How Do I Determine My Rising Sign?

Have you ever wondered, "How do I determine my rising sign?" Your rising sign is determined by the position of the stars at the time of your birth.

Astrologers believe that celestial events affect human activity. Your rising sign, or ascendant sign, is the sign of the zodiac that was rising in the east at the exact moment of your birth.

Your rising sign signifies the traits that you show to people or the way you act; whereas the Sun sign indicates who you are deep down, or your character. In other words, your rising sign is how you appear to other people, and your Sun sign is who you really are.

How Do I Determine My Rising Sign?

In order to know what sign was ascending when you were born, you also have to know the location of your birth. This is not the same as your Sun sign, which is the sign the Sun was actually in when you were born. If you were born around sunrise, your Sun sign and rising sign would be the same, but only for about two hours.  Therefore, most people do not have the same Sun sign and rising sign.

So if you want to know "How do I determine my rising sign?" you need the exact time and place of your birth. That is because of the Earth's rotation. Your rising sign will move up one degree every four minutes. After going up 30 degrees, a new sign will appear and become the new rising sign for that time.

Your place of birth is important to determine your latitude and longitude. There are many sites on the internet where you can determine your rising sign. The more information you know about yourself astrologically, the more accurate your horoscope will be. Most people just know about their Sun sign, but humans are more complicated than that.

It is important to know your Sun sign, your rising sign, and your moon sign. Your moon sign represents your emotional motivations, and affects your personality. It is based on the moon’s position at the time of your birth. So, in summary, the sun sign is your core, the moon sign is your emotions, and the rising sign, the “mask” you wear in public.

Zodiac

The answer to, "How do I determine my rising sign?" is twofold. Find out exactly when you were born and where, and look online to determine your rising sign.  Once you have done that, you may be curious to know some of the characteristics of your sign. Following is a short description of each one:

• Aries Rising: action oriented, incisive, straightforward, larger than life                                               
• Taurus Rising: calm, patient, affectionate, cautious
• Gemini Rising: clever, entertaining, changeable, talkative
• Cancer Rising: sensitive, creative, vulnerable, loving
• Leo Rising: charismatic, playful, generous, spirited
• Virgo Rising: thoughtful, trustworthy, finicky, self-critical
• Libra Rising: charming, insightful, persuasive, fair
• Scorpio Rising: powerful, driven, emotional, profound
• Sagittarius Rising: optimistic, lucky, fun loving, adventurous
• Capricorn Rising: serious, disciplined, successful, sober
• Aquarius Rising: curious, friendly, likable, stubborn
• Pisces Rising: nurturer, intuitive, "go with the flow", empathetic

The ancient Babylonians were the first great astronomers. They devised the concept of the zodiac. They realized that the constellations along the Sun's path, or ecliptic, could be divided into segments and used to measure celestial time. 

These early people imagined patterns between the stars so that he could make sense out of the hundreds of stars that he could see. These groups of stars, which represent an animal or an object, are called constellations. There are 88 constellations in the night sky. The Babylonians picked out twelve constellations and, since most were named after animals, the Greeks later chose the term for the zodiac when they called it the "animal circle" or "zodiakos kyklos." The concept of the zodiac is used by both astronomers and astrologers.