New to astrology?
Your birth chart, in five minutes.
A birth chart is the sky at the minute you were born, read as a portrait of you. Start with the one thing you already know.
When is your birthday?
No year needed. Your Sun sign appears here.
Your Sun is one of three. Your Moon and rising sign take your birth year, time and place.
Find all three, freeThe picture
What a birth chart is
Picture the sky over your birthplace at the minute you were born, drawn as a wheel. The twelve signs of the zodiac run round the edge. Inside stand the Sun, the Moon and the eight planets, each where it was. The line across the middle is the horizon, and its left end is the east, where the sky was rising.
Everything in it is measured from the real sky, for your minute and your place. Two people born in the same town on the same day, an hour apart, have different charts. How a chart is cast.
- 1 The Sun
- 2 The Moon
- 3 The rising sign, on the eastern horizon
The three
The three to start with
Who you are, what you need, and how you come across.
- 1
Who you are
Your Sun
Your will and your style: what you set out to do and how you go about it. It is the sign people mean when they ask yours, and your birthday alone gives it.
- 2
What you need
Your Moon
What comforts you, and what you go back to when the day has been long. The Moon changes sign every two or three days, so it takes your birth year too.
- 3
How you come across
Your rising sign
The sign coming up over the eastern horizon as you were born: the first impression you make, and the way you meet the world. It turns every two hours or so, so it takes your birth time and place.
Read together, the sample chart above is already a person:
- Gemini Sun quick and curious
- Pisces Moon a soft, dreaming heart
- Libra rising a face that puts everyone at ease
The building blocks
Every chart is made of four things
- WhatPlanetsThe parts of you: the Sun your will, the Moon your needs, Venus what you love, Mars what you go after.
- HowSignsThe style each planet works in. Venus loves boldly in Aries and slowly in Taurus.
- WhereHousesTwelve areas of life, from home to work to love, and every planet stands in one.
- With whatAspectsThe angles between planets: whether two parts of you pull together or apart.
Put the four together and a chart speaks in sentences:
Venuswhat you lovein Scorpioall or nothingin the 8th housewhere life is shared most closelysquare Marsat odds with what you want
A love that goes all the way in, and will fight for it.
Your birth time
What each part needs
- The Sun and the planets
- Your birthday, and the time on a day one of them changes sign
- The Moon
- Your birthday and the year: it changes sign every two or three days
- The rising sign and the houses
- The time and the place: they turn with the Earth
No birth time?
A birth certificate, a hospital record or a parent’s memory is enough. Without it you still get your Sun, your Moon and every planet, your chart marks what the time would add, and you can add it later.
Your first ten minutes
Where to go from here
- 1Cast your chartYour Sun, Moon and rising sign in a few plain lines, and every planet in its sign and house.
- 2See today in your chartWhere the Moon is now, and what it touches in yours.
- 3Meet who shares your signsFamous people with your Sun, your Moon and your Venus.
- 4Compare two chartsYours beside a partner’s or a friend’s: where you click, and where you rub.
- 5Read your whole chartEvery part of it read as one, chapter by chapter, in an analysis written for you.
Curious about a word? Search it from the magnifying glass at the top of any page, or browse Learn, from the twelve signs to every planet in every house.
Questions
What beginners ask
What is my sign?
Your Sun sign: the sign the Sun stood in on your birthday. It is the one most people know, and the first of the three above.
What if I was born on the cusp?
The Sun changes sign on a slightly different day each year, so on the days around a change your birth year and time decide it. Your chart says which side you fall on, to the minute.
What is free?
Your chart, the Learn pages, the calculators and the sky today, with no account and no card. The written analysis of your whole chart is the one thing you pay for.
How exact is it?
Every position is cast from NASA’s own planetary ephemeris for your minute and your place, the standard professional astrologers work to.
Are my birth details private?
They never appear in a link, and you need no account to see your chart.
See your own sky
Free, and it takes a minute: your Sun, Moon and rising sign in plain words, and every planet in its place.