Nakshatra Calculator
Find the lunar mansion your Moon occupied at the minute you were born, with its pada, ruling planet, deity, gana and yoni.
The Moon moves about 13° a day, almost a whole nakshatra, so the hour matters. No time? We check the entire day and tell you whether it changes the answer.
A nakshatra is one of the 27 lunar mansions of Vedic astrology (Jyotish). The sidereal zodiac is cut into 27 equal slices of 13°20′, starting with Ashwini at 0° Aries and ending with Revati at the close of Pisces. The one your Moon stood in when you were born is your janma nakshatra, often called your birth star.
In Jyotish it carries more weight than the Sun sign. Its ruling planet starts your Vimshottari dasha, the 120-year cycle of planetary periods used for timing. Its gana and yoni animal are two of the eight factors in traditional compatibility matching. Its pada (quarter) gives the first syllable often used for a baby’s name.
Why your birth time matters
The Moon is the fastest body in the sky. It covers roughly 12° to 15° a day, which is about one full nakshatra, so it enters a new one on almost every day of the year. A calculator that only asks for your date has to guess a time. If it guesses noon, it gives the wrong nakshatra to about one person in four. This calculator uses the exact minute and place you were born. If you don’t know your time, it checks the whole day and tells you plainly whether the answer depends on it.
How it’s calculated
First your local birth time is converted to Universal Time using your birthplace’s historical time zone, daylight saving included. Then the Moon’s apparent position is computed with the open-source Astronomy Engine, which we checked against NASA JPL Horizons: it agrees within a few arc-seconds. That is far finer than any nakshatra or pada border.
The Moon’s tropical longitude is then shifted to the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa, the Indian government standard and the default in most Vedic software. About 24.2° in 2026, it’s the same value our full reading uses. The result is divided into nakshatras of 13°20′ and padas of 3°20′. Each pada maps to one navamsa sign, cycling from Aries.
Frequently asked
What is my birth nakshatra?
It is the nakshatra, one of 27 lunar mansions of 13°20′ each, that the Moon occupied at the moment you were born, measured in the sidereal zodiac. Vedic astrologers call it the janma nakshatra. It shapes your emotional nature, starts your Vimshottari dasha timeline and is used when matching charts for marriage.
Why do I need my birth time to find my nakshatra?
The Moon moves about 13° a day, almost exactly the width of one nakshatra, so it changes nakshatra on nearly every calendar day. Without a time, a calculator has to assume one, and a noon guess is wrong for roughly a quarter of births. With your time and birthplace we compute the Moon for the exact minute.
What if I don’t know my birth time?
Leave the time empty. We compute the Moon at 00:00 and 23:59 local time and at every change in between. If the Moon stays in one nakshatra all day, your nakshatra is certain. If it changes, we show every possibility with the local time of the switch, so even a rough idea of the hour (morning or evening) settles it.
What is a pada, and what is its navamsa sign?
Each nakshatra is split into four padas (quarters) of 3°20′. The 108 padas run through the twelve signs nine times, so each pada belongs to one navamsa sign, which links your nakshatra to the navamsa (D9) chart. Traditionally the four padas also follow the four aims of life: dharma, artha, kama and moksha.
What do gana and yoni mean?
Gana sorts the nakshatras into three temperaments: Deva (divine, gentle), Manushya (human, balanced) and Rakshasa (fierce, independent). Yoni pairs each nakshatra with an animal and a sex. Both are part of the Ashtakoota (guna milan) system used to compare two charts for compatibility.
Why might another site give me a different nakshatra?
Usually for one of three reasons: it ignores your birth time, it doesn’t convert your local time to Universal Time correctly (daylight saving and historical time zones), or it uses a different ayanamsa. We use Lahiri, the most widely used standard. Other ayanamsas can move the Moon by up to about a degree and a half, which matters when you are born near a border.
Your birth star is one thread of the pattern
Your nakshatra is just the beginning. Arcana Origin reads your full Vedic chart, your dasha timeline, your Western chart and dozens of other traditions from the same birth moment.
Cast your full reading →