The Mountain Astrologer Magazine

Janus 5.0 Reviewed by Hank Friedman

Janus has always been a remarkable and incredibly low-priced astrology program. As the only software with full (and well-written) natal, transit, compatibility, and comprehensive relocation reports built-in (all licensed for resale), it has appealed to both beginners and those most interested in delineations.

Fans of the program's interpretations will be happy to hear that all of the delineations have been examined and improved, and Janus 5 has superb point-and-click popup Quick Interpretations  (e.g. when you click on a planet), showing the planet by sign, house, Sabian symbol, aspects, and midpoints.

But Janus has always appealed to professional astrologers too. Its predictive searches (for SuperMoons, and Out-of-Bounds planets), astromap capabilities (e.g. the first program to depict Total Eclipse lines accurately, and to display multiple Solar Eclipses on one map), and ability to find the birth data for a chart by entering a few of its planet positions, for example, are some of Janus' unique strengths.

The Traditional Astrology module, designed with the help of Robert Zoller, has always been a big draw to astrologers using Hellenistic and Medieval methods. The new version has both new and enhanced functions, such as easier selection of points (planets, Fixed Stars, asteroids, and Arabic Parts aka Greek Lots), new wheels with Terms and Decans, and colored tables. It offers a vastly expanded set of Arabic Parts, many additional coordinates for Fixed Stars (including Novenaria, Duodecima, and Antiscia Longitude and Declinations), new detailed Sect and Reception screens (including mixed Receptions), Solar Return Distribution, Zodiacal Releasing, Decennials, and much more. The Dignity Table has Day and Night and Participating Triplicity Rules, and the Firdaria lists shows the age in years, months, and days.

Two of the most important issues with previous versions of Janus, difficulty installing it, and conflicts with other software preventing it from running, have been fully resolved. Version 5 now installs effortlessly, and runs smoothly on Windows versions 7 through 10.

Janus 5 introduces a wonderful Startup Wizard that helps you set your date format, local place, choice of Zodiac and House System, Lunar Node and Part of Fortune calculation, Rulership scheme, Outer planet and angle glyphs, Logos, Color Scheme, and Backup folder. And it guides you in importing Janus 4 files.

It is no surprise that Janus, one of the best designed and easiest to use astrology programs, has become even more user-friendly. You can create your own set of buttons (with text labels) for most screens, to have fast access to all of the functions you use most often. With new tabs and customizable layouts too, the program is a real joy to work with.

Those wishing to explore the aspects between points in depth will revel in Janus' Calculate Aspects table, enabling you to see aspects from planets to midpoints, to Fixed Stars, to Arabic Parts, to Half Sums, Sums, and to House cusps, and from midpoints, Fixed Stars, Half Sums, Sums, House Cusps, and Arabic Parts to themselves and each other.

The top professional astrology programs have Vedic modules, and the update adds a very well-designed module including a Four Vedic Chart Screen, listings of Dasas down to 3 levels, an excellent Panchang (missing from most programs), an Ashkoot compatibility table, and a planet conditions screen that shows the sign, house, aspects, Avastha, a score of strength, and more.

For people wanting to use astromapping to find places to go for career, love, etc. many astrology programs offer Theme Maps. But those Theme Maps didn't take into account enough planetary factors to be reliable, usually only the significator of the theme (e.g. Venus for love).

Janus 5 introduces the first Whole Theme Maps that take into account not only the significator but also both the house lord and the occupants of the house (e.g. planets in the 7th house and the lord of the 7th house too). In fact, this module is so advanced that you can specify the house system and Zodiac to use, enabling all astrologers to benefit from its flexibility and power. Bravo!

Astromapping in the new version is also greatly enhanced in many other ways, e.g. with the ability to zoom in and out on maps with ease, create a relocation report or relocated chart for anywhere you click on a map, display an increased number of city names, show destiny points, and more.

When the eclipse in August 2017 crossed America, everyone wanted to know exactly when the eclipse would reach totality at their location. Janus 5's Solar Eclipse maps are the only ones that actually show you the time of totality for the entire eclipse path, and can be set for your current time zone. Brilliant!

One new feature that most astrologers will happily use is the Calendar. I'm amazed at how well-thought-out this module is. First of all, it provides you with a choice of many calendars, including presets for a yearly calendar of major mundane events, a monthly natal or mundane (or both natal and mundane) calendar, and a daily calendar with both types of events. There is also a very useful key to all of the abbreviations used in the calendar. You can adjust the font size, and if you make the font size too large to show all of the events, the software alerts you by inserting a triangle in the cell for the day, which you can click on to see all of the events for that day.

You can customize the Calendar in many ways: appearance (e.g. colors, borders, shading), choose which transiting and natal points, aspect set, and house system to use, the location, and any of 33 types of events in any of the calendars, such as transit-to-transit, transit-to-natal, sign and house ingresses, rising and setting times, Out of Bounds, Super Moon, eclipses, lunar phases and VOC Moon, the greatest elongations of Mercury and Venus, and more. This is a uniquely powerful calendar.

Janus 5 also has the widest date range of eclipses 1AD to 5400AD and 1BC to 5400BC, Antiscia charts, Age Harmonic charts, and includes Martha Lang-Westcott's Asteroid selection and Glyphs.

Janus 5 is a ground-breaking astrology program. It has truly phenomenal Traditional Astrology, Calendar, Predictive, and Astromapping modules, great Page and Wheel designers, comprehensive and excellent delineations, and so much more. For many astrologers, it will be the only program they will ever need.