The 27 lunar mansions (Nakshatras)

What is the finer pattern?

The same circle of sky is also cut into 27 smaller slices, each 13°20′ wide, called nakshatras or lunar mansions. They are older than the signs, and they follow the Moon: it moves through about one nakshatra a day, so each one is a night's "lodging" for the Moon. Because 27 slices do not divide evenly into 12 signs, each sign holds two and a quarter nakshatras, and some nakshatras sit across two signs.

zooming in on a map. The sign tells you the city, the nakshatra tells you the neighbourhood, and the pada tells you the street.

The 27 nakshatras (outer ring) laid over the 12 signs (inner ring). The white lines are the sign borders; see how some stars cross them.

Every nakshatra has a ruling planet, and the rulers follow a fixed order of nine that repeats three times round the sky: Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury. This same order is the order of the dashas in the dashas chapter, which is why the Moon's nakshatra at birth decides which planet's period you are born into.

The rulers repeat in the same order three times. Read down a column: Ashwini, Magha and Mula are all ruled by Ketu.

Each nakshatra is split again into 4 padas (quarters) of 3°20′, so there are 27 × 4 = 108 padas in all, one reason 108 is a sacred number in India. Each pada also lines up with one sign of the navamsa (D9) chart, so the pada of a planet tells you where it falls in the D9.

One nakshatra, four padas, four navamsa signs.

the nakshatra and pada of every planet are on your Kundali Overview.

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