North Node
Calculated point
Not a body at all — a crossing point, and a direction of travel.
In the sky right now
Aquarius 28°01′
Ecliptic longitude 328.03°
Currently direct
Retrograde cycle
The lunar nodes move backwards through the zodiac almost continuously, completing a full cycle in 18.6 years — roughly 19 months per sign. The mean node is always retrograde; the true node briefly turns direct at times.
Astronomy
- What it is
- The point where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic going north
- Cycle
- 18.6 years to travel the full zodiac
- Direction
- Backwards (retrograde) through the signs
- Opposite point
- Always exactly 180° from the South Node
- Astronomical significance
- Eclipses can only occur when the Sun and Moon are near a node
- Also called
- Caput Draconis, the Dragon's Head; Rahu in Vedic astrology
- Mean vs true
- This site uses the true node, corrected for periodic wobble
Planetary facts follow NASA and JPL reference data. Moon counts reflect IAU-recognised satellites as of August 2026. Zodiacal positions and retrograde stations are calculated live using the app's VSOP87/NOVAS-derived astronomy engine rather than being hard-coded. The lunar nodes shown are True (osculating) nodes, computed from the Moon's instantaneous orbital plane — the same convention Astro.com uses by default.
Greek & Roman mythology
Greek
Anabibazon (ἀναβιβάζων, 'the ascending one')
Roman
Caput Draconis (medieval Latin, 'Dragon's Head')
The nodes are not Greco-Roman deities. Their mythology is Vedic: Rahu is the severed head of an asura who drank the nectar of immortality in disguise and was beheaded by Vishnu after the Sun and Moon exposed him. The head lived on, and chases them across the sky in revenge — swallowing them at each eclipse, only for them to reappear through the open neck.
That story is the origin of the eclipse association, and it is astronomically exact: eclipses really do only happen near the nodes.
The 'Dragon's Head' and 'Dragon's Tail' names reached medieval Europe through Arabic astronomy (al-ra's and al-dhanab), which had inherited the imagery from Indian and Persian sources.
There is no genuine Greek or Roman god of the nodes. The Latin and Greek terms above are technical astronomical labels, not deities — anything that claims otherwise is invented.
In a natal chart
The North Node is read as the direction of growth: unfamiliar territory, the qualities a person is meant to develop rather than the ones that come easily.
It is always exactly opposite the South Node, so the two are read as a single axis.
The nodes have no rulership and no dignity scheme of their own.
Explore the rest of the sky
Don't write your paper based on this page. We keep the facts as accurate as we can, but moon counts get revised, missions rewrite the textbooks, and the live positions are computed on the fly — treat this as a reliable starting point, not a real-time oracle.