Hello River, as you can see, even Sandeep sees this confusion, like Radu and I saw this Neptune on the Desc. opposing your Ascendant.
About the online courses, they are great, especially the one's from Deborah Houlding. Just put in her name in Google and you will be directed to her site where you can choose from any subject you like to know about. I do the same as some books just do not cover everything. I print all those articles out, put them in an ordner and I also do all the sample charts. She gives the charts and then you do it first and lateron read how she did it. Really good.
It is all in the "horary astrology course" by Deborah in Skyscript.
About the critical degrees. I also found that by coincidence. Up till now I only knew about the 29° of a sign to be critical obviously because the planet is about to change signs. There is a feeling of urgency there (especially in horary) and in a natal chart, when this point is transited, there could be an urgent happening that asks for a solution a.s.a.p.
So there are more of those points, like :
In Cardinal Signs: 0, 13 and 26
In Fixed signs : 9 and 21
In Mutable signs : 4 and 17
About reception rules all is explained in the internet in her course.
About how long it takes for the planets to move: you dont look at that. You only look at how many degrees it takes for planet A to get to an aspect to planet B. Then you have to know which houses the fastest planet is in, Angular, succedent or cadent. Each place, combined with the sign the planet is in (like a common planet in a cadent sign), will give the time it takes to make that travel. 3 degrees then could be either 3 hours, 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years and sometimes an indeterminable time.
The nodes are shown in the chart when you get the print out of the computer or on screen. North node always has the two small rounds at the bottom and the round bow pointing to the north. The south node is the opposite, the two balls facing up, bow down. There is true node or mean node, and we use the true node most of the time.
By all means start creating either a spreadsheet or otherwise get a bit ordner and put everything you learn in there, like under S, everything about the Signs, A, everything about Aspects, R, things like information about Retrograde planets and Reception between planets etc. etc. Very helpful.
I am very curious to know what the police is going to do about your information. Good for your that you did it, you never know where it leads to.
Wishing you all the best and keep us posted please, Cheers, Starlink