Sun, Moon and Rising Sign Calculator

Enter your birth date, time and city to find your big three: your Sun, Moon and rising signs, to the degree.

Your big three are the three placements astrologers look at first. Your Sun sign is where the Sun was on the day you were born, and is read as your core self. Your Moon sign is where the Moon was, read as your emotional nature. Your rising sign, or Ascendant, is the sign that was rising on the eastern horizon at the moment you were born, read as how you come across. The Sun sign needs only your birth date, the Moon sign usually does too, but the rising sign needs your exact birth time and birthplace.

Why each of the three needs different information

The three move at very different speeds. The Sun spends about 30 days in each sign, so your birthday alone almost always settles it. The Moon moves through a sign in about two and a half days, so it changes sign on some birthdays. The rising sign is the fastest: the whole zodiac passes over the eastern horizon once a day, so the rising sign changes about every two hours, and its degree every few minutes.

A worked example

Take a birth at 9:15 am on August 10, 1992 in New York. The Sun was at 18°08′ Leo and the Moon at 16°40′ Capricorn, so this person is a Leo Sun with a Capricorn Moon. The Ascendant was at 25°14′ Virgo, which makes them Virgo rising. The Moon's phase was waxing gibbous; the birth moon phase calculator explains what that means.

Ten minutes later, the Ascendant had moved 2.0 degrees. Over the whole day it went right round the zodiac, as the table shows, while the Sun and Moon barely moved.

Sun, moon and rising without a birth time

If you do not know your birth time, leave the time empty. The calculator then checks every moment your birthday could have covered. Add your birth city and it narrows that to the city's own calendar day; leave it out and it allows for every time zone on Earth.

On that date the Moon stayed in Capricorn all day in New York, so the Moon sign is certain even without a birth time. Only the rising sign would be missing.

From 2000 to 2019, the Moon changed sign on 3,208 of 7,305 days, about 44% of them (counting calendar days in Universal Time). On the other days, your Moon sign does not depend on the time at all. The rising sign is different: it cannot be worked out without a time, and any calculator that gives one from a date alone is guessing.

Born on a cusp

The Sun changes sign on a slightly different day and time each year, so star sign dates in magazines are only approximate. If you were born near the start or end of a sign, the calculator works out which side of the line you fall on from your birth time. These are the exact changes for 2026, in Universal Time.

How the big three work together

Astrologers read the three as layers. The Sun is the core: what drives you and what you are becoming. The Moon is the inner life: what you need to feel safe and how you react when no one is watching. The rising sign is the front door: your manner, your first impression, and the lens through which you meet the world. Two people with the same Sun sign can seem very different because their Moon and rising signs differ.

The calculator also gives Mercury, Venus and Mars, which some people add to make a "big six". Mercury is read as how you think and talk, Venus as what you love and value, and Mars as how you act and assert yourself. For more on each, see the Mercury, Venus and Mars sign calculators.

Sun sign meanings

Moon sign meanings

Rising sign meanings

Reviewed by Natal Points. The example and tables on this page were calculated in October 2026.