Calculate your rising sign and Moon for free

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Sun sign, Moon sign, rising sign: three markers

When people talk about their zodiac sign, they almost always mean their Sun sign: the sign the Sun was in at birth. It is the best known, the one horoscopes use. Yet a birth chart holds many more. Two come up as soon as you look a little closer: the Moon sign and the rising sign. This page calculates those three markers, and only those, for a clear reading rather than a diagram to decipher.

The Sun sign, the one everybody knows

The Sun speaks of identity, of what a person shows and of what drives them forward. Many people know their Sun sign by heart without ever having calculated it: a date of birth and a table are enough.

Almost always, at least. On about twelve days a year, the Sun changes sign during the day. For a birth on one of those days, the table cannot settle it; only the time can. That is why the calculation on this page does not read a table of dates: it starts from the actual position of the Sun at the moment of your birth.

The Moon sign, the inner life

The Moon sign is the sign the Moon was in at the moment of birth. Where the Sun speaks of what we show, the Moon describes what happens inside: emotions, needs, the reactions that come before any thinking. Some people recognize themselves in their Sun sign while feeling that something is missing. Often, that is where the answer lies.

The Moon moves fast. It changes sign about every two and a half days. So the date of birth is not always enough to place it: out of 400 birth dates tested in Paris, it changed sign during the day for more than four in ten.

The rising sign, the sign that was rising

The rising sign, or Ascendant, is the sign that was rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth. It opens the 1st House, the house of first impressions: the way a person steps toward others, their first move, the image they give before they have even said a word. It does not replace the Sun sign. It adds to it, like one more layer.

It is also the most demanding of the three. In a single day, the twelve signs pass one after another over the eastern horizon. To know your rising sign, you therefore need your time of birth, and your place of birth.

What the free calculation gives you

The free result shows your Sun sign, then your three signs, Sun, Moon and rising sign, each linked to its page. Next come the element and modality of your Sun sign, for example Fire and Mutable for a Sagittarius. Your Sun and your Moon are then read in a few lines, taken from the “planet in sign” pages. Your rising sign is read the same way, from its “rising sign” page. Degrees are not part of the free result.

If a sign remains uncertain, the result says so plainly, for example “Scorpio or Sagittarius, depending on your birth time”, rather than picking one at random. That sign is then neither read nor linked to a page.

02

How your rising sign and Moon sign are calculated

You are not asked any questions. The calculation reads positions in the sky from three pieces of information: your date, time and place of birth. All the readings that appear afterward come from the pages.

A zodiac of twelve equal signs

The calculation follows the tropical zodiac, the zodiac of Western astrology. It starts from the vernal equinox point, tied to the spring equinox, which marks 0° Aries. The circle is then divided into twelve signs of 30° each: Aries from 0 to 30°, Taurus from 30 to 60°, and so on through Pisces.

For the Sun and the Moon, the calculation gives their exact position on this circle at the moment of your birth, as seen from the center of the Earth. The sign is the one this position falls in. Your place of birth first serves to convert your local time into Universal Time, with the time zone and the daylight saving time in effect that day. Mercury, Venus and Mars are calculated the same way for the in-depth portrait; the free result does not show them.

Calculating your rising sign, to within a few minutes

The rising sign is calculated differently. It is the point of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the sky, that is rising on the eastern horizon at the moment and place of your birth. It depends on sidereal time and on the position of the place, its latitude and longitude. Hence the city we ask for, not just the country.

It moves fast: about 1° every 4 minutes. Take a birth on December 10, 1985 at 2:30 p.m., in Paris. The Sun is in Sagittarius, the Moon in Scorpio, the rising sign in Aries. Three minutes later, at 2:33 p.m., the rising sign is already in Taurus. The Sun and the Moon, for their part, have not changed sign.

Without a time, or with an approximate time

Without a time of birth, the calculation is redone every 15 minutes over the whole day. A sign that does not change from midnight to midnight is shown normally. If it changes, both signs are shown, depending on your time of birth. In the example of December 10, 1985, the Moon moves from Scorpio into Sagittarius in the early evening: without a time, it is shown as “Scorpio or Sagittarius”. The rising sign, for its part, is not shown without a time, since the twelve signs rise one after another during the day.

If your time is approximate, the calculation covers one hour before and one hour after. The rising sign often changes sign within that window: it is then shown with its possible signs, “depending on your exact time”. For an approximate 2:30 p.m., on December 10, 1985 in Paris, that gives Pisces, Aries or Taurus.

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The astrology pages

Every sign, every planet and every house has its own page in English, with a set of frequently asked questions. You can read them without doing the calculation, for yourself as well as for someone close to you.

• The 12 signsEach sign of the zodiac, with its element, its modality, its gifts and its challenges.
• The 10 planetsWhat each planet represents, from the Sun to Pluto.
• The 12 housesThe areas of life read in a birth chart, which the calculation on this page does not place.
• The 120 combinationsEach planet in each of the twelve signs, from the Sun in Aries to Pluto in Pisces.
• The 12 rising signsFirst impressions according to the sign that was rising at birth, from Aries Rising to Pisces Rising.

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Frequently asked questions about the rising sign and the Moon sign