To Mr. Chandrahari - a doubt on the nodes

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Dear All, I thought re-posting follwing message would be worthy. If it is true, we need to have a clear idea why Ra-Ke is notated 180 deg apart. I could see that the tradition and JHora supports the 180 deg difference style. Was there something wrong in the arguments put forward by Vernalagina ji, or was it right? Love, Sreenadh vernalagnia <vernalagnia wrote: Dear Sir,I thank you for that insightful post yesterday on ayanamsa. Since youso obviously have an analytical and scientific bent of mind, thoughtI'd get a long-standing elementary doubt clarified - on whether it isindeed correct for us to automatically assume the nodes to be 180degrees away from each other?If I've understood correctly, the nodes are the two points where thelunar

orbit intersects the earth's orbit, the lunar orbit beinginclined at about five degrees to the earth's orbit.We know that the diameters of the lunar and earth's orbits are roughly59 and 11,765 times the diameter of the earth. From the surface of theearth, which is where we are as we look out, if two points are to be180 degrees away from each other, they've to be directly on oppositepoints. Now from one of the nodes, if you draw a line touching theearth's surface and extend it, does it touch the other node? No way!It cannot. The line joining the two nodes, and the lines joining thenodes with the surface of the earth, form a triangle; not alarge-angled triangle, but a triangle nonetheless. This is thetopocentric positioning. Even if you consider geocentric positioning,there still is a triangle formed between the center of the earth andthe line joining the two nodes.For accuracy, I recently put these down on a

scale in AutoCAD (can'tattach the pic file here because it doesn't let me) and saw that theangle subtended by the nodes from the earth's surface is about 181.7degrees. If true, this *can* mean that when Rahu is at 29-degreesomething in Aries, Ketu is at 0-degree something in Scorpio. That'llnot only change the perspective of a chart, you know what can happento divisional charts thereon :)Why then do we assume that the nodes are always exactly 180 degreesaway from one another? I'm not of course alluding to true and meannodes here, which albeit another can of worms, still assume a180-degree constancy anyway.I'd be grateful if you could squeeze some time for us on this. I'dfirst broached this topic a couple of years ago on an astro group,without much luck.Yours respectfully,+++

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Namaskaar Verna (It would be really helpful if you had even a dummy name) :)Your email prompted me to look around and I got this link. http://www.astrologyclub.org/articles/nodes/nodes.htm

From the Animations given, the nodes appear to be 180 degrees apart or am I missing something big here?Thanks and RegardsBharatOn 6/5/06,

vernalagnia <vernalagnia wrote:

 

Dear Sir,

 

I thank you for that insightful post yesterday on ayanamsa. Since you

so obviously have an analytical and scientific bent of mind, thought

I'd get a long-standing elementary doubt clarified - on whether it is

indeed correct for us to automatically assume the nodes to be 180

degrees away from each other?

 

If I've understood correctly, the nodes are the two points where the

lunar orbit intersects the earth's orbit, the lunar orbit being

inclined at about five degrees to the earth's orbit.

 

We know that the diameters of the lunar and earth's orbits are roughly

59 and 11,765 times the diameter of the earth. From the surface of the

earth, which is where we are as we look out, if two points are to be

180 degrees away from each other, they've to be directly on opposite

points. Now from one of the nodes, if you draw a line touching the

earth's surface and extend it, does it touch the other node? No way!

It cannot. The line joining the two nodes, and the lines joining the

nodes with the surface of the earth, form a triangle; not a

large-angled triangle, but a triangle nonetheless. This is the

topocentric positioning. Even if you consider geocentric positioning,

there still is a triangle formed between the center of the earth and

the line joining the two nodes.

 

For accuracy, I recently put these down on a scale in AutoCAD (can't

attach the pic file here because it doesn't let me) and saw that the

angle subtended by the nodes from the earth's surface is about 181.7

degrees. If true, this *can* mean that when Rahu is at 29-degree

something in Aries, Ketu is at 0-degree something in Scorpio. That'll

not only change the perspective of a chart, you know what can happen

to divisional charts thereon

 

Why then do we assume that the nodes are always exactly 180 degrees

away from one another? I'm not of course alluding to true and mean

nodes here, which albeit another can of worms, still assume a

180-degree constancy anyway.

 

I'd be grateful if you could squeeze some time for us on this. I'd

first broached this topic a couple of years ago on an astro group,

without much luck.

 

Yours respectfully,

 

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[Guest guest]

, " Bharat Hindu

Astrology " <hinduastrology wrote:

>

> Namaskaar Verna (It would be really helpful if you had even a dummy

name)

 

 

Bharat, I'll let you call me Fink-Nottle (:

 

 

> From the Animations given, the nodes appear to be 180 degrees apart

or am I missing something big here?

 

 

I'm non-native English, so the explanation I'd put forth might have

been dim. I'll retry

 

I began by visualizing two circles, one representing the orbit of the

(a) earth around the sun, and the other of (b) moon around the earth.

 

Rahu and Ketu are the points of intersection of these two orbital

lines. That's what I've been taught. If that's the case, I can't see

how they can be 180 apart in reference to earth. Gimme yr mail ID and

I'll send across the small JPEG file I created in AutoCAD, to scale.

It might just help explain what I'm trying to get clarified from you all.

 

If you're at the center of the earth, which is the geocentric

viewpoint, and the two orbital lines intersect, there'll be a triangle

between the center of the earth and those two intersecting points, not

a straight line.

 

Just my 0.02

 

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