David Bowie had the Sun and Mars together in Capricorn, the Moon in Leo and Aquarius rising: a disciplined worker in a chart that was always reaching for the next, stranger idea.

He was born David Robert Jones at 9 in the morning on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London. Astro-Databank rates the time A, as he gave it himself, which is reliable but not from a birth record. He changed his name to Bowie in the mid-1960s, so as not to be confused with Davy Jones of the Monkees.

Aquarius rising

Aquarius rising tends to come across as original, cool and slightly otherworldly, with an eye on the future. His first hit, "Space Oddity", came out in July 1969, days before the Apollo 11 moon landing, and its astronaut Major Tom returned in his songs for decades. In 1972 he became Ziggy Stardust, a rock star from space. Few Rising signs have been played so literally.

Sun conjunct Mars in Capricorn in the 12th house

The tightest aspect in his chart is the Sun joined to Mars, half a degree apart, in Capricorn. Capricorn is the sign of hard work and ambition, and Sun with Mars is drive and stamina. He released new records almost every year through the 1970s.

They sit in the 12th house, the house of what is hidden, private and imagined. People with a 12th-house Sun often express themselves best through someone else, and Bowie worked through characters: Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke. He also kept his private life famously private.

Moon in Leo in the 7th house, with Saturn and Pluto

The Moon in Leo needs to create and to be seen doing it, and he trained in mime with Lindsay Kemp and brought theatre to the rock stage. In the 7th house of partnership, joined to Saturn, the Moon also describes serious, lasting collaborations: the Berlin records with Brian Eno (Low and "Heroes", both 1977), "Under Pressure" with Queen (1981), and a marriage to the model Iman that lasted from 1992 to the end of his life.

Moon trine Venus in Sagittarius in the 9th house

Venus in Sagittarius in the 9th house loves the foreign, the far away and the new. It forms a close trine to his Moon. His work borrowed from Japanese theatre and fashion (the designer Kansai Yamamoto made many of the Ziggy costumes), and he moved to West Berlin in 1976 to make some of his most admired music.

A Sagittarius Midheaven

The Midheaven, the public role, is in Sagittarius: the explorer and the seeker. He was a constant reader and kept moving between music, film, painting and acting, from The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) to a Broadway run in The Elephant Man in 1980.

Compare your chart with his

If you share his Capricorn Sun or Aquarius rising, you may know the mix of steady work and far-out ideas. Add your details below to see how your chart meets his.