The 360 degrees of the zodiac

One sign, thirty degrees

The tropical zodiac is a 360° circle cut into twelve signs of 30° each. “Sun at 12° Taurus” names a precise point: from 12°00′ to 12°59′ of Taurus. On this site, as on your chart wheel, a degree is counted from 0° to 29°; the tradition numbers them 1 to 30 (“the 13th degree of Taurus” is our 12°). Both conventions are shown on every page.

Why care? Because two people with the Moon in Taurus do not live the same Moon when one is at 2° and the other at 27°. The degree refines the reading of a planet, a rising sign or a house cusp, and that is where the details hide that make you say “that is exactly me”.

Decans and dwads: the sign within the sign

Each sign divides into three decans of 10°. The first is ruled by the sign’s ruler, the second by the ruler of the next sign of the same element, the third by the ruler of the last sign of that element. The decan sets the general tone of a degree: a third-decan Aries (Jupiter) is broader and more optimistic than a first-decan Aries (pure Mars).

The dwad, or twelfth-part, goes further: each sign splits into twelve slices of 2°30′ that run through the zodiac starting from the sign itself. 0° to 2°29′ of Aries is “Aries of Aries”, 2°30′ to 4°59′ is “Taurus of Aries”, and so on. It is the secondary sign of a degree, the nuance that explains why a Leo can have something of Scorpio.

The Egyptian terms

In Hellenistic astrology each sign is also shared into five unequal stretches, the terms (or bounds), each entrusted to Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Mars or Saturn. The planet of the term “watches over” that stretch of sky and colours a planet placed there. We use the Egyptian table, the most widespread one.

The degrees that matter

0° is the ingress degree: a planet arrives there with all the freshness of the sign and none of its experience yet. 29° is the anaretic degree, the last one: urgency, mastery, a sense of having to finish something before changing register. The tradition’s critical degrees are 0°, 13° and 26° of the cardinal signs, 8°-9° and 21°-22° of the fixed signs, 4° and 17° of the mutable signs: points of tension and intensity. 15° of the four fixed signs is called the Avatar degree, a door between worlds. The 0° of the four cardinal signs form the world axis: a planet there speaks to the collective. Finally, from 15° Libra to 15° Scorpio runs the Via Combusta, a stretch traditionally trying for the Moon.

0° Aries, the vernal point

Everything starts there. 0° Aries is the vernal point: where the Sun stands at the spring equinox, when day and night are equal and the astrological year begins again. It is degree zero of the tropical zodiac, the one every other degree is counted from. A planet or an angle placed on this degree reaches beyond the person: visibility, impulse, the ability to open new paths.

0° Aries →

Exaltations and falls, degree by degree

The tradition does not merely say the Sun is exalted in Aries: it gives a precise degree, the 19th (our 18°). Likewise the Moon at the 3rd degree of Taurus, Jupiter at the 15th of Cancer, Mercury at the 15th of Virgo, Saturn at the 21st of Libra, Mars at the 28th of Capricorn, Venus at the 27th of Pisces, the North Node at the 3rd of Gemini. At the same degree of the opposite sign, the planet is in fall. These degrees are flagged on their page.

The fixed stars

Some stars, seen from Earth, project onto a precise degree of the zodiac and mark it with their nature. Regulus, Spica, Algol, Aldebaran, Antares, Sirius, Fomalhaut… A planet or an angle within one degree of one of them takes on its colour. Their positions move forward by about 50″ a year (precession); the ones given here are for 2025.