Sun, moon and rising signs
When someone says “I’m a Scorpio”, they mean their sun sign: the sign of the zodiac the sun was in when they were born. A full birth chart also places the moon, the rising sign and the planets, and the three read together most often are the sun, the moon and the rising sign.
Your sun sign: the core of you
The sun passes through the same sign at about the same time each year, so your birth date is enough. The changeover dates can shift by a day from year to year; born close to one, you need your birth year and time.
| Sign | Roughly |
|---|---|
| Aries | 21 March to 19 April |
| Taurus | 20 April to 20 May |
| Gemini | 21 May to 21 June |
| Cancer | 22 June to 22 July |
| Leo | 23 July to 22 August |
| Virgo | 23 August to 22 September |
| Libra | 23 September to 23 October |
| Scorpio | 24 October to 22 November |
| Sagittarius | 23 November to 21 December |
| Capricorn | 22 December to 19 January |
| Aquarius | 20 January to 18 February |
| Pisces | 19 February to 20 March |
Your moon sign: how you feel
The moon changes sign about every two and a half days. It describes your feelings, what makes you feel safe, and the private you. With only a birth date, the moon may have changed sign that day, so you need your birth time; without one, riffos marks the moon sign as unsure.
Your rising sign: how others see you
Your rising sign (the ascendant) is the sign coming up over the eastern horizon at the moment you were born. It describes first impressions, your outward style and how you meet the world. As the earth turns, the rising sign changes about every two hours on average, so it needs your exact birth time and birthplace; a quarter of an hour can change it.
How the rising sign is worked out
It takes three things: your birth date, your birth time (the more exact the better) and your birthplace’s latitude and longitude. The birth time is turned into local sidereal time, and from that comes the point where the eastern horizon crosses the ecliptic. The sign that point falls in is your rising sign. riffos works out the planets and the ascendant with astronomical algorithms, and uses Placidus houses.
Signs, Chinese zodiac animals and BaZi
Your star sign belongs to Western astrology and follows the sun and planets along the ecliptic. Your zodiac animal and BaZi belong to the Chinese calendar of stems and branches. They don’t map onto each other: every sign holds people of all twelve animals. riffos reads the systems side by side, and the places where they agree are the ones to notice.