What this page shows
This page lists where the nine grahas of Vedic astrology are in the sky right now: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and the two lunar nodes Rahu and Ketu.
For each one it gives the sign it is in, how many degrees into that sign it is, the nakshatra and pada, whether it is moving forward or backward, and when it next crosses into another sign.
It is the sky as it is, worked out for the day. How these positions sit against a particular person's chart is a separate question, which an astrologer reads from birth details.
How each value is worked out
- Sign: the sidereal longitude of the graha divided into twelve signs of 30 degrees each, Mesha (Aries) first.
- Degree: how far the graha is into its sign, in degrees and minutes.
- Nakshatra: the same longitude divided into 27 parts of 13 degrees 20 minutes. Each nakshatra has four padas of 3 degrees 20 minutes, numbered 1 to 4.
- Next sign change: the first moment after noon when the longitude crosses a sign boundary, found by stepping forward and then narrowing down.
The zodiac is sidereal with the Lahiri ayanamsa, every position is geocentric (seen from Earth) and every clock time is Indian Standard Time (UTC+5:30).
What retrograde means in the sky
A graha is called retrograde (vakri) when its longitude, seen from Earth, is getting smaller instead of larger. It is a matter of how Earth and the other planet move around the Sun: now and then the planet seems to move backwards against the stars for a few weeks or months, then turns forward again.
The Sun and the Moon never do this. Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn do.
Rahu and Ketu are points where the Moon's path crosses the ecliptic (the Sun's apparent path), not bodies. The mean node moves backwards at a steady rate all the time, so a page using it always shows Rahu and Ketu as retrograde.
Why other sites can show slightly different figures
The ayanamsa, the number that turns the Sun-based zodiac into the star-based one, is not the same everywhere. Lahiri is the one used here and in many Indian almanacs, while others use Raman or Krishnamurti.
A different ayanamsa moves every position by a fraction of a degree, which can change a degree figure and, close to a boundary, the sign or the pada.
The time of day matters too. This page uses noon IST, so a site that shows the sky at midnight or at sunrise will give a different figure for the Moon in particular, which moves about 13 degrees in a day.
Calculated for 17 October 2026, 12:00 noon IST.