A nakshatra is one of 27 equal segments of the sidereal zodiac, each spanning 13 degrees 20 minutes and divided into four padas. Your birth nakshatra is the one the Moon occupied at the moment you were born. Classical texts assign each nakshatra a ruling planet, a deity and a symbol, which is why it carries more detail than a moon sign alone.

Enter your birth date, time and place, and Ristara computes the Moon's sidereal position, then reads the nakshatra and pada it falls in. Birth time matters, because the Moon moves through several padas in a single day. Ristara labels how complete a reading is when the birth time is approximate.

A moon sign is one of 12 zodiac signs, roughly 30 degrees wide; a nakshatra is one of 27 segments, 13 degrees 20 minutes wide. Both are read from the same Moon position, so one moon sign always spans parts of two or three nakshatras. Ristara reports both from the same birth details.

Ristara computes sidereal positions using the Lahiri ayanamsa, the standard in Vedic astrology. That is why a nakshatra or moon sign read here can differ from a Western chart. Every position is computed through one shared initialization path, so the same chart is never computed two ways.