Vedic astrology, or Jyotish, calculates planetary positions against the actual background of stars rather than the tropical zodiac of the seasons. The difference amounts to roughly 23 degrees today, which means most people's Sun, Moon, and rising sign shift back one sign from their Western placements. This correction is called the ayanamsa. Astrolium uses Lahiri, the standard in Indian practice.
Astrolium's Vedic astrology chart calculator computes a full sidereal kundli using the Lahiri ayanamsa, the standard in Indian Jyotish since the Indian government's official adoption in 1955. The tool accepts birth date, time, and place, then returns each planet's rashi (sign), nakshatra (lunar mansion with lord and pada), house placement, retrograde state, and the lagna (Ascendant). The Moon's birth nakshatra anchors the Vimshottari dasha timeline, a 120-year sequence of planetary periods (Sun 6 years, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, Mercury 17, Ketu 7, Venus 20), with the current mahadasha and antardasha flagged. Output uses the janma rashi (Moon sign) as the primary sign per Indian convention rather than the Sun sign. Practitioners use it for dasha-based timing and nakshatra-led delineation of personality and life events. Calculations use Swiss Ephemeris with sub-arcsecond accuracy. Free, no account required.
The birth chart shows where each planet falls by rashi (sign), nakshatra (lunar mansion), and house. The nakshatra layer is one of Jyotish's most distinctive features: the zodiac is divided into 27 lunar mansions, each ruled by a planet, each with its own character. The Moon's nakshatra at birth is the starting point for the Vimshottari dasha system.
The Moon carries more weight in Jyotish than in most Western systems. Your moon sign, called the janma rashi, is often treated as the primary sign in a Vedic reading. The nakshatra of the birth Moon, its lord, and its pada (quarter) together describe the emotional baseline and the starting dasha period.
Vimshottari dasha is a 120-year planetary timeline that shows which planet governs each phase of life. The current mahadasha (major period) and antardasha (sub-period) describe the prevailing quality of this stretch. Knowing where you sit in that cycle makes the rest of the chart legible as timing, not just character.