Planetary Nodes...

[Kadynas]

Just readin the second "Measuring the Night" book by Jeffrey Wolf Green & Steven Forrest, and was wondering if anyone here uses Jeff's method of interpreting the planetary nodes. The basic idea is that they show the past, present and future of the planet involved. IE: The South Node of the Moon - past lunar issues, Natal Moon - current lunar issues, North Node of the Moon - direction our lunar energy is evolving towards.

All the planets have their nodes, though due to orbits, they're not all exactly opposite like the lunar nodes are. Does anyone know of a free program that calculates these? Didn't see it on astro.com's extended chart selection, so I really have no idea how to get these. He mentions that SolarFire (did I get the name right?) will figure these out, but I don't have the money at the moment to invest in a new program. Just thought it would be an interesting perspective to have on the charts of myself and a few friends. :)

[Fluffmeister]

Yes - there's an online calculator at Jonathan Dunn's extremely useful "Ephemeral Info" site. Go to http://ephemeral.info/tgn/info.shtml for the node calculator.

Jonathan is engaged in research into centaurs (Chiron, Pholus, Nessus etc) and asteroids, so the screen you get may look a bit confusing with the option to enter asteroid numbers, and drop down boxes for all sorts of objects. The radio buttons for things like "use equator intercept node (for RA)" looks quite scary too! However - don't panic! Just leave them as they are, enter the date, time, time zone, latitude and longitude, leave it as "Display to screen", click on Get Positions - and hey presto! There it is - you'll need to scroll down after pressing "Display to screen", and there's a lot of data (nodes for loads of asteroids and stuff), but the planets have asterisks (*) by them to make them easy to spot.

Most of the planetary nodes move very slowly (the Moon's Nodes take 19 years to make a cycle of the zodiac, most of the planetary nodes are much longer than that), so don't be surprised if everyone you know seems to have pretty much the same positions for their planetary nodes!

Oh - the link above can take quite a long time to load; hang on in there!

[banondraig]

Just readin the second "Measuring the Night" book by Jeffrey Wolf Green & Steven Forrest, and was wondering if anyone here uses Jeff's method of interpreting the planetary nodes. The basic idea is that they show the past, present and future of the planet involved. IE: The South Node of the Moon - past lunar issues, Natal Moon - current lunar issues, North Node of the Moon - direction our lunar energy is evolving towards.

All the planets have their nodes, though due to orbits, they're not all exactly opposite like the lunar nodes are. Does anyone know of a free program that calculates these? Didn't see it on astro.com's extended chart selection, so I really have no idea how to get these. He mentions that SolarFire (did I get the name right?) will figure these out, but I don't have the money at the moment to invest in a new program. Just thought it would be an interesting perspective to have on the charts of myself and a few friends. :)

wow, that would mean my lunar energy is moving from taurus towards scorpio, by way of aquarius! no wonder i have issues with that stuff!

[Kadynas]

Thanks for the link Fluff! :thumbsup: But am I doing something wrong, or does it only give the North Nodes and not the South? :huh:

Banondraig: :lol: Mine's moving from Aries to Libra by way of Virgo! :hairraise :rollingla

[Fluffmeister]

Hmm - I'm now extremely confused. The nodes given by the link I put in my earlier post bear absolutely NO relation to the nodes given by Solar Fire!

And I'd always assumed a South Node would be opposite the corresponding North Node, as it is for the Moon - but Solar Fire certainly gives very different positions for both.

Do you have any sample values in the book you mentioned? If so could you post them here, and I'll try and find out why there's such a discrepancy (and I'm not talking about a few degrees - I'm talking *wildly* different signs between the two).

[parintachin5`]

Wow _firedevil I love this forum because of interesting posts like this. More things to play with. Thanks!

[banondraig]

Hmm - I'm now extremely confused. The nodes given by the link I put in my earlier post bear absolutely NO relation to the nodes given by Solar Fire!

And I'd always assumed a South Node would be opposite the corresponding North Node, as it is for the Moon - but Solar Fire certainly gives very different positions for both.

Do you have any sample values in the book you mentioned? If so could you post them here, and I'll try and find out why there's such a discrepancy (and I'm not talking about a few degrees - I'm talking *wildly* different signs between the two).

i think the moon is actually the only planet which /does/ have nodes directly opposite each other, because it never retrogrades. (?) that is weird that those two sources are so wildly different. could it be that one is heliocentric-based, and the other geocentric? :huh:

[Fluffmeister]

i think the moon is actually the only planet which /does/ have nodes directly opposite each other, because it never retrogrades. (?) that is weird that those two sources are so wildly different. could it be that one is heliocentric-based, and the other geocentric? :huh:
Yes, I think that is indeed it, Banondraig. There was an article about it on alt.astrology.moderated back in 2000 here: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.astrology.moderated/browse_thread/thread/3fd42cd3a24c0e95/

So this begs the question - which nodes actually *work*? Geocentric or heliocentric?

Any ideas?

[KEishin]

I had to ask my sister the mathematician about this one. (She's good for advanced Trig!) :fpraise:

I showed her how to calculate the nodes and she says the critical point is that they are based off the fact that the apogee and perigee are measured from the center of the earth for the moon. But for the other planets, they are based off the center of the sun.

She also pointed out Kepler's Second Law, which paraphrased says that planets and points move fastest at their closest approach to the center of attraction, and slow down when far away. This is inherently heliocentric, but we're observing it geocentrically. She said to her knowledge, orbital mechanics (aka how the planets move) are calculated on the plane of the earth's ecliptic from the center of the earth to the vernal equinox.

That would make sense astrologically, as the zodiac and accrued sidereal time is reset each spring at the equinox. And the planetary nodes, if I understand correctly, are where they intersect the plane of the earth's ecliptic. But my research (and my old astronomy classes) say that the sun and earth are on the same plane. So the rotation of each planet is on a line that goes through the center of the sun.

My personal feeling based off if this is that either way works just as well. Each apparent position will vary slightly based on where you are observing the node from. So if you use geocentric astrology, you should use the calculated geocentric nodes. Vice versa for heliocentric astrology. IMHO.

If this would still be the case with sidereal astrology (i.e. Fagen-Bradley or Hindu) I don't know. I'm a tropical astrologer! :p Any sidereal astrologers lurking out here?

[Kadynas]

Not sure how the author was getting them but he did mention that the planetary nodes weren't always opposite like the lunar nodes... I would assume the ones solar fire is giving you are correct. :)

[Fluffmeister]

Not sure how the author was getting them but he did mention that the planetary nodes weren't always opposite like the lunar nodes... I would assume the ones solar fire is giving you are correct. :)
Well, it's not whether they're "correct" or not, but whether the geocentric ones that Solar Fire uses are the same as the ones that Jeff Green and Steven Forrest are using - they may be using helio ones instead.

The thing is, I always assumed that planetary nodes barely move during a lifetime - this is true of helio nodes, but not geo nodes. What would be useful would be a concrete example - are there any in the Green/Forrest book? eg does he give an example of a chart, and some nodes that we can double-check against?

[Shatril]

Every time I come to this forum I get more stuff I need to know. Like the math stuff is clear enough, but what does this mean as regards astrology. OK so does anyone have some suggestions about how to go about educating myself on the the difference between tropical and sidereal, and what a helio node and geo node are?

Books or websites would be greatly appreciated.

Shatril

[banondraig]

tropical is astrology based on the seasons, i.e., the sun always enters aries on the first day of spring. the zodiac is divided into 30-degree signs based on that point.

sidereal astrology is based on the actual placement of the constellations for which the signs are named. due to the phenomenon of precession of the equinoxes, these are no longer the same. i myself am a tropical Libra, yet a sidereal Virgo. Cyril Fagan has written about sidereal astrology, in fact iirc he pretty much pioneered it, at least in the context of Western astrology. unfortunately i don't recall the titles of any of his books at the moment.

[Fluffmeister]

Here's a pretty comprehensive sidereal astrology site:

http://www.westernsiderealastrology.com/

Interesting ideas, but I have found most Western siderealists to be the "Jehovah's Witnesses" of the astrology world in their "our system's right, yours is wrong" outlook IMHO _whistle_

[KEishin]

I have found most Western siderealists to be the "Jehovah's Witnesses" of the astrology world in their "our system's right, yours is wrong" outlook IMHO _whistle_
ROFL! Scary, but true. It's one of the best ways to start a fistfight among astrologers. (The other biggie being 'which house system is best?') :goodgrief

[Kadynas]

Well, it's not whether they're "correct" or not, but whether the geocentric ones that Solar Fire uses are the same as the ones that Jeff Green and Steven Forrest are using - they may be using helio ones instead.

The thing is, I always assumed that planetary nodes barely move during a lifetime - this is true of helio nodes, but not geo nodes. What would be useful would be a concrete example - are there any in the Green/Forrest book? eg does he give an example of a chart, and some nodes that we can double-check against?
Found one! It's more a listing than a chart, but for an example: Venus is in Cancer (21 degrees) in the natal chart (geocentric/tropical/porphyry house system, which I'm not familiar with). The Ascending Node in the listing is given as Leo (04), while the Descending Node is given as Libra (15). It seems the further out in the solar system you get, the more they tend to be opposite signs... The chart is anonymous and so doesn't give a date, but Pluto in Sagittarius gives a N. Node of Cancer and a S. Node of Capricorn for example. :)

[awyrdone]

the critical point is that they are based off the fact that the apogee and perigee are measured from the center of the earth for the moon. But for the other planets, they are based off the center of the sun.

She also pointed out Kepler's Second Law, which paraphrased says that planets and points move fastest at their closest approach to the center of attraction, and slow down when far away. This is inherently heliocentric, but we're observing it geocentrically. She said to her knowledge, orbital mechanics (aka how the planets move) are calculated on the plane of the earth's ecliptic from the center of the earth to the vernal equinox.

That would make sense astrologically, as the zodiac and accrued sidereal time is reset each spring at the equinox. And the planetary nodes, if I understand correctly, are where they intersect the plane of the earth's ecliptic. But my research (and my old astronomy classes) say that the sun and earth are on the same plane. So the rotation of each planet is on a line that goes through the center of the sun.

~scratches head with befudddled expression~
when I first started doing charts I was 12, and no better at math than I am now. I'd try to draw up charts and do calcs and end up crying. Nothing can make me cry like math. I thank God every day for computers. Thank you!

[KEishin]

you're welcome! I love math m'self . . . wacked i know :D

[Fluffmeister]

you're welcome! I love math m'self . . . wacked i know :D
LOL! Yeah, me too :)