The true constellation: where was the Sun really?

Every few years the news says the zodiac signs are wrong and there is a thirteenth one, Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer. Both are true, because a zodiac sign and a constellation are two different things.

Sign and constellation

A zodiac sign is a stretch of the Sun's path, exactly one twelfth, counted from the start of spring. Aries always begins when the Sun crosses the celestial equator in spring. That is how astrology counts, and how this site counts.

A constellation is a field in the sky with fixed borders, drawn by the International Astronomical Union in 1930. The fields differ in size, and in a year the Sun passes through thirteen of them: the twelve with the names of the signs, and Ophiuchus.

When the signs got their names, a little over two thousand years ago, they lay roughly in the constellations of the same name. Since then the Earth's axis has slowly turned; a full circle takes about 26,000 years. The start of spring has moved on by almost a whole sign: today the Sun stands in Pisces at the start of spring, no longer in Aries.

In 2026 the Sun is in Ophiuchus from 30 November to 18 December. It is not a zodiac sign, because the signs are not constellations but equal stretches.

The Sun in the constellations, 2026

Computed for every day at noon Central European Time, with the borders of the International Astronomical Union.

For comparison, the signs astrology counts by: zodiac sign calculator. The constellations themselves, with map and visibility: the 88 constellations.