What Rising is
Rising, or the Ascendant, is the sign coming up over the eastern horizon at the moment and place you were born. Because the Earth turns, all twelve signs pass that point every day. That’s the reason two people born on the same day in the same hospital can have different Rising signs if they arrived six hours apart.
In astrology, Rising describes the way you come across before someone knows you: your first impression, your manner when you walk into a room. It’s often the difference between how you feel inside and how a stranger reads you.
What else depends on the time
Houses. The twelve houses start from the Rising degree, so without a time they have no starting point, and you don’t know which house a planet is in.
The Moon. The Moon crosses a whole sign in about two and a half days, roughly half a degree an hour. Most days a noon guess gets the sign right, but it can’t be trusted near a sign change, and the exact degree stays uncertain. That matters for close aspects.
The other planets hardly move in a day, so your Sun, Venus, Mars and Saturn are still reliable. An exception is when one is right at the edge of a sign on your birthday.
What the app does without one
You can use MatchMachine without a birth time. Your chart is worked out for around the middle of the day, your Rising sign stays off your chart and profile, and your Moon is marked as approximate. When your chart is compared with someone else’s, there’s no Rising to compare and Moon aspects are left out, on both sides, so you get a report built on what’s known, even though it’s a shorter one.
If you find your time later, you can add it in your profile. Your birth date, time and place can each be changed once after you finish setting up, so it’s worth checking your source first.
Finding your birth time
- Check your birth certificate. In many US states the long form lists a time, but the short form doesn’t.
- Ask a parent or relative, or look for a baby book. “Around dinner” is a start, even if it isn’t exact.
- Contact the vital records office where you were born, or the hospital. Rules and waiting times vary by place.
If you can’t find it
That’s fine, and it’s common. Please don’t guess a time so you can get a Rising sign. A wrong time gives you a confident answer that’s wrong, and it changes your scores with everyone you’re compared with. A missing time is honest about what’s known. Read how to read a synastry chart for what you can still learn from the rest.