What each sign needs — the date, the time and the place
Your Sun, Moon and rising signs are three facts about one moment, and each needs more of that moment than the last. Canopy calculates all three from your birth date, time and place and shows them together on your natal chart in the app. This website keeps no birth-data form; it explains how the three are found and read.
The Sun needs only the date, unless you were born on a day it changed sign: it changes at an exact time, and then your birth time and time zone decide your Sun sign. The Moon needs the date and often the time. The rising sign needs the date, the time and the place.
Sun sign vs star sign is no real distinction: both name the sign the Sun occupied when you were born, which it holds for about a month each year. Your Moon sign is the sign the Moon held, which she leaves roughly every two and a half days; your rising sign is the sign on the eastern horizon at that moment, which changes roughly every two hours and so needs an exact birth time. The Arabic tradition builds the chart from the rising sign, counting the twelve houses from it and reading the native's life and body from it and its lord, and weighs the Sun and Moon as the two lights, the Sun chief in a day birth and the Moon in a night one. Canopy shows your rising sign beside your Sun and Moon signs and counts your whole-sign houses from it.
Canopy reads the Sun for vitality, purpose, authority and the wish to be recognized, the Moon for the body, habits and change, and the rising sign for how you approach life. Its signs are tropical, counted from the March equinox; sidereal apps usually put each sign one sign earlier, so a Leo Sun here is usually a Cancer Sun there.
How your rising sign is found
The rising sign is the one the clock decides. As the Earth turns, the whole zodiac passes over the eastern horizon once a day, and the degree on that horizon at the moment of birth is the Ascendant, in Arabic al-ṭāliʿ, the one that rises. Canopy works it out from your birth instant and the latitude and longitude of your birthplace: the time gives the turning of the sky, the place your own horizon.
So no quiz can find it. Two people born on the same day in the same city, a few hours apart, have different rising signs, and even twins can differ if the change of sign falls between their births.
If you do not know your birth time, Canopy still casts your chart, for noon, and says so above the wheel: “Birth time unknown. House positions and Ascendant may be inaccurate.” Read the rising sign it shows then as a placeholder, not a finding. Your Sun is in doubt only if it changed sign on the day you were born, and your Moon only if she changed sign that day. Your temperament is left empty, because it is read from your rising sign and its lord, and your almuten is elected provisionally from three places instead of five.
Whole-sign houses and the lord of the Ascendant
Asked to weigh Sun versus Moon versus rising, the traditional astrologers would have begun at the horizon. The rising sign, or ascendant, is the sign coming up in the east at the moment of birth. It becomes the first house, and in whole-sign houses each following sign is the next house, which keeps the meaning of signs in houses simple: each sign gives its house a character, and the planet that rules the sign governs that house's affairs. On Sun sign vs rising sign the old books leave little doubt: the chart is built on the rising sign, and the Sun, for all its rank as a light, is one planet among seven.
Canopy uses whole-sign houses: the whole sign under Rising is your first house, the next sign your second, and so on to the twelfth. Apps that use Placidus houses start the first house at the exact rising degree, so a planet there often sits one house earlier.
The lord of the Ascendant, Ṣāḥib al-Ṭāliʿ, is the planet that rules your rising sign by domicile, under the seven traditional rulers: Mars for Aries and Scorpio, Venus for Taurus and Libra, Mercury for Gemini and Virgo, the Moon for Cancer, the Sun for Leo, Jupiter for Sagittarius and Pisces, and Saturn for Capricorn and Aquarius.
The rising sign also names the ruler of the chart, the planet that rules it by domicile. With the rising sign in Leo, the Sun rules the first house and becomes the ruler of the chart, so the Sun's own condition — its sign, house, dignity and aspects — weighs heavily in the judgment. Canopy shows your Sun sign, Moon sign and rising sign side by side, with the houses counted from the rising sign.
In Canopy that lord gives the mind on the Almuten page, with Mercury as a second witness, while the body is read from your rising sign with your Moon. Your temperament counts the lord three times: by its nature, its phase and its sign.
Sect — the Sun by day, the Moon by night
The Sun and Moon are the two lights, and the doctrine of sect sets their order: the Sun leads in a day birth, the Moon in a night one. The Moon, swiftest of the planets, was often read for the body and the changing circumstances of life, so Moon vs rising sign is no rivalry; the two are read together. The tradition never judged the zodiac Sun and Moon signs alone, but alongside the rising sign, the houses and the lords of the signs.
A chart is diurnal when the Sun was above the horizon at birth and nocturnal when it was below. The Sun leads the day sect with Saturn and Jupiter, the Moon the night sect with Venus and Mars; in Canopy, Mercury has no sect. Planets of the chart's own sect were held better placed to act, and the Arabic authors called the fullest form of the condition al-ḥayyiz, a planet in its own place and time.
Canopy marks sect with a dot on each planet's row on the Planets page, names your sect in the temperament sentence when your birth time is known, and marks the lord of your nativity In sect or Out of sect. Sect also picks the triplicity lord in the almuten count, and it turns the Lot of Fortune round: by day it is the Ascendant plus the distance from the Sun to the Moon, and by night the reverse.
The three together in the temperament
What do your Sun, Moon and rising signs mean together? In the tradition they meet in your temperament, al-mizāj. Canopy judges it the classical way, from testimonies of hot, cold, dry and moist, among them the rising sign and its lord, the Moon's sign and phase, and the season your Sun's sign belongs to, which for a Libra Sun born north of the equator is autumn, cold and dry. The temperament needs a known birth time. So your Sun and Moon sign meaning is never read alone: Canopy reads not only the superficial Sun-sign Libra personality traits but the whole person, through your temperament, the lord of your rising sign, your Moon, your almuten and the dignity of every planet.
The method follows the Arabic introductions, Abū Maʿshar's and al-Qabīṣī's among them. Canopy also counts the planets in the first house and those aspecting the rising sign or the Moon, and the lord of the nativity, and adds every testimony.
The seasons follow the Sun's sign: Aries to Gemini spring, hot and moist; Cancer to Virgo summer, hot and dry; Libra to Sagittarius autumn, cold and dry; Capricorn to Pisces winter, cold and moist. South of the equator they are turned round.
Hot and dry is choleric, hot and moist sanguine, cold and dry melancholic, cold and moist phlegmatic; in Arabic Ṣafrāwī, Damawī, Sawdāwī and Balghāmī. The Temperament page shows four bars and how the testimonies add up. As the app says, the reading uses the language of old medicine. It says nothing about your health.
How Canopy finds your three signs
Does Canopy show your Moon and rising sign as well as your Sun? Yes. All three zodiac signs, Sun, Moon and rising, sit side by side just under your natal chart wheel, since the old texts weighed the rising and Moon signs as closely as the Sun. To get your Moon sign, rising sign and the lunar mansion the Moon held at your birth, enter your birth date, time and place in the app: no quiz can find a rising sign, but a birth time can, so Canopy works as a rising sign calculator and birth chart finder in one.
On the Overview, under the wheel, a box sets out Rising, Sun and Moon, each with its glyph, its sign and the sign's Arabic name, from al-Ḥamal for Aries to al-Ḥūt for Pisces. It gives signs only. Key Angles gives the rising degree on its ASC tile; tap it for a reading of the Ascendant and of your rising sign, one of twelve drawn from the Picatrix (Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm). The Sun and Moon have their own rows on the Planets page, with degree, house, dignity and the sect dot.
The rest of the nativity builds on these three. The Arabic natal chart guide walks through every part of it; the Arabic lots are all projected from the Ascendant, the first of them, the Lot of Fortune, from the Sun and Moon; and the almuten is elected over the rising degree, the Sun, the Moon and two more places.
Find your three signs from your birth time in Canopy.
Free to download · 7-day free trial where offered · then a subscription · Supports iPhone Duo
When all three are the same sign
Can your Sun, Moon and rising sign all be the same? Yes, and the sky shows when. Born around sunrise just after a new moon, the Moon and rising Sun lie close together near the eastern horizon, so all three of your signs can be one. Born at sunset under a full moon, the picture turns over: with the Moon rising and Sun setting, your Moon sign is usually your rising sign, and your Sun usually sits in the seventh sign, opposite. Canopy finds all three from when and where you were born and sets them together under your chart wheel, each with its Arabic name.
The sample chart in Canopy's screenshots, cast for a demonstration profile born on May 23, 2005, is the second case: Sagittarius rising, the Moon in Sagittarius, and the Sun at 3° Gemini in the seventh house, just above the western horizon, so still a day chart.
When all three share one sign, the planet that rules it is lord of the Ascendant and of both lights, and in the almuten count it takes its domicile points at three of the five places.
Questions
Rising sign vs Sun sign: what is the difference?
Your Sun sign, what most people mean by their star sign, is the sign the Sun held at your birth and, except on a cusp day, comes from the date alone. Your rising sign, the Ascendant, is the sign on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth: it changes about every two hours, needs your birth time and place, and becomes your first whole-sign house, so your Sun sign is your rising sign only if you were born around sunrise. Canopy shows both, with your Moon sign beside them.
Sun vs Moon sign: what is the difference?
The Sun and Moon are the two lights of the chart: the Sun leads a chart cast by day and the Moon a chart cast by night, so the old authors never read the Sun sign by itself. Your Sun sign comes from your birth date; the Moon changes sign every two to three days, so your Moon sign can need your birth time as well. Rising vs Sun vs Moon, then: the rising sign sets your houses, the Sun and Moon are the lights read within them, and Canopy shows all three together.
Sun sign vs Moon sign: which matters more in Arabic astrology?
Neither is read alone. The Sun and Moon are the two lights, and by the doctrine of sect the Sun leads in a day birth and the Moon in a night one, so for someone born at night the Moon is the more important light. The meaning of Sun and Moon signs then depends on the rest of the chart: the houses they fall in, counted from the rising sign, their dignity, and the planets that rule their signs. Canopy shows your Sun, Moon and rising signs together.
Star signs vs Sun signs: are they the same thing?
In everyday use, yes: your star sign is the sign the Sun held when you were born. The old astrologers would have asked which star you meant, since the Sun was one of seven wandering stars, al-kawākib al-sayyāra, each with a sign of its own. Canopy gives you the sign, house and dignity of all seven, from the Sun and Moon to Saturn, with your rising sign and ten Arabic lots.
Why can't a rising sign quiz find my Ascendant?
Because the rising sign is a matter of the clock, not of character. The Greeks called the rising degree the hōroskopos, the watcher of the hour, and our word horoscope comes from it: as the sky turns, a new sign climbs over the eastern horizon about every two hours. Canopy finds the zodiac sign rising and Moon sign at your birth from your birth date, time and place, the same three facts the old astrologers needed.
Is there a Sun Moon rising calculator on this site?
No. This website has no form for your birth date, time or place, so it cannot work out your three signs. Canopy does that in the app, on iPhone and Android: from your birth date, time and place it finds your rising sign, Sun and Moon and sets them side by side under your natal chart wheel, with the rising degree on Key Angles. The site's Part of Fortune calculator and almuten calculator only take positions from a chart you already have.
