posted June 11, 2003 03:28 AM              

Sorry I can't be more specific with regards to the actual mathmatical calculations that are involved, I'm not good explaining the technical side of astrology.

Love and Light,

posted June 12, 2003 11:32 AM              

my TRUE node is in cancer in 7th house & it's motion was retrogade & drgrees are
27°02'07 07

posted June 13, 2003 01:15 AM              

"Mean" usually refers to an average, does it not? So what would anyone prefer an average if they could have the exact calculation?

Help... me...

posted June 13, 2003 03:13 AM              

As far as I know they do not have separate meanings. I will research this and let you know. As far as I am aware it is just personal preference as to whether astrologer's use Mean or True node and there is only a few degrees difference. The difference is in their calculation, not in their significance. I have notes on it somewhere. I'll look it up for you tomorrow.

Love and Light,

posted June 13, 2003 07:15 AM              

"The true node is the real position of the moon's node at any time.

The mean node is the position of the moon's node according to a mathematical formula which ignores many of the minor perturbations in its orbit."

In other words, the true node is the exact location of the moon's node. The mean node is it's average or estimated location.

Most astrologers I know use the true node. I have never been told that there was any difference in interpretation of the two. If anyone knows of someone that uses the mean node and why they use it, I would love to hear about it.

I think someone told me that the maximum distance between any true and mean node is 2.5 degrees. I can't see it making much difference which one is used unless it falls on a house cusp or at the end/beginning of a sign.

Love and Light,

posted June 13, 2003 06:37 PM            

Good memory, Sue!
The Moon's Nodes are the points where the orbit of the Moon crosses the plane of the ecliptic (the plane of the ecliptic is the path that the planets travel around the Sun). Where that orbit crosses from South (below the ecliptic) to North (above the ecliptic) is called the North Node, and the opposite crossing is the South Node.

Before there were computers, astrologers had to manually calculate the positions of all the points on a chart by "interpolating" from astronomical tables that showed the positions once each day. So for example, if your Moon was in 2 degrees Aries at Midnight before you were born and 14 degrees Aries at Midnight after you were born, it moved 12 degrees in 24 hours, or about half a degree per hour. Then if you were born at 8 o'clock in the morning, you could figure that the Moon had moved 4 degrees since midnight (8 hours times half a degree = 4 degrees), so your Moon would be at 6 degrees Aries (2 degrees at midnight from the ephemeris plu 4 degrees that it moved in the 8 hours until you were born).

Now this method of figuring where the planet is at any given tim between one midnight and the next midnight works perfectly as long as the planet moves at a constant rate of speed. But if it speeds up and slows down over the course of the day, then this way of calculating only gives you the average ("mean") motion per hour ... in the example above, the moon might actually move a little bit more than half a degree one hour and a little bit less than half a degree the next hour ... so what you are calculating is really the position according to the planet's Mean (average) motion rather than its True (exact) motion over thaose particular hours.

In practice, the motion of all the planets (and the Moon) is regular enough that the difference between the True and Mean positions is so slight as to be virtually identical. The Moons nodes, however, do speed up and slow down enough during the day that there is a tiny but measurable difference between the Mean and True positions. Before computers, it was impossible to calculate the True position of the nodes without spending hours at celestial mechanics equations, so the Mean nodes were always used. Now that computers are commonplace, the True nodes can be calculated.

However, since the Mean nodes were used for thousands of years, many astrologers still prefer to use that method even though it is a tiny bit inaccurate. That's the only difference between the True and Mean North Nodes. The difference is usually so small that it's not worth worrying about (unless you're a Virgo! ) Hope this helps.

Love,
Greg

Hope that explains it to everyone
Sue

posted June 14, 2003 12:55 AM              

(and Greg!)

That sure satisfies my Merc trine VirgoPluto.