# Natal chart > Your natal chart maps the sky for your exact birth moment and place. How a birth chart is calculated and how astrologers read one. - Page: https://novaoracles.com/glossary/natal-chart - Language: en A natal chart is a map of the sky drawn for the exact moment and place you were born. It marks where the Sun, Moon and planets sat along the zodiac, which sign was rising, and how the twelve houses fell around the circle. Astrologers treat it as the starting point for everything else: your Sun, Moon and rising sign, the aspects between planets, and the areas of life each one touches. A natal chart, also called a birth chart, freezes the solar system at the minute you were born: every visible body in its place, seen from the exact spot on Earth where you took your first breath. It turns a moving sky into a still picture you can read for the rest of your life. Every other technique in astrology, from a daily transit to a full compatibility reading, begins by measuring against this one map. ## What the chart is built from The wheel has three layers that sit on top of each other. The outer ring is the zodiac, the backdrop of twelve signs. Inside it sit the planets at the degrees they held at your birth. Cutting across both is the ring of [houses](https://novaoracles.com/glossary/house), the twelve life areas anchored to your birth time and place. Any planet is then described three ways at once: the sign it wears, the house it falls in, and the [aspects](https://novaoracles.com/glossary/aspect) it makes to other planets. ## Real positions from your date, time and place The positions are real astronomy, not symbols pulled from a hat. Given a date, an exact time and a latitude and longitude, the Sun, Moon and planets each have a known position along the ecliptic that a good ephemeris returns to the arcminute. Your birth time fixes the fastest angle of all, the [ascendant](https://novaoracles.com/glossary/ascendant), which shifts about one degree every four minutes as the Earth turns. That is why a chart cast for your true birth hour and one cast for noon can differ enough to move both the houses and the rising sign. ## Reading the chart in layers Astrologers traditionally read the chart in layers. The Sun, Moon and rising sign give the first sketch of character. Each planet is then read by the sign it wears and the house it occupies, so Mars in the tenth house is taken to mean something different from Mars in the fourth. The angles between planets are read as showing how those parts of you cooperate or strain. No single placement carries the reading by itself. ## Sun in Gemini, Moon in Pisces, Libra rising Say your chart shows the Sun in Gemini in the ninth house, the Moon in Pisces, and Libra rising. A reader might sketch a curious, talkative core drawn to travel or study, a soft and impressionable inner life, and a gracious first impression that people notice. Move the birth time by three hours and the rising sign can change, and with it every house cusp. ## One placement is not the whole chart People often treat their Sun sign as their whole chart, when it is one placement among dozens. A natal chart is also fixed for life and never updates, while a [transit](https://novaoracles.com/glossary/transit) chart shows today's moving sky laid over it. A rounded or unknown birth time weakens the houses and the ascendant, though the planetary signs usually still hold. ## Your own chart from real positions The NovaOracles [birth chart tool](https://novaoracles.com/tools/birth-chart) computes your natal chart from real positions, and the [Sun, Moon and rising walkthrough](https://novaoracles.com/blog/sun-moon-and-rising) shows how to read the three anchors first. ## FAQ ### How do I read my birth chart? Start with the Sun, Moon and rising sign for the broad character, then read each planet by its sign and house, and finally the aspects between planets. Work from the biggest strokes down to the detail. ### What do I need to calculate a natal chart? Your birth date, your birth time as exactly as you can get it, and your birth city. The time sets the ascendant and the houses, so an accurate minute matters more than people expect. ### Is a natal chart the same as a birth chart? Yes. Natal chart, birth chart and radix all name the same thing: the map of the sky drawn for the moment and place you were born.