Neptune retrograde – · 160 days
Shadow begins 0° Sagittarius
Turns retrograde 3° Sagittarius
Retrograde ends 0° Sagittarius
Shadow ends 3° Sagittarius
Neptune
Neptune retrograde 1971: dates
Neptune goes retrograde once a year for a little over five months. It backs up only a few degrees; with its shadow periods one cycle can last more than a year.
Times for UTC
Events are calculated from Earth's center and happen at the same moment everywhere. Set your location to see the times in your own time zone.
—until retrograde
Direct now
Neptune is direct
No retrograde coming up soon.
Neptune in 19711 retrograde
Sagittarius 3° → Sagittarius 0°
RetrogradeShadow
Themes
IntuitionDreamsSpiritualityIllusions
While Neptune is retrograde, hold your dreams up against reality and look honestly at where you may be fooling yourself.
Neptune retrograde periods in 1971
Times shown in: UTCShadow periods are the dates when the planet first and last crosses the degrees where its retrograde begins and ends.
Frequently asked questions
When is Neptune retrograde in 1971?
March 5, 1971 – August 12, 1971 (3° Sagittarius → 0° Sagittarius)
How often does Neptune go retrograde?
Once a year; each retrograde lasts a little over five months.
What is Neptune retrograde good for?
Taking a realistic look at ideals and expectations, clarifying boundaries and making time for meditation and creative work.
Does Neptune retrograde make things more confusing?
The traditional reading often says the opposite: while Neptune is retrograde the fog thins and illusions are easier to spot.
Neptune describes intuition, imagination, spirituality, compassion and illusion. During the retrograde the fog tends to lift: people or plans you idealized can be seen more clearly.
It's seen as a time to hold your dreams up against reality, clarify your boundaries and give time to your inner life. Neptune spends about fourteen years in a sign, so its retrograde falls in the same sign for many years.
What is Neptune retrograde?
Neptune takes almost 165 years to orbit the Sun, so it spends around fourteen years in each sign and nobody lives to see it return to its birth position. Each year, as Earth passes between it and the Sun, Neptune appears to back up for about 158 days, a little over five months. That puts it in retrograde motion for around 43% of the year. The backward arc itself is tiny, under three degrees, and from one year's loop to the next the planet gains only about two degrees overall.
Neptune was found in 1846 after astronomers predicted its position from irregularities in Uranus's orbit, a fitting origin for a planet astrology links with what is sensed before it is seen. Its themes are imagination, compassion, longing, faith and the ways boundaries blur, both beautifully and confusingly.
Because Neptune's cycle relative to the Sun is about 367.5 days, its stations come only two or three days later in the calendar each year. If you know roughly when Neptune turned retrograde last year, you already know roughly when it will this year.
How the dates are calculated
The site's own astronomical engine computes Neptune's geocentric apparent position in the tropical zodiac. The retrograde station is the moment its daily motion changes from forward to backward; the direct station is the reverse. Each moment is located by a coarse scan followed by bisection to sub-second precision, computed in UTC and displayed in the time zone you choose.
The numbers come with an important caveat: Neptune near a station is effectively stationary. Its speed is so close to zero that it stays within about a tenth of a degree of the station point for several weeks. The exact minute is mathematically well defined, but astrologically the station is better thought of as a season than a moment.
The pre-shadow begins when Neptune first reaches the degree where it will later turn direct; the post-shadow ends when it moves past the degree where it turned retrograde. With such slow motion, a full cycle including both shadows can run longer than a year.
How to read Neptune retrograde
Neptune is the most generational of the retrogrades on this site: whole age groups share its sign. On a personal level it matters mainly when it works on a specific point in your chart.
- Look for a natal contact. If either station falls within a degree of a natal planet or angle, that part of your life may go through a long phase of questioning: what you believed was true, what you hoped for, what you were avoiding.
- Read it as clarity, not loss. Astrologers commonly describe the retrograde as the fog thinning. Things that seemed vague during the direct phase may come into sharper focus, sometimes uncomfortably.
- Stay with it. A Neptune transit to a natal point, with its retrograde passes, can last one to two years. Small, honest checks over time help more than dramatic conclusions.
- Mind the house. The house Neptune occupies in your chart shows where idealism and disappointment both tend to gather.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Neptune seem to stand still for weeks?
Neptune's apparent speed slows gradually towards zero before each station and picks up just as gradually afterwards. For several weeks it moves only a fraction of a degree, so in practice the station lasts much longer than the minute shown in the table.
Why are Neptune retrograde dates so similar every year?
Neptune's cycle relative to the Sun is only about two and a half days longer than a calendar year. The stations therefore shift by only a couple of days each year, and the retrograde stays in roughly the same months for decades.
How can I tell whether Neptune retrograde affects me personally?
Compare the station degrees with your birth chart. If a natal planet, the Ascendant or the Midheaven lies within a degree or so, the retrograde is likely to be personally felt; otherwise it mostly sets the collective mood.
Does Neptune ever return to its natal position in a lifetime?
No. Neptune needs about 165 years to complete one orbit. The major personal Neptune transits are the square to its natal place, around age 40–42, and for long lives the opposition, at around 82.