Stellarium's Lunar Nodes

[thecelestialalmanac]

How does Stellarium derive its Lunar Nodes? If I look in the Swiss Ephemeris, or Skyfield, the Ascending Node can be either true (considering oscillations) or mean, and the Descending node is always assumed as exactly 180 degrees opposite the Ascending node. However, if I turn on the ecliptic and the Moon's orbital path in stellarium, the Desc Node is almost never exactly 180 degrees opposite the Asc Node. Are the oscillations projected out into the future, or is there something else going on?

[gzotti]

Stellarium does not provide node information. Lunar position is provided by the respective models, but we have no accessible orbital data. The "orbit" plotted is just a connected line of the nearest positions.

[thecelestialalmanac]

Yes, I understood that there was no explicit variable or data point for either node in Stellarium, I was inferring them based on the intersections of the Moon's orbital path that stellarium shows, and the ecliptic path it shows. So what you're saying is that when I view the Moon's orbital path from a specific time and location, the Moon's positions at future times (and past?) are used to plot the entire orbital path? How far forward (or backward if also backward) does it do this for? Just a few hours, a few days, a week, the entire sidereal period?

[gzotti]

Without reading the code, presumably from half an orbit into the past to half an orbit into the future.

[thecelestialalmanac]

If it were half an orbit in either direction, wouldn't the points of the nodes remain fixed as I went forward or backward in time until that moment when the intersection point went from being a point half an orbit into the future, to a point half an orbit into the past, at which time you would see a sudden jump of that point's location? What I see when I go forward and backward in time is the intersection points slowly shifting, not remaining fixed or making any sudden jumps. Or is it the topocentric perspective that causes the more gradual shifts in this method?
Sorry, I'm just super curious about this variation from other ephemerides. If set swisseph to give me topocentric coordinates, everything it returns is almost identical to what stellarium shows, except for this.

[10110111]

wouldn't the points of the nodes remain fixed as I went forward or backward in time

Future and past are defined with respect to the current simulation time, not the system wall clock time. So as you travel in time, the orbit updates.