The draconic chart is your birth chart turned round so that the Moon’s North Node sits at 0° Aries. Every planet and angle keeps the same distance from the node as in your birth chart, so the pattern of the chart is unchanged, but the signs move. Enter your birth details and the tool gives your draconic Sun, Moon and Ascendant, and every draconic position beside its tropical one, with the working.
How it works
The draconic zodiac starts at the Moon’s North Node, the point where the Moon’s path crosses the Sun’s path going north. To convert a chart, the longitude of the node is subtracted from every tropical position, as the Astro*Index dictionary of astrology describes it. If your node is at 16° Cancer, for example, which is 106 degrees round the zodiac, every position moves back by 106 degrees.
Your tropical positions come from NASA JPL DE440 data for your birth moment, in universal time from the time zone and daylight saving in force at your birthplace on that date. The Ascendant and Midheaven come from your birth time and place. The tool uses the mean node by default, as our other chart tools do, and you can choose the true node instead.
Because every point and every house cusp moves back by the same amount, each planet stays in the same house as in your birth chart. Births from 1900 to 2074 are covered.
Reading the result
Astrologers who use the draconic chart read it as a layer beneath the tropical chart: the tropical signs for the personality you live day to day, and the draconic signs for something older or deeper, often described as the soul’s intention. Pamela Crane’s book The Draconic Chart (Flare Publications, revised edition 2013) did much to bring it into wider use. Readers usually start with the draconic Sun, Moon and Ascendant, and look at where draconic planets fall on the points of the tropical chart.
If a point is near a sign boundary, the choice of node can matter. The true node and the mean node were never more than about two degrees apart between 1900 and 2074, both in our data and in the Swiss Ephemeris, so the tool marks any point whose draconic sign would change with the other node.
Where traditions differ
Some astrologers use the true node, others the mean node; the tool offers both. For the houses, some keep the birth chart’s cusps, some use equal houses counted from the node, and others subtract the node from each cusp, which is what this tool does. The draconic chart has nothing to do with the sidereal zodiac of Vedic astrology: it is counted from the node, not from the stars. The node moves backwards round the zodiac once in about 18.6 years, so the gap between the two zodiacs is different for everyone born at a different time.
What it does not do
Without a birth time it places the Moon at 12:00 and leaves out the Ascendant, Midheaven and houses. It does not draw draconic transits or compare draconic and tropical charts between two people. It describes themes for reflection and does not predict events.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is a draconic chart?
It is your birth chart with the zodiac counted from the Moon's North Node instead of from the spring equinox point. The node sits at 0° Aries and everything else moves with it.
↳ Why is my draconic Sun in a different sign?
Every position moves back by the longitude of your North Node, which can be anywhere in the zodiac. Unless your node was close to 0° Aries, most of your draconic signs will differ from your tropical ones.
↳ Should I use the mean or the true node?
Both are in use. The mean node moves steadily, while the true node wobbles round it by up to about two degrees. The tool uses the mean node by default and marks any point that would change sign with the true node.
↳ Do my houses change in the draconic chart?
No. The whole chart turns by the same amount, cusps included, so each planet stays in the house it occupies in your birth chart.
↳ Is this the same as a Vedic or sidereal chart?
No. A sidereal chart is counted from the stars; the draconic chart is counted from the Moon's node, which moves round the zodiac about once every 18.6 years.