Which sign was the Moon in when you were born? Get your Western and Vedic moon sign side by side, your nakshatra, the Moon's phase that night and the real stars it was in front of.
The Moon right now: Waxing Crescent, in tropical Libra
Its sign at this moment. Enter your birth details above for yours.
Tradition A Libra Moon is said to need harmony and partnership, and to dislike conflict.
In the real sky: the Moon was in front of the stars of Virgo, not Libra. The signs have slipped about 24° from the constellations since they were set.
Sidereal = tropical longitude 205°34' minus the ayanamsa 24°13' = 181°21'.
The real sky over your birth place at your birth time. The constellation behind the Moon is highlighted; if the Moon was below the horizon, the view faces east instead and you can press Find the Moon.
Every time the Moon entered a new (tropical) sign in the four days either side, in local time.
| Moon enters | Local time |
|---|---|
| ♎︎ Libra | Oct 9, 4:10 AM |
| ♏︎ Scorpio | Oct 11, 11:21 AM |
| ♐︎ Sagittarius | Oct 13, 8:59 PM |
The Moon goes once round the zodiac in 27.3 days, the sidereal month, so it averages about 13° a day and crosses a 30° sign in about 2.3 days. Its speed changes with its distance: near perigee it covers over 15° a day, near apogee under 12°. In 2026 its shortest stay in a sign is 1 day 23 hours (Gemini, from June 13, 2026) and its longest 2 days 13 hours (Capricorn, from November 12, 2026).
That is why the moon sign is the second thing astrologers ask about after the Sun sign: two people born a few days apart share a Sun sign but rarely a moon sign.
Your moon sign is the zodiac sign the Moon occupied at the moment you were born. Like the Sun, the Moon travels close to the ecliptic, the path the zodiac signs divide into twelve parts. Astrological tradition treats the Moon as the emotional counterpart of the Sun: where the Sun sign is said to describe who you are, the moon sign is said to describe what you need, how you react and what makes you feel at home. The short readings on the result card are that tradition, labelled as such.
Both systems use twelve 30° signs with the same names, but they start counting from different places.
The gap between them is the ayanamsa, and it grows by about 1° every 72 years because the Earth's axis slowly wobbles (precession of the equinoxes). Right now it is 24°13'. So to get a Vedic position you subtract about 24° from the Western one, which moves 81% of Moon positions back by one sign. That is why many people find they are, say, a Cancer Moon in Western astrology and a Gemini (Mithuna) Moon in Vedic.
Vedic astrology also divides the sidereal zodiac into 27 nakshatras of 13°20' each, roughly one day of the Moon's travel, starting with Ashwini and ending with Revati. Each has four padas (quarters) of 3°20', which link it to the navamsa chart and, by custom, to the first syllable of a baby's name. Each nakshatra also has a planetary lord in the Vimshottari sequence (Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury), which sets the order of the dasha periods. The result shows your nakshatra, pada and lord.
There is a third way to say where the Moon was: which constellation it was actually in front of. The IAU drew official constellation boundaries in 1930, and they are nothing like equal slices. The Moon also strays up to about 5° north or south of the ecliptic, so besides the twelve zodiac constellations it passes through Ophiuchus every month (about 4.5% of its time, over a full 18.6-year cycle of its orbit) and also visits Cetus, Sextans, Orion and Auriga. Right now the Moon is in Libra by Western sign, Libra by Vedic sign, and in front of the stars of Virgo. The sky view shows that constellation, highlighted, over your birth place.
The Moon above is drawn from a real lunar map at the phase it had at your birth moment. The phase is the angle between the Moon and the Sun as seen from Earth, so it is independent of the sign: a full moon is always in the sign opposite the Sun, and a new moon is always in the same sign as the Sun. Some traditions read meaning into the birth phase too; astronomically it simply tells you how the Moon looked that night. See tonight's phase on the Moon today page.
On most dates the Moon spends the whole day in one sign, and then your moon sign is certain without a time. On the others, the calculator lists both signs and the local time it crossed. If you know roughly when you were born, that is usually enough. The Vedic sign changes at a different moment from the Western one, about 44 hours apart on average because of the 24° offset, so the calculator checks both.
The Moon's position comes from astronomy-engine's lunar theory (an implementation of the Improved Lunar Ephemeris), accurate to well under an arcminute, far finer than the sign boundaries need. The longitude is apparent, geocentric and measured from the true equinox of your birth date, as Western charts use. The Vedic longitude subtracts the Lahiri ayanamsa for your birth date. The time zone comes from your birth city, including daylight saving time in the year you were born.
Related: Big three calculator · Rising sign calculator · Ophiuchus and the real zodiac · Moon phase today · Moon calendar 2026 · Karva Chauth
Your moon sign is the zodiac sign the Moon was in when you were born. Enter your birth date, time and place above to find it, in both Western (tropical) and Vedic (sidereal) astrology.
Enter your date and tick "I don't know my birth time". The Moon stays in one sign for about two and a half days, so on most birthdays the sign is the same all day and your moon sign is certain. If it changed sign that day, the calculator shows both signs and the exact local time it changed.
About every 2.3 days on average (often rounded to two and a half). In 2026 its shortest stay in a sign is 1 day 23 hours and its longest 2 days 13 hours, because the Moon moves faster when it is closer to the Earth.
Vedic astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, fixed to the stars, while Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, fixed to the March equinox. The two are now about 24.2° apart (the Lahiri ayanamsa), so for roughly 81% of birth moments the Vedic moon sign is one sign earlier than the Western one.
Rashi is the Sanskrit word for a zodiac sign. Your Moon rashi (chandra rashi) is your Vedic moon sign, and in India it is often the sign people mean when they say "my sign". The twelve rashis are Mesha, Vrishabha, Mithuna, Karka, Simha, Kanya, Tula, Vrishchika, Dhanu, Makara, Kumbha and Meena.
A nakshatra is one of 27 lunar mansions, each 13°20' of the sidereal zodiac, roughly the distance the Moon travels in a day. Your birth nakshatra (janma nakshatra) is the one the Moon was in when you were born, and each is split into four padas of 3°20'. The calculator shows both.
In astrological tradition the moon sign describes your emotional nature: what makes you feel safe, how you react, and what you need from people close to you. The calculator gives a short traditional reading for each sign. These meanings are tradition, not science.
In Western astrology the Sun sign gets most attention, with the moon sign as the emotional counterpart. In Vedic astrology the Moon is central: the moon sign and nakshatra are used for horoscopes, naming customs and timing, often ahead of the Sun sign.
The result shows it: the constellation the Moon was in front of, using the official IAU boundaries. It is often not the one named by your sign, and it can even be Ophiuchus, Cetus, Sextans, Orion or Auriga, because the Moon's path wanders up to about 5° from the ecliptic.
The calculator draws the Moon as it looked at your birth moment, from a real lunar map, with the phase name and how much of it was lit.
Almost always. The Moon moves about half a degree an hour, so twins born minutes apart share a moon sign unless they were born just as it crossed into the next sign.
The moon sign is where the Moon was along the zodiac; it changes every couple of days. The rising sign is the zodiac degree on the eastern horizon; it changes every couple of hours and needs an exact birth time. Find it with the rising sign calculator.
As this page was built the Moon was in Libra (tropical) and Tula (sidereal). The result at the top of the page shows the live position when you open it, and the Moon today page shows its phase.