Celestial Sphere Settings

This dialog window allows you to configure in detail the display parameters of the Celestial Sphere 3D model. The settings are divided into four thematic tabs: “Main,” “Selection,” “Sizes,” and “Palette."

"Main” Tab

Here you define the basic coordinate systems that will be projected onto the sphere:

• Coordinate System: Select the primary system whose grid will be displayed on the sphere (e.g., Horizontal, Equatorial, Ecliptic, etc.).
• House System: Select the house system (e.g., Placidus) whose lines will be projected onto the model.
• Lots / Stars: Drop-down lists allow you to select specific sets (files) of lots and fixed stars to display on the sphere.
• Sphere Opacity: A slider adjusts the transparency of the background (outer) shell of the sphere. This helps make the display of objects and grids more visible, or conversely, enhances the effect of a dense starry sky.

”Selection” Tab

On this tab, using a system of checkboxes, you can flexibly control the visibility of virtually any elements on the sphere:

• Grids and Planes: The display of the Equator, Ecliptic, and Horizon planes can be toggled separately. For each of them, you can additionally enable the visibility of the line itself (checkbox on the left), the grid, and astrological symbols.
• Chart Elements: Enable/disable chart objects, their symbols, zodiacal symbols, the meridian, the prime vertical, the house grid, and stars.
• Star Names: When the checkbox is enabled, you can set the density/number of star names displayed on the sphere using a numeric value (e.g., 2), which filters out all stars whose magnitude exceeds that value.
• Tooltips, Poles and Cardinal Points: Allows displaying on the sphere markers for cardinal directions (N, S, E, W), zenith/nadir (Z, -Z), poles (P, -P), and the main equinox/solstice points (Ari, Cap, Lib, Can). The visibility of these markers for the main poles and semi-axes can be configured separately.

”Sizes” Tab

Allows you to configure fonts and the scale of displayed elements for comfortable visual perception:

• Fonts: Buttons with the T symbol open the standard system font selection window for its style and size for tooltips, grid symbols, and star names.
• Element Scale: Numeric spinners set the physical sizes of:
  • Objects (the actual planet points on the sphere);
  • Object symbols (glyphs);
  • Zodiacal symbols;
  • Pole symbols (N, S, E, W, etc.).

”Palette” Tab

Here you configure the color scheme of all Celestial Sphere elements.

• The list displays all rendered categories (Background, Sphere, Equator, Ecliptic, Houses, Stars, etc.).
• Clicking the left mouse button on the colored rectangle next to a name opens a palette for selecting the color of that element.
• Object symbol color from sets: A special checkbox allows coloring object symbols in the colors that were assigned to them in the corresponding object sets.
• Saving/Loading Color Schemes: At the bottom of the window, you can save the palette you have created to a separate file (the Save button) or load a previously created configuration (the Choose file... button), for example Default.spt.

Sphere palette files are located in the program folder sets/SpherePaletteSets.