Nakshatra Calculator & Guide — Find Your Birth Star

Your janma nakshatra is the 13°20′ lunar mansion the Moon occupied at the moment you were born. To find it you need your date, time and place of birth — the Moon moves about 13 degrees a day and enters a new nakshatra roughly every 24 hours, so the time matters as much as the date.

"Birth star" is simply the English name for janma nakshatra — the nakshatra of the Moon at birth. Enter your birth details into a nakshatra calculator: AstroCodex computes the Moon's sidereal longitude with Swiss Ephemeris and reports the nakshatra, its ruling planet and the exact pada.

The 27 nakshatras run in fixed zodiacal order from Ashwini to Revati: Ashwini, Bharani, Krittika, Rohini, Mrigashira, Ardra, Punarvasu, Pushya, Ashlesha, Magha, Purva and Uttara Phalguni, Hasta, Chitra, Swati, Vishakha, Anuradha, Jyeshtha, Mula, Purva and Uttara Ashadha, Shravana, Dhanishta, Shatabhisha, Purva and Uttara Bhadrapada, and Revati. Each spans exactly 13°20′ of the sidereal zodiac.

No nakshatra is "best" for a birth — each carries its own strengths, and a chart is judged as a whole. In muhurta (electional) work the classics do rank them: Pushya is called the most auspicious for new beginnings, while Mula or Ashlesha ask for more care — but that concerns choosing timings, not the worth of anyone's birth star.

A pada is one quarter of a nakshatra — a 3°20′ segment, giving 108 padas across the zodiac. Each pada maps to one navamsa (D9) sign, which is why it refines everything from traditional name syllables to how the nakshatra expresses itself: the same nakshatra reads differently in its 1st and 4th pada.

Yes — the Moon crosses into a new nakshatra roughly every 24 hours, so people born on the same date can have different birth stars. If your recorded birth time is near a nakshatra boundary, even a few minutes shift the result, which also shifts the starting balance of your Vimshottari dasha.