Nakshatra calculator: what is my birth nakshatra?

A nakshatra calculator tells you which of the 27 lunar mansions your Moon was in when you were born. The word nakshatra is Sanskrit for "star" or "that which does not decay", and in Vedic astrology it names one of 27 equal slices of the sky. Each slice is 13 degrees 20 minutes wide, because 360 degrees divided by 27 is 13⅓. The Moon takes about a day to cross one, so over a month it visits all 27, which is where the idea of a "mansion" comes from: each night the Moon stays in a different one.

Western astrology has no direct equivalent. It splits the sky into 12 signs of 30 degrees. Vedic astrology uses those signs too, but adds the finer nakshatra layer on top. Each sign holds two and a quarter nakshatras, so your nakshatra says something more specific than your Moon sign alone.

Every nakshatra has a ruling planet from the Vimshottari system. The rulers follow a fixed cycle of nine: Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, and then the cycle repeats twice more. The degrees below run in the sidereal zodiac, starting at 0° Aries, using the Lahiri ayanamsa as in the calculator.

The calculator sends your birth date, time and place to our astro engine, which uses Swiss Ephemeris data to find the Moon's exact position in the sidereal zodiac. It then looks up which 13°20' slice that position falls in, which quarter of the slice it is in, and which planet rules it. The longitude is the whole input: the nakshatra is just where the Moon stands, expressed on the 27-part scale.

Because the Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, your birth time matters more here than for any other planet. A few hours of error can carry the Moon over a nakshatra or pada boundary. If you do not know your time, tick the box: the tool uses noon and warns you that the result may be off. Check the UTC offset too, including daylight saving if you were born in summer in a country that uses it. We do not store your birth details for this tool.

Both come from the same engine and the Lahiri ayanamsa. In the first, someone born on 15 May 1990 at 10:30 in Delhi has the Moon at 268.98 degrees of the sidereal zodiac, which is 28°59' of Sagittarius. Uttara Ashadha runs from 266°40' to 280°00', meaning 26°40' Sagittarius to 10°00' Capricorn, and the Moon is 2°19' into it. That is within the first 3°20', so it is pada 1. The ruler is the Sun, so this person starts life in a Sun period, with most of that period still ahead (about 83% remains).

In the second, someone born on 20 August 1985 at 18:45 in London has the Moon at 181.52 degrees, or 1°31' of Libra. That is in Chitra, which spans 173°20' to 186°40', about 8°11' in, which falls in the third pada (6°40' to 10°00'). Chitra is ruled by Mars. Notice that Chitra begins in Virgo and ends in Libra, so one nakshatra can cover two signs. Their Moon sign alone would not tell them which half they are in.

Enter your own details above. When you have your nakshatra, see how your Moon sign shifts between zodiacs with the Vedic sign calculator, or find your soul planet with the Atmakaraka calculator. Vedic astrology has not been shown to predict events in controlled studies, so treat the results as a framework for reflection, and ask Vedica if you want your nakshatra explained in plain words.