Skyscript Astrology Forum

The Terran Atlas has been released! This new application has 5.4 million records of city, latitude and longitude information for 230 countries, making it the largest database in the field. It also includes a time zone look up based upon the Olson time zone database standard with memo slide outs showing notes from the Olson database about data accuracy when the data might be in question. I felt it was important to include these in the Terran Atlas because the history of time keeping is an extremely murky subject with many snares which many astrologers are probably not aware of that affects the accuracy of all astrological atlases for locations all over the world. No matter which software you use, you cannot escape this problem of time zone data accuracy; it is inherent in the nature of the history of time keeping. If you care about the accuracy of your charts, you need to read what I've discovered in my research in this area while working on the software for the Terran Atlas:

http://www.astrology-x-files.com/terranatlas.html

The idea that the most popular programs have the most accurate atlases is dogma; your cell phone is more accurate. The Olson time zone database community has scrutinized the data of ACS and has found many errors by corroborating different data sources such as the IATA SSIM (International Air Transportation Association Standard Schedules Information Manual).

Read the comments in the files named after the continents in tzdata2010o.tar.gz in the link provided below. These files are very large so I recommend you search the text for "Shanks" and "Pottenger" or "ACS" to see the comments from the Olson database:

ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/

I suspect that the same is the case with other small astrological companies who have developed an atlas because a work such as this cannot be done accurately by a small number of people in a proprietary setting. The Olson time zone community has roughly 500 members scrutinizing the accuracy of their data which is why I've settled upon this standard for the Terran Atlas because I did not want it to fall prey to data inaccuracy problems due to lack of manpower.

The Terran Atlas has been integrated with Delphic Oracle and Timaeus and I'm in the process of developing software to help other programs in the field integrate the Terran Atlas into their software for those who want to do serious astrological research.
If you are a software developer and want to include the Terran Atlas in your application, contact me for details. The atlas was just released yesterday and I haven't yet written a DLL so that other languages can interface with the program but the process can be sped up if I know the language requirements of your system.

That's really cool, and I have to say I'm not surprised you're the one taking the lead here.

I have added Antarctica to the countries list though the area is largely uninhabited and added the Olson time zone attributions for those scientific stations for completeness.

I really hope some chart software companies will take you up on this one, Curt - the state of ephemerides for the past 20 years or so has been - scary. And not in a good way.

Best luck with the project!

Thanks!

I'm currently running a 50% off sale until Christmas...

http://www.astrology-x-files.com/creditcardorder.html

Curt,

Is it possible to display the longitude and latitude in degrees, minutes, seconds format? More applications seem to take that format than degrees decimal.

- Ed

Ed F wrote:Curt,

Is it possible to display the longitude and latitude in degrees, minutes, seconds format? More applications seem to take that format than degrees decimal.

- Ed

The database itself used decimal degree notation and I didn't want to alter the database. I did of course do a conversion to degrees, minutes and seconds in Delphic Oracle and Timaeus. I could set up a conversion in the stand alone version as well, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.

What format specifically are you interested in? Timaeus and Delphic Oracle use:

latitude: 00N00 00
longitude: 000W00 00

When a single digit is enough one can write:

6N3 23 for example which is 6 degrees North, 3 minutes and 23 seconds. Degree and Minute characters are not used.

I can export the data to the clipboard if you are going to paste it into another program. But a better solution would be to set up a direct link to the Atlas data itself. I suggest you contact the author of your software and ask them to contact me about setting up a link between the Terran Atlas and your software. The more people who do this, the more likely it is to happen.

For most of the programs I use, I just enter the value manually, so the formate doesn't matter that much, as long as I can avoid the extra conversion step. Might be nice to have an option to use either DMS or D decimal.

Ed F wrote:For most of the programs I use, I just enter the value manually, so the formate doesn't matter that much, as long as I can avoid the extra conversion step. Might be nice to have an option to use either DMS or D decimal.

I have done the conversion and both formats are now part of the program. Check your PM.

Thanks Curtis. Very nice!

There has been a change to the Olson time zone database to account for new information about Hawaiian time changes during world war II. You should download an update to stay current with the most accurate data. If you have downloaded version 1.1.1.1 of the Terran Atlas or later, it is not necessary to download the massive city data again. I have provided a separate download file (980 kb) that includes all changes to time zone information. This information is compiled with the exe file and not the city database files because the time zone data changes much more frequently than city latitude and longitude data.

Users of Delphic Oracle or Timaeus only need to download these installations and not the Terran Atlas, unless you use the stand alone version of the Terran Atlas.

There's a new time zone in the Olson database so users of the Terran Atlas might want to update their software to version 1.1.2.4. It is not necessary to download the large install file if you have already installed a prior version... you can just download the patch below it which is a much smaller file. This can be found in your registered users page:

http://www.astrology-x-files.com/upgrades.html