Sky Map: an interactive star map
The night sky as it is from where you are standing at this minute: 8,920 stars, all 88 constellations, the Sun, Moon and planets and the brightest deep-sky objects, with a clock you can scrub through the night.
Search
Up now
As of 5 Nov 7:33 AM GMT from London, UK, until your own sky loads. 2 things up. Brightest: Sun, south-east, 4° up, low on the horizon. Next to rise: Saturn, a planet, at 3:32 PM in the east, in 8 hours.
| SunSun | ESE | 4° up (one fist) | brilliant | 4:20 PMin 9 hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MoonMoon | SSE | 35° up (three fists) | brilliant | 2:37 PMin 7 hours |
Rising in the next 12 hours
| Name | Rises in the | Brightness | Rises |
|---|---|---|---|
| SaturnPlanet | east | very bright | 3:32 PMin 8 hours |
Constellations and asterisms up
| Name | Direction | Height |
|---|
Choose a name to fly there and select it. The list follows the clock and your place.
Layers
Names and lines
Drawn as
How the sky is laid flat, which Drawn as decides. Eyes keeps every shape true out to the edge of a wide view; Camera, Film and Long exposure draw the sky as a lens does, stretched toward the edges, so a sensor’s frame is a true rectangle and the grid’s lines run straight.
In the sky
The Sun, the Moon and the planets, where they are at the time on the clock.
Galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
Our galaxy’s band of light across the sky.
The 88 figures, drawn as lines between their stars.
Well-known patterns that are not one of the 88 constellations, like the Big Dipper or the False Cross.
The official edges that share the whole sky out among the 88.
The Space Station and the brightest others crossing the sky at this hour, each carrying its name.
Satellites carry their names whenever they are drawn.The streaks falling at this hour, played twenty times faster so you catch some; many more on a shower’s night, none by day or under a bright sky.
The northern and southern lights, as strong as tonight’s live geomagnetic reading says.
A faint cone of sunlight scattered by dust along the Sun’s path, low in the west after dusk or the east before dawn.
Lines and grids
The skyline where the sky meets the ground: the hills, or the horizon you traced.
The green line at altitude 0 and its compass ticks, drawn over the land.
North, east, south and west, on the horizon.
Height and bearing from where you stand.
Right ascension and declination, fixed to the stars.
The ecliptic, which the Moon and the planets keep close to.
Conditions
The ground, rising to your horizon. With this and Atmosphere off you see the whole celestial sphere.
The haze, and the daylight and twilight that brighten the sky.
The light-pollution dome over the towns near you, drawn from Bortle 3 and whole from 5.
The forecast’s low, mid and high cloud for the hour on the map, lit by the Sun, the Moon and the towns under them. They hide the sky, not the lines and names over it.
The air’s shimmer on the stars. Part of each look: the camera looks hold the stars still, as a long exposure does.
Beams of light and shadow fanning up from behind the hills once the Sun has set behind them, and meeting again opposite it.
The clouds come from the cloud forecast, which is off. Turning it on sends your rough location to Open-Meteo (details).
Picture style
The chart marks around each galaxy, cluster and nebula. Off leaves their glow and photographs.
The Digitized Sky Survey’s photographs under the stars, once you zoom in past 15°. They come from CDS in Strasbourg, so this is off until you turn it on.
Each star’s path over the last hour as you run the clock. For this visit only.
The ghosts a camera’s glass makes of the Sun, a bright Moon, Venus and Jupiter, when their light reaches the lens.
The sky as a film camera shoots it: long streaks through the brightest lights, a shutter’s blur on every move, darker corners. Off under red light.
The sky as a camera records it over minutes: the Milky Way in its own colour with its dark dust lanes, every star coloured, the nebulae fuller.
Tools
Tours
At night
In night mode, starts the sky from bright stars only; the faint ones arrive over about fifteen minutes, as they would outside.
Dark adaptation works in night mode: turn night mode on first.
Dims the screen below your phone’s lowest setting, down to a fifth. Works in night mode.
Your eyes
Faint stars lose their colour to a cold blue-white, as they do once your eyes have adjusted to the dark.
Faint stars fade under the pointer and show a few degrees to one side, as they do when you look straight at them outside. The circles mark the blind spot and the place to look.
Bolder constellation lines, larger and brighter names on the sky, and stronger text and edges everywhere. Starts on if your device asks for more contrast.
Motion
The camera cuts to where it is going instead of flying there, and panels and sheets appear without sliding. Starts on if your device asks for less motion.
A light blur while the map flies you somewhere, a ring that closes on what you select, a ripple where you tap empty sky. None when your device asks for less motion.
Spoken view
Press D on the sky to hear which way you face and where the brightest things are, in fists from the centre. Short is one sentence; Full adds the field, the constellation and five names, and N says which way it moved.
Keyboard
One letter on the map, like M for Measure. Turn these off if speech input or a stray key sets them off; keys held with ⌘ or Ctrl keep working.
Sound
Quiet tones as you use the map: a tick as you drag the clock past a mark or dusk, a chime for the star you pick — higher for hotter stars — and a low swell while a figure is out of the dome. Made in your browser, and off until you turn them on.
Battery
Draws the sky thirty times a second at most: smoothness traded for battery.
These, your place, your clock and your progress are together on one page: Settings.
Framing
Hand at arm’s length
Binoculars and finders
Telescopes
Outstretched hand · about 20° across
Field
≈20° circle
Power
—
Stars to
—mag
Image
Mirrored is a star diagonal; turned over is a Newtonian or a straight-through refractor. Names hide while the view is turned, as they would not be there in the eyepiece.
Sensor
36.0 × 24.0 mm
Position angle — measured from celestial north, so the frame holds its orientation against the stars rather than against the screen.
Sampling
Microns — gives arcsec per pixel
Field
10.29° × 6.87°
Diagonal
12.35°
Scale
—″/px
Enter a pixel pitch to see whether you are sampling well.
Select something in the sky — a galaxy, the Moon, a planet — to check it against this frame.
One tool at a time, so Layers closed; its look stays on. The frame stays on the sky until you clear it.
Measure
Drag from one point to another, or tap one and then the other. An end that lands on a star, a planet or a deep-sky object snaps to it.
No measurement yet
Separation
—
Measured as a hand at arm’s length
Help
Esc puts things away. Back goes back. Start over starts over.
Map legend Deep-sky symbols and the names on the sky
Deep-sky symbols
The same shapes a printed star atlas uses. Size follows the object's real angular extent; faint objects get a quieter glyph.
- Galaxy
- Open cluster
- Globular cluster
- Planetary nebula
- Bright nebula
- Supernova remnant
- Dark nebula
Names on the sky
- Vega A named star.
- Andromeda M 31 A deep-sky object, and its catalogue number.
- Orion A constellation figure: the joined-up pattern.
- Orionis The IAU boundary that owns that patch of sky.
- The Plough An asterism: a pattern, not one of the official 88.
Look around
- Drag ← ↑ ↓ → Swing the view across the sky; let go mid-drag and it glides. Hold an arrow to pan at the same pace at any zoom and any height; a tap moves one step.
- Scroll · Pinch + − Zoom in and out. Scroll and pinch hold the pointer; the keys and the Zoom buttons hold the centre of the view.
- Double-tap Zoom in on that spot; a double click does the same. Keep the second tap down and slide to zoom with one finger, or tap with two fingers to zoom out.
- Twist Q E With Any way up on, turn the sky: two fingers, a trackpad's two in Safari, Shift-drag or a right-button drag around the middle of the screen, or Q and E. The arrows there pan by the screen's own left, right, up and down.
- Home One step home: level from Any way up, and on the ground the view put back — level, at the default height and field, still facing the way you face. Out in space it puts the view from outside back as it started.
- Backspace Back to where the map last flew the view from — after a search, Go to or a dial tap — with what the map changed on the way. Never the selection.
- Compass The dial shows the way you face at its top and holds still under the pointer: its face looks where you press or drag, and its rim turns you to a compass point. From the keyboard, tab to it and steer with the arrows, N, E, S and W, Enter and Home.
- Aim with phone On a phone, makes the sky follow the phone: hold it up and the map shows what is behind it. Drag to correct it by hand; when the map flies somewhere for you, aiming waits until you resume it. It steers by the phone’s compass, good to a few degrees; tap it while it aims for Line up, which lines the view up on a star you can see, and Stop.
Find and select
- ⌘ + K Ctrl + K Search stars, constellations, planets and Messier numbers.
- Click · Tap a star Opens its card: how bright, kind of star, distance.
- Click · Tap a symbol Same for a deep-sky object, drawn as one of the symbols in this panel’s Map legend.
- Click · Tap empty sky Closes what’s open. With nothing open, it names the constellation you’re in.
- Right-click · Shift+F10 A menu of what you can do with the thing under the pointer, gathered from its card, Layers, the clock and Tools: the same controls, one press away, with their keys.
- Hover Rest the cursor to name what is under it without selecting it. Keep still over empty sky and the constellation you are in lights up.
- Hold · Slide On a touch screen, hold a finger still for half a second and a cursor appears just above it. Slide to sweep it across the sky — it snaps to the nearest star and names it — and lift to select; over bare sky, the constellation you are in. Push it into an edge to turn the sky that way.
- N ⇧ + N Step to the next named object in view, brightest first; with Shift, back. Outside, it flies between the Earth, the Moon, the Sun and the planets, as a tap does.
- ⇧ + ← Step to the nearest named object that way — Shift with any arrow.
- K Follow the selection as the clock runs, or stop following it.
- Enter Space Select whatever is at the centre of the view — the keyboard's version of a click.
- Hold Space Space With a constellation selected, hold Space to pull its stars out to their real distances, and let go to fold them back. See it in 3D on the constellation's card keeps it open: drag to orbit, and Escape folds it back with the constellation still selected.
- D Say where the view points and the brightest things in it. The view is also said whenever the arrows come to rest.
Time
- Time bar Drag the track to scrub through the night against the twilight bands, and slide up off it to slow to a half, a quarter or an eighth. A drag lands on five-minute marks, and on now, dusk or dawn when it comes near one. Speed up time or Play runs the clock, and its arrows walk the rate; at a day a second or faster the track shows the same hour on every day of the year, with the Sun's path traced as it goes, and Pause returns it to the night.
- P Play and pause the clock.
- T Back to now: the live clock, its usual speed, paused.
- W Open the clock’s panel on its field, to type a time: next Fri 10pm, dusk tomorrow, 19 Feb, 21:30 UTC.
- < > While the clock runs, a step along the speeds; down past Real time it runs backwards, and faster back with each press. Stopped, it starts that way at the last speed.
- [ ] The same time a day earlier or later.
- { } An hour earlier or later.
- , . A sidereal day earlier or later — 23 h 56 min, one turn of the Earth against the stars — so the stars stand still and the Sun, the Moon and the planets move on.
- On the track PgUp PgDn An arrow is a minute; Shift with an arrow, or Page Up and Down, an hour — a week on the year.
Panels and tours
- L Open Search on Up now: what is up, as a table to read or hear.
- S Open and close Layers.
- V Open and close Watching from.
- F Open and close Framing.
- M Open and close Measure.
- ? Open and close this help.
- R Night mode on or off: every page red, to keep your eyes adjusted to the dark.
- Ctrl + \ Hide controls, or bring them back: the sky alone. Esc brings them back too.
- Esc Esc puts away what is in front — a dialog, then a panel, then the selection — and never moves the sky. Back does the same, then returns to the objects and viewpoints you visited before.
- Single-letter shortcuts A switch in Tools, and in the Help menu on a desktop, that turns off every key here that is one letter or symbol, for a screen reader or speech input.
- During a tour ← → ← and → step through it and Esc ends it. The other keys look round, and the tour waits.
What each tool does Each, by the word on its button
- Search ⌘ + K Ctrl + K Find a star, constellation, planet or Messier number by name, and fly to it. Opened with nothing typed, it shows Up now: what is up, as a table to read or hear — which way to face, how high and how bright, and the Moon and planets that rise later. Sort by any column, and choose a name to fly there and select it.
- Layers S What is drawn, from wherever the camera is. Names and lines sets how much is written and drawn over the sky, and Drawn as whether it looks as your eyes or a camera see it. Under them, In the sky, Lines and grids, Conditions and Picture style, and every row has a (?) that opens what its switch does under it. What your view hides is greyed out and your choice kept, and your choices are remembered.
- Time The time the sky is drawn for, and how fast it runs.
- Place V Where this sky is seen from: your place, or out in space. Solar system and Above the Earth, then your own place with Change place, which also sets how dark your sky is and your horizon, then Any way up. Each says what it is for. The ground, the compass, twilight and every rise time are worked out from your place, and a place guessed from your time zone says so.
- Night mode Turns the screen red to keep your eyes adjusted to the dark. Dark adaptation, under Tools, then starts the sky from the bright stars, the faint ones arriving over about fifteen minutes.
- Tools The guided tours, the tools with no button of their own, and your settings. At night, Your eyes, Motion, Sound, Battery and Spoken view.
- Zoom How much sky is in view, measured across the short side of the screen. No drag needed: Zoom holds buttons for every move. Wide, Constellation, Binoculars, Telescope and Closest, each a range and each saying what fits, then the two steps, Nudge, and Exactly where: altitude and bearing, RA and Dec and the field.
- Aim Makes the sky follow the phone: hold it up and the map shows what is behind it. Drag to correct it by hand. When the map flies somewhere for you, aiming waits until you press Aim again.
- Tours Short guided walks round the sky, each handing control back between its steps.
- Framing F Your camera’s or eyepiece’s field on the sky, and whether a target fits. Pick a sensor and a focal length, or binoculars, a telescope or a hand at arm’s length. The frame stays on the sky after Framing closes, as Frame outline, until you clear it.
- Measure M The angle between two points on the sky, and the hand that covers it. While it is open, drag from one point to another — or tap one, then the other, or press Enter at each — to read it in degrees and as a hand at arm’s length. Ends snap to a star, planet or deep-sky object; closing it takes the measurement away.
- Share Copy a link to this view, or save it as a picture. The link carries the direction, the field, the time and the selection; the picture has the place and the time written underneath.
- Help ? Every key and gesture, and what each tool does.
- Full screen The whole screen for the sky, where the browser allows it.
- Hide controls Puts the map’s controls away and gives the screen to the sky. Show controls, Escape or Back brings them back.
—
Watching from
Stars only, with no horizon
Straighten
Aim works here too: point the phone at the ground to see the stars under your feet.
What to see
As the clock runs
Turns the camera to keep the Earth off the edges while the clock runs.
Show
The plane through where you stand: above it is the half of the sky you can see.
The line through the Earth towards the Sun and away from it: why the constellations change with the season.
Mercury, Venus and Mars on their paths round the Sun.
Jupiter to Neptune, Pluto and the other dwarf planets, and both belts; the camera stands back to hold them.
Every body its real size, which leaves only the Sun bigger than a dot; dots mark where they are. Drawn out at the Solar system.
The Space Station’s, a polar, GPS’s and the geostationary ring round the Earth, to scale, each with its satellite where the clock puts it. The Moon steps aside meanwhile.
L1 to L5 of the Sun and the Earth, carried round with the Earth: where a small third body can keep station with the pair.
The solstices and equinoxes as four tags on the Earth’s ring. Drawn out at the Solar system.
The Sun, the planets, the season marks and you, named out here.
Zoom
Exactly where
—
—°
—°
—
—
—
Sky brightness where you are
Rural sky
Bortle 3 ·
Your horizon
An open horizon: a field, a beach, a hilltop.
Drag each point up to the top of whatever blocks the sky that way — a fist held at arm’s length is about 10°. With the keys: arrows to change, left and right to move along.
Day of the year
Your view
Out here, tap the Earth, the Sun or the Moon to fly to it. Picking stars works from the ground, where the camera looks out from you.