The Moon right now

This is the sky itself: what the Moon is doing at this moment, and the same for everyone reading it. What it means for one particular chart is a different question, and the answer is further down.

Today This Week This Month This Year
Western Vedic Chinese All Together

tldr: Both the Indian and the Chinese systems track the Moon through a band of 27 or 28 stations, one per night, and both treat tonight's station as the day's character. They developed the idea separately, and how much either borrowed from the other is a genuinely open question in the history of astronomy — but the SHAPE of the technique is the same in both.

All Three At Once

Western, Vedic and Chinese are three complete systems looking at one sky. They are not translations of each other and nothing below is forced to match, but where all three point at the same thing, that agreement is worth more than any one of them saying it alone.

Where They Agree

Both the Indian and the Chinese systems track the Moon through a band of 27 or 28 stations, one per night, and both treat tonight's station as the day's character. They developed the idea separately, and how much either borrowed from the other is a genuinely open question in the history of astronomy — but the SHAPE of the technique is the same in both.

Where is the Moon?

  • Western
    One of the 12 signs of 30° each.
  • Vedic
    Purva Ashadha, pada 2 — one of 27 nakshatras, ruled by Venus
  • Chinese
    亢 Kàng (Neck) — one of the 28 lunar mansions, carrying Venus

All three traditions divide the same circle, and only the number of slices differs: Western cuts it into 12 signs of 30°, Jyotish into 27 nakshatras of 13°20′, and the Chinese almanac into 28 lunar mansions. The finer the division, the faster the Moon moves through it — which is why a Western week has about three moods and a Vedic or Chinese week has seven.

What kind of day is it?

  • Western
    The Western sky answers this with aspects and with whether the Moon is void of course — a running commentary rather than a verdict on the day as a whole.
  • Vedic
    Tithi Panchami, Shukla Paksha — a Purna tithi, good for completion, ceremony and anything being brought to a finish
  • Chinese
    Day Officer 定 Dìng (Settle) — a settling day, good for agreements, planting and putting down roots

Only the Vedic and Chinese systems give a day an overall character. This is the clearest thing the Western tradition does NOT have, and it is worth noticing rather than papering over.

What is today's date, in each system?

  • Western
    An ordinary calendar date, which says nothing about the Moon.
  • Vedic
    Tithi Panchami of Shukla Paksha — the 5th lunar day
  • Chinese
    初五 — day 5 of the lunar month, counted from the new moon

Two of the three calendars ARE Moon calendars: their dates tell you the phase without your having to look up. The Western date does not, which is why a Western page has to state the phase separately.

Why the Western and Vedic signs disagree

Western astrology measures the zodiac from the spring equinox (the tropical zodiac); Jyotish measures it from the fixed stars (the sidereal zodiac). The two were aligned about seventeen centuries ago and have drifted roughly 24° apart since, so the same Moon is very often one sign in the Western reading and the sign before it in the Vedic one. Both are internally consistent and neither is a mistake — they are answering the question against different reference points.

What This Means For You

This is the sky all three traditions share, the same for everyone. Read against your own chart, each has its own thing to say about you, and where they agree about you, that is the part to trust first.