checkbox to switch them ON (ticked) or OFF (blank).

1.Enter/Leave Orb Events can be switched ON or OFF to control whether only exact transits are shown or not. If it is switched OFF only exact transits are shown. If it is turned ON then each transit will be given an entering and leaving orb of 2 degrees – which is not changeable by the user. This will result in extra events appearing in the list marking when the transit is at it's entering orb, and at it's leaving orb, as well as when it is exact. This will mean a minimum of two events per transit (entering and leaving), but often three events (entering, exact and leaving) and in some cases where a transiting planet retrogrades back over ground it's already covered while in transit, additional events (some or all of entering, exact and leaving) will be displayed to correspond with that additional retrograde and subsequent direct movement.

2.House Ingress Events: if switched ON shows when planets move into a neighboring house in the radix chart, if switched OFF that is not shown in the list.

 An ingress is shown by by the "->H" symbol in the listing.

3.Sign Ingress Events: if switched ON shows when planets move into a neighboring sign, if switched OFF that is not shown in the list.

 An ingress is shown by by the "->S" symbol in the listing.

4.Planetary Stations if switched ON shows when planets come to a standstill (station) when changing from direct motion to retrograde motion, and vice versa. If switched OFF this is not shown.

5.Eclipses: if switched ON shows when an eclipse occurs in the list of your dynamic events, if switched OFF that is not shown in the list.