What is my Rising sign?

Your Rising sign is the zodiac sign that was coming up over the eastern horizon at the minute you were born. Astrologers also call it the Ascendant. Of everything in your chart, it depends most on the exact time and place of your birth.

Why it changes so fast

The Earth turns once in 24 hours. In that time all twelve signs rise over the eastern horizon, one after the other. On average each sign takes about two hours.

The signs do not all take the same time, though. In the northern half of the world, Pisces and Aries rise quickly, in well under two hours, while Virgo and Libra take longer. This is why the place of birth matters, and why a rule of thumb is no substitute for a calculation.

What your Rising sign says about you

Your Sun sign describes who you are at your core. Your Rising sign describes how you come across before people know you: your manner, your first reaction, the way you walk into a room or start something new.

The Rising sign is the front door of your chart. People meet it before they meet the rest of you.

It is often the reason people guess your sign wrong. Someone with a quiet Cancer Sun and a Leo Rising can seem confident and sunny at first meeting, and only later show how sensitive they are.

The Rising sign also has a second job. It marks the start of the first house and so sets the layout of all twelve houses in your chart. How a birth chart is built

What you need to find your Rising sign

1. Your date of birth.
2. Your exact time of birth. Look at your birth certificate first. In the United States, the long-form birth certificate usually shows the time of birth; the short version often does not. Hospital records and family members are the next places to ask.
3. Your place of birth. The city is enough.

How exact does the birth time need to be?

The Rising point moves about one degree every four minutes. If your birth time is off by ten or fifteen minutes, your Rising sign usually stays the same, unless it was just about to change. If you only know "sometime in the morning", it cannot be pinned down.

When in doubt, use the time on an official document. Times remembered by family are often rounded.

The twelve Rising signs at a glance

These are first impressions, not the whole person. How your Rising sign plays out depends on the rest of your chart, above all on your Sun and your Moon. How the Big Three work together

If you don't know your birth time

Ask the people who were there, and request the long version of your birth certificate or the hospital record. Until then, your chart can be read without it. It then leaves out the Rising sign and the houses, and everything else stays exact.