The settled part
Taken at noon from 1930 to 2035, the Sun on 8 May sits between seventeen and eighteen point four degrees of Taurus. The nearest sign boundary is about twelve degrees ahead, which is roughly twelve days of solar motion, so there is no year, hour or time zone in which this date produces a different sign. The cusp question that occupies so many birthday pages simply does not arise here.
The narrowness of the band comes from the leap year cycle keeping calendar and orbit in step. The Sun slips about a quarter of a day further along each common year and a leap day returns it, so the position oscillates inside a degree and a half rather than drifting away.
That much can be stated with confidence, which is more than can be said for most of what appears under a birthday heading.
Why a shared placement explains little
Around thirty days of births carry the same sun sign, which is an enormous group. The tradition itself never treated the Sun as the whole picture; the sign of the Sun is one factor among planets, angles and houses, and in much of the older material the Ascendant and its ruler do more work.
The popular sun sign column is a twentieth century newspaper format rather than a summary of the tradition. That is not an argument against it, only against reading it as though it were the whole of a chart. It is the layer that requires the least information, and layers that require the least information tell you the least.
The comparison is easy to make. A date narrows a birth to one day in a year, a sun sign to one month, a Moon sign to a couple of days and an Ascendant to about two hours.
The layer below, which does distinguish
Eighteen degrees places this birthday in the second decan of Taurus, the ten to twenty band, near its upper end. The Chaldean order of faces gives that decan to the Moon and the triplicity scheme gives it to Virgo, so the second ruler depends on the scheme in use.
Decans narrow the group of shared birthdays by a factor of three, which helps a little, and they are the reason two Taurus birthdays a fortnight apart are not interchangeable. The sign itself remains fixed earth under Venus, described in the tradition as steady, sensory and unhurried. Those descriptions are inherited interpretations rather than findings, and this page makes no claim that a date confers them on anyone.
What actually individualises a chart
The Moon changes sign every two and a half days or so, so an 8 May birth has two candidates and the hour settles it. The Ascendant changes roughly every two hours and depends on the latitude of the birthplace, which means twelve possibilities are open until the time and place are known. House positions for every planet follow from the Ascendant, so an unknown birth time leaves most of a chart unplaced. What survives is the list of signs the planets were in, which is a fraction of the material.
The widget above starts that process from the end you already have. It computes your exact solar degree from your own year and birthplace, rather than assuming noon, and reports how far the birth stood from the nearest sign boundary. Once an approximate hour is added, the houses follow, and a chart stops describing a month and starts describing a morning.
Questions people ask about this
Is 8 May always Taurus?
Yes, at noon in every year from 1930 to 2035. The Sun is roughly eighteen degrees into the sign and the Gemini boundary is about twelve days of solar motion ahead.
What is the solar degree on 8 May?
Between seventeen and eighteen and a half degrees of Taurus depending on the year and hour. The widget above gives the exact figure for a particular birth.
Which decan does 8 May fall in?
The second decan of Taurus, ten to twenty degrees, towards its upper end. The Chaldean order assigns it to the Moon and the triplicity scheme to Virgo.
Why is the sun sign called the least personal placement?
Because everyone born within about a month shares it. The Moon narrows a birth to a couple of days and the Ascendant to a couple of hours, so both separate people far more sharply.
Can I get a useful chart without a birth time?
Partly. Planetary signs mostly hold, though the Moon may be uncertain. Houses and the Ascendant cannot be placed at all, so a large section of a reading is simply unavailable.
Does a late second decan position mean anything special?
Not in itself. The decan holds until twenty degrees, and a position near the top of a band is inside it exactly as much as a position in the middle.