waybread wrote:I don't have any special software to work with asteroids, but my hope is that those of you who do will see if any significant asteroids were operating at the onset of the Russian invasion.

Astrolog is another program that can work with asteroids. It can display any of the 600,000 asteroids and other minor bodies that one might be interested in, and also do analysis over all asteroids at once (at least those asteroids that you've downloaded the Swiss Ephemeris format ephemeris files for).

For example, you can configure it to display which asteroids are positioned importantly, e.g. within 1 arcminute of the Sun. For the Ukraine invasion chart above, with Sun at 5Pis27'55", among the first 10000 asteroids only one of them was positioned within one arcminute of the Sun: "9035 1990SH1" at 5Pis28'22".

For the Moon of the invasion chart at 7Sag50'29", none of the first 10000 asteroids were within one minute of it. For the Ascendant at 16Cap55'41", there's two asteroids within an arcminute: "2814 Vieira" at 16Cap55'48", and "9697 Louwman" at 16Cap56'29". For the MC at 20Sco40'27", there's one: "4660 Nereus" at 20Sco41'22".

Of course you can configure the orbs and how many asteroids you consider to be significant. Below is an Astrolog solar system orbit chart showing the first 10000 asteroids at once, which can give a feel for how many there are and how they move:

Alex, I'm impressed by your good work with asteroids, but we differ in terms of why things happen when they do.

I don't accept "fate" as a response to a military invasion. A major invasion doesn't just happen. It requires a lot of pre-invasion planning, both for the overall objectives and for the logistics to be implemented to achieve the objectives. (Strategy and tactics, the latter involving a lot of calculations.) No military commander is going to run on fate. He may be a good strategizer and tactician or a poor one, but he cannot launch an invasion without decision-making.

I take the point of view that "the stars impel but they do not compel." A true belief in fate reduces to astral determinism, where humans are merely robots enacting heavenly mechanics set in motion thousands of years before they were born.


Cruiser1, thanks. I wouldn't normally insist on an exact conjunction to the specific degree, but but I do like to see conjunctions and tight orbs. We're hampered a bit in this case, because the IAU does not seem to have approved naming many asteroids after villains.

Cruiser1 wrote:

waybread wrote:I don't have any special software to work with asteroids, but my hope is that those of you who do will see if any significant asteroids were operating at the onset of the Russian invasion.

Astrolog is another program that can work with asteroids. It can display any of the 600,000 asteroids and other minor bodies that one might be interested in, and also do analysis over all asteroids at once (at least those asteroids that you've downloaded the Swiss Ephemeris format ephemeris files for).

For example, you can configure it to display which asteroids are positioned importantly, e.g. within 1 arcminute of the Sun. For the Ukraine invasion chart above, with Sun at 5Pis27'55", among the first 10000 asteroids only one of them was positioned within one arcminute of the Sun: "9035 1990SH1" at 5Pis28'22".

For the Moon of the invasion chart at 7Sag50'29", none of the first 10000 asteroids were within one minute of it. For the Ascendant at 16Cap55'41", there's two asteroids within an arcminute: "2814 Vieira" at 16Cap55'48", and "9697 Louwman" at 16Cap56'29". For the MC at 20Sco40'27", there's one: "4660 Nereus" at 20Sco41'22".

Of course you can configure the orbs and how many asteroids you consider to be significant. Below is an Astrolog solar system orbit chart showing the first 10000 asteroids at once, which can give a feel for how many there are and how they move:

Hi Walter,

That's really mind blowing!

If it's not too much to ask, could you give step-by-step instruction for the benefit of the readers of this forum on how to install the relevant ephemeris files and do the calculations you outlined for a particular chart?

Thanks.

Michael

waybread wrote:Alex, I'm impressed by your good work with asteroids, but we differ in terms of why things happen when they do.

I don't accept "fate" as a response to a military invasion. A major invasion doesn't just happen. It requires a lot of pre-invasion planning, both for the overall objectives and for the logistics to be implemented to achieve the objectives. (Strategy and tactics, the latter involving a lot of calculations.) No military commander is going to run on fate. He may be a good strategizer and tactician or a poor one, but he cannot launch an invasion without decision-making.

I take the point of view that "the stars impel but they do not compel." A true belief in fate reduces to astral determinism, where humans are merely robots enacting heavenly mechanics set in motion thousands of years before they were born.

Putin's astrologers must be reading this thread in order to even consider suitable small asteroids for their electional charts!

Waybread, I think we just differ on our definition of Fate. It's not a capricious, momentary thing, as your post implies you view it.

Rather, IMO, it's an ongoing process, an unfolding of potential and predestination, crafting our futures bit by bit. As I said, I've seen way too many precise alignments on events over the decades, for things which have no possibility of prior planning, not to understand that certain things simply come to be in their own time, and that this time is reflected in the sky patterns. That's what I call Fate.

What would be your explanation of why an accident or a death, for example, transpires when celestial factors that describe it come together at the time it occurs? Fate sets the table; free will, to the extent it exists, decides whether we sit down and eat or not.

I agree that Putin didn't have to invade now, it wasn't forced on him. But now was the time for it, Fate prepared a path for him, and he simply followed that inclination without demur.

In the instance you cite as impossible of coincidence, of the V/M/Pluto conjunction falling in Ukraine's First House, that conjunction became much closer the following week, so why not wait for that, if you're consulting an astrologer? And why assume that a conj of these points in your enemy's FH will be advantageous to winning a war? I don't see the logic there, and as it's turning out, if he employed one, the astrologer that gave that advice is probably dead now.

That 16 Cap ASC, btw, falls exactly on Putin's natal Damocles - the looming disaster hanging unseen overhead, and on Russia's Neptune - confusion, disarray, unrealistic expectations and disappointment.

5 out of 6 people agree that Russian roulette is completely safe!
And for those who don't believe in Fate, you can always call it Bad Luck!

Michael Sternbach wrote:That's really mind blowing! If it's not too much to ask, could you give step-by-step instruction for the benefit of the readers of this forum on how to install the relevant ephemeris files and do the calculations you outlined for a particular chart?

Sure thing! To display and filter asteroid lists in Astrolog, do the following:

• 1) Download ephemeris files: All 600,000 asteroid files can be downloaded from astro.com. However let's start with just the first 1000. The first 1000 ephemeris files can be downloaded all together from the "Optional Downloads" section of the Astrolog download page at: http://www.astrolog.org/ftp/ephem/asteroid/epheast0.zip
• 2) Install ephemeris files: Unzip and put these ephemeris files in your Astrolog install directory. I prefer putting them in a subdirectory of it, and then editing the "FILE PATHS" section of the astrolog.as default settings file to point to that directory.
• 3) Display asteroids: Inside Astrolog, do "Edit / Enter Command Line" and type or copy/paste in "-XE 5 1000" (minus the surrounding quotes). That will display asteroids #5 through #1000 in various Astrolog charts, such as local horizon, solar system orbit (with an example in the animation above), and chart sphere. (Asteroids #1 through #4 are already covered by the standard Ceres through Vesta objects.) Also, in "Graphics / Graphics Settings" you may want to turn on "Show Big Dots" and "Label With Name" at the bottom of the dialog, to display the asteroids larger and name them in these charts.
• 4) Filter asteroids: Let's look at only those asteroids within 5 degrees of the Sun's position in the active chart. Select "Chart / Solar System Orbit" and then turn off "View / Show Graphics". That will give a simple text list of asteroid positions for the chart time. Do "Edit / Enter Command Line" again, and type "~U0 'Lt LonDist @x ObjLon O_Sun 5.0'" (minus the surrounding double quotes, but including the single quotes). That will filter the list of 1000 to the 30 or so asteroids Conjunct the Sun. You can retype and replace "O_Sun" with whatever planet you're interested in (e.g. "O_Moon", "O_Asc", etc), and replace "5.0" with whatever orb you want to allow, to change the filter.

Thanks, Cruiser1 and Michael. Maybe someone could find me an asteroid to make me less of a technophobe.

Cruiser1, you mentioned asteroid Nereus. He was one of the Greek titans, who preceded the Olympian gods. Nereus was an ocean god. There may be a link to the sinking of two Russian war ships and the destruction of a sea port city in the battle to date.

Alex Thanks for your very articulate and thoughtful post on fate.

It's quite possible there is now a disgraced astrologer doing hard labor in a Siberian salt mine.

I think the Ukraine invasion chart, however, shows that Putin's purpose all along was highly punitive. It surely doesn't suggest an expectation of a warm reception, the salvation of ethnic Ukrainian Russians, or the ability to sustain a well-functioning country post-conquest.
https://www.astro.com/astro-
databank/Military:_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

On fate:

1. It would also have to be fated that the IAU approved the names of over 20,000 asteroids exactly as they did. One type of bias I've noted in their names, incidentally, is that very few are cognate with evil characters, whether mythological or historical. This must have been a conscious choice.

2. It would have to be fated that English language homonyms work as well as more concise meanings. This means that the Master of the Universe worked this scheme out in English millennia prior to the evolution of modern English.

3. Never mind all the hooey about "free will." There is no conscious choice whatsoever. In anything. Whatever decisions we think we've made are merely an enactment of tiny chunks of rock hurtling through space, named by astronomers with no conscious role in the naming-- and set in motion eons ago.

But just so you-all don't see me as a total skeptic, I did some more sleuthing of asteroid names of evil mythological characters. It's a short biased list but I did check out:

Hekate #100. She was an initially beneficial goddess who got seriously demoted over time as the hideous ruler of black magic.

Sauron: 378214. evil lord of Mordor in the Lord of the Rings.

Lucifer 1930

Typhon 42355 evil storm god ( cf "typhoon")

Seth 86551 (Set) evil Egyptian desert god whose sandstorms obscured the sun

Loke 4862 (Loki) evil trickster god of Norse mythology.

I tend to stick to close asteroid-planet or asteroid-angle conjunctions. What I found on the invasion chart was:

Typhon conjunct MC within the degree (20 Scorpio)

Lucifer conjunct Moon within 10'.

Seth conjunct sun within a degree (4-5 Pisces)

I've had a hunch that bad weather is to Russia's disadvantage. They claimed that their flagship Moskva sank during a storm on the Sea of Azov. Let's hope for wild windy weather.

Sauron was pretty close to the moon-MC midpoint involving Typhon and Seth.

So, Mattel released a Queen Elizabeth II Barbie doll yesterday, for Liz's 96th birthday.

Natally the Queen has asteroid Barbara at 29 Leo, trine the 1 Taurus Sun, at station, turning direct two days after her birth, in a T-square with Dollen (Doll) 3 Pisces and Toyen (Toy) 5 Gemini.

Yesterday a Grand Trine of Queen's 14 Cap, Barbara 14 Virgo and Mercury 19 Taurus (naming a Barbie for the Queen); Mattei (Mattel) 24 Cap opposed Toyen with Regina, 20 & 25 Cancer. Saturn (Head of State) conjunct Dollen at 23/24 Aquarius opposing natal Barbara 29 Leo.

I guess Mattel employs an astrologer, too.

Waybread, you can add Apophis 99942 (named for the ancient Egyptian personification of pure evil) and Tantalus 2102 (noted for heinous crimes) to your list of astro-baddies.

Thanks, Alex. Sticking to close conjunctions on the Ukraine invasion chart linked above, I didn't get any hits for those two astro-baddies.

So I took another tack. It troubles me greatly that asteroid Nike (307) named after the Greek goddess of victory, sits right on the invasion chart's ascendant at 16 degrees Capricorn. Bellona (28 ) the Roman war goddess conjuncts the ascendant within a degree, at 17 Capricorn.

However, Nike also conjuncts Volodymyr Zelenskyy's sun-Venus within 1.5 degrees. Justitia (269,) the Roman goddess of justice, conjuncts Zelenskyy's first house Jupiter within the degree.

Vladimir Putin's chart has no close hits.

The Ukraine national chart looks better: Victoria (12) hits Ukraine's sun (0 degree Virgo) within one degree. Justitia conjuncts Ukraine's sun within 1.5 degrees.

Nike conjuncts Ceres within a degree. Anciently the goddess Ceres/Demeter was known as "the law giver."