To determine your Ascendant, you'll need your exact birth date, time, and location, because the Rising Sign shifts approximately every two hours. Being born at 3pm versus 5pm could result in an entirely different sign.
Rising Sign and Ascendant are the same thing. They're just two different terms for the same astrological concept. Think of it as your personal movie trailer - it's the 30-second clip that plays before anyone gets to the feature film. While your Sun Sign represents your core identity (the protagonist of your story) and your Moon Sign governs your inner emotional landscape (the private scenes no one else sees), your Ascendant is pure performance - the energy you radiate the moment you walk into a room.
Sun Signs are relatively stable, shifting only once a month as the sun moves through the zodiac. But an Ascendant? It's constantly moving, changing signs every coupld of hours. This makes it incredibly specific to the exact moment and location of your birth - which is why two people born on the same day in different cities (or even just a few hours apart) can seem like completely different people at first glance.
Understanding your Rising Sign is like getting the decoder ring to your own personality. It explains why your quiet Pisces friend might come across as intimidating with their Scorpio Rising, or why someone else - despite being an introverted Cancer - somehow always end up being the center of attention (hello, Leo Ascendant!). It bridges that gap between how you feel on the inside and how the world experiences you on the outside. If you've ever thought "that's not me at all" when someone describes their first impression of you, your Ascendant is probably the culprit - and the answer.