Nakshatra Calculator

What is my nakshatra?

Your nakshatra is the lunar mansion the Moon occupied at the exact moment you were born. Vedic astrology calls it your Janma Nakshatra — your birth star — and treats it as the single most personal point in your chart. The calculator above finds it from real astronomical Moon positions for your birth date, time and place, not from your birthday alone.

What is a nakshatra, exactly?

The zodiac is a circle of 360 degrees. Vedic astronomy divides it two different ways at once: the familiar way gives 12 signs of 30 degrees each, and the older way gives 27 nakshatras of 13 degrees 20 minutes each. In English these are usually called lunar mansions, since the Moon crosses roughly one of them per day as it circles the zodiac in about 27.3 days.

That's the practical difference from a Sun sign: a Sun sign is shared by roughly a twelfth of everyone alive. A nakshatra is one of 27 divisions — and once you add the pada (see below), one of 108 — so it narrows things down far more specifically.

Is my nakshatra the same as my zodiac sign?

No, and the two often don't even agree about which sign you are. Your Western zodiac sign comes from the Sun, measured against the tropical zodiac (anchored to the seasons). Your nakshatra comes from the Moon, measured against the sidereal zodiac (anchored to the actual stars). The two frames have drifted about 24 degrees apart over the last two millennia, a slow motion called precession — which is also why a Western Gemini is often a Vedic Taurus. Neither system is more "correct"; they measure different things from different reference points.

Do I need my birth time?

For the nakshatra itself, usually not — the Moon stays in one nakshatra for roughly a day, so your birth date and place will normally settle it. For the pada, you do: each nakshatra is quartered, and each quarter lasts only about six hours, so without a time we'll show your nakshatra but leave the pada undetermined rather than guessing.

What is a pada?

A pada is a quarter of a nakshatra, 3 degrees 20 minutes wide. Twenty-seven nakshatras of four padas each give 108 divisions — a number that recurs throughout Indian tradition. In practice, the pada sharpens the reading: two people can share the same nakshatra and read quite differently because one is in the first pada and the other in the fourth.

The 27 Nakshatras

Curious how your nakshatra relates to your broader Moon sign? Every nakshatra sits inside one of the 12 Vedic Moon signs (Rashis) — and a full Vedic reading looks at your Ascendant and all nine grahas together, see your full Vedic birth chart for that.