Your Rising Sign

Please read these instructions first!

The diagram below shows your rising sign, but you need to do some very simple calculations first.  This page is written primarily for Netscape users, or for others who cannot use the Quick Horoscope Calculator to find their rising sign, (otherwise known as the Ascendant).  Simple instructions follow, and some refinements are given below.  You need to know your time of birth, (as accurately as you can - even the nearest hour is better than nothing)

(1).  Latitude is measured down the diagram, with 60 degrees North at the top, the Equator in the middle and 60 degrees South at the bottom.  It is not necessary to know your precise Latitude of birth in most cases, as the diagram is only designed to give an approximation to your rising sign.  The Latitudes of some parts of the world are given further down the page, and hopefully this will help.

(2).  Time is measured from left to right, using the 24 hour clock, from 00-00 to 24-00.  This time is Sidereal Time, (not ordinary time, or your birth time), and it needs to be calculated.  It depends on your birthday and your time of birth.

(3).  Estimate your Latitude, from the info in paragraph 1.

(4).  Work out your time of birth using the 24 hour clock.  If daylight saving time was in force, you need to subtract one hour, (maybe 2 hours in some cases of War time).  You do not need to make any adjustment for your time zone apart from this, unless you know that your local Noon is far from 12-00 hrs, (even after allowing for daylight saving time, if necessary), in which case see the notes at the bottom of the page.

(5).  Work out how long after 23rd of September you were born, in months and days.  This only needs to be approximate.  For example, 7th of April is 6 months and 14 days after 23rd September.

(6).  To your birth time calculated in step (4), add 2 hours for each month and 4 minutes for each day that emerged from step (5)

(7).  If the total hours and minutes is greater than 24 hours, then subtract 24 hours.

(8).  You now have (roughly) the Sidereal Time of your birth.

(9).  From the values worked out in steps (3) and (8) find out which colour in the diagram corresponds to your latitude and Sidereal Time.  Look at the colour key to see which sign is your rising sign.

Key

Approximate Latitudes of some locations - for those who don't have an atlas handy.

55 North - Canada, United kingdom, Northern Europe, Russia

40 North - United States of America, Southern Europe, Middle East, Northern China, Japan

20 North - Mexico, Cuba, Sahara Desert, Saudi Arabia, India, Burma, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hawaii

Equator - Northern Latin America, Central Africa, Indonesia

20 South - Central Latin America, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Madagascar, Northern Australia

40 South - Much of Chile, Argentina and  Uruguay, Southern parts of Australia, New Zealand.

55 South - Tierra Del Fuego, and not much else!

Notes on the diagram.

The diagram will usually give an accurate result, but if you land on a point close to the boundary between two colours, (indicating you were born near a change of rising sign), you may want to read further.

(1).  The calculations do not take into account the Equation of Time, which can cause a difference of up to 16 minutes between mean local noon and true local noon for a given date.  Instructions to achieve greater accuracy are given below.  You can interpolate between the dates in the table, when finding the value for a given birth date.

(2).  In addition, the calculations assume that you were born in a place (and time zone) where mean local noon occurs at 12-00.  You are likely to have been born in a place where mean local noon does not occur at midday.  If you have read this far, you will probably understand that since 1 degree of longitude is equivalent to 4 minutes of time, you will need to add 4 minutes per degree for births east of centre, and subtract 4 minutes per degree for births west of centre. For example, someone born in the United Kingdom in Penzance (Longitude about 5.5 degrees West) would subtract 22 minutes, since local noon occurs 22 minutes later in Penzance, than it does in Greenwich, (the centre of the time zone).  Someone born in Lowestoft (Longitude about 1.75 degrees East of Greenwich) would add 7 minutes.

(3).  The more accurately you know your Latitude the better, so look it up :-)

(4).  There are other small variations (of a few minutes) from year to year, mainly due to Leap Years.  However this diagram will give a much better estimate of your rising sign than tables that ignore your Latitude, especially if you were not born near the Equator.

Thank you for visiting

Page created Jan 14th 2001