Free Nakshatra Calculator

A nakshatra is the lunar mansion the Moon occupied at your birth. Vedic astrology divides the 360 degree sidereal zodiac into 27 nakshatras of 13 degrees 20 minutes each, starting with Ashwini at 0 degrees sidereal Aries and ending with Revati in Pisces. Your janma nakshatra, or birth star, is named for the segment your Moon fell in.

Your nakshatra is read from the Moon, not the Sun. Two people born the same week can share a Sun sign and land in completely different birth stars, because the Moon moves about thirteen degrees a day and changes nakshatra roughly every twenty four hours. The nakshatra is the entry point to dashas, muhurta (electional timing), compatibility matching, and the naming syllable a traditional family might use for a newborn.

The math turns on one number: the Moon's sidereal longitude. This calculator computes the Moon's position at your exact birth moment, then converts it from tropical to sidereal by subtracting the ayanamsa (the gap between the two zodiacs, currently about 24 degrees) using the Lahiri Chitrapaksha standard. The same Lahiri ayanamsa drives every sidereal surface on this site, so your nakshatra agrees with the sidereal chart calculator.

Whichever of the 27 bands of 13 degrees 20 minutes the sidereal Moon lands in is your nakshatra. That band splits again into four quarters of 3 degrees 20 minutes, and the quarter your Moon sits in is your pada. The most common source of error is birth time. If you only know the date, the Moon could be in either of two adjacent nakshatras, and the pada is more sensitive still. To compare your familiar tropical placements against the sidereal ones, use the tropical vs sidereal calculator.

Pada. Twenty seven nakshatras times four padas gives 108 padas across the zodiac. Each pada corresponds to a navamsa (the D9 divisional chart, the most consulted chart after the birth chart) and carries a naming syllable, so a serious reading always names the pada, not just the star.

Rashi is not nakshatra. Your rashi is your Moon sign, one of twelve 30 degree signs. Your nakshatra is one of 27 lunar mansions. They describe the same Moon at two resolutions: the rashi is the coarse view, the nakshatra is the fine one, and a single rashi contains two and a quarter nakshatras.

The dasha seed. Every nakshatra has a ruling planet, and that ruler is the seed of your Vimshottari dasha timeline. Vimshottari is a 120 year cycle of planetary periods, and the planet that rules your janma nakshatra is the period you are born inside. Where the Moon sits within the nakshatra sets the balance of that first dasha: born at the opening edge, you get the full period ahead of you; born three quarters through, only the remainder is left before the next planet takes over. This calculator returns that balance in years and months, so you can see exactly where your dasha timeline begins.

Your sidereal span, ruling planet (dasha lord), and muhurta quality are below. For the full reading of any one, including its deity, symbol, and the planets that thrive or struggle in it, open the 27 nakshatras reference.

If you have run your birth data through several sites and gotten different answers, the cause is almost always the ayanamsa. Sidereal astrology has to pick a reference point for where the zodiac begins, and there is not one universal choice. Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) is the Indian government standard and the most common default, and it is what this calculator uses. Other lineages use Raman or Krishnamurti (KP), which can sit a degree or so apart.

A degree is usually nothing. Near a nakshatra boundary, that same degree can push your Moon from one star into the next, so a birth in the last half degree of a nakshatra can read differently across sites. When the result sits right on an edge, the honest reading is to hold both and let a dated life event break the tie. If you came looking for the Western and Arabic tradition rather than the Vedic one, the lunar mansion calculator covers the 28 Arabic manzils instead of the 27 nakshatras.