A Personalized Star Map Gift
A star map is the rare personalized gift that is literally about the other person: the actual sky above the moment that matters to them.
Start their star map
Free, in your browser — no account, nothing uploaded. Both downloads are the complete chart: a vector SVG and a 300 dpi PNG, with nothing held back and nothing to buy.
Pick the moment that belongs to them and the chart writes itself:
- Wedding or engagement — the sky over the venue at the vows.
- New baby — the sky over the hospital at the recorded minute of birth.
- The night you met — or the first date, the proposal, the airport reunion.
- A birthday — especially round ones; pair the chart with the story of that night.
- In memory — a quiet, non-religious way to mark a life.
Then personalize: names as the title, a one-line dedication as the subtitle, the town you picked (or exact coordinates) as the place line, navy or ink-on-paper theme, and a poster size from 30×40 cm to 50×70 cm.
Honest scope: this tool generates the artwork file — it does not print, frame or ship anything. You take the file to any print shop or online poster service, and that shop is the only part of this that costs money. The file itself is free and complete — a vector SVG and a 300 dpi PNG, with nothing obscured and nothing to unlock.
How the map is computed
You give it three things: a date, a time, and a place. For the place, type a town or city name and pick it from the list — 29,919 towns and cities of 18,000 people or more, from GeoNames — or enter an exact latitude and longitude instead. Accents are optional (“malmo” finds Malmö), but type the name on its own: “Roskilde Denmark” finds nothing, and a typo finds nothing rather than the wrong sky.
Your date, time and place are converted to a Julian Date and then to local sidereal time — the astronomer’s clock for “which way is the sky facing.” Each of the 1,630 stars in the Yale Bright Star Catalogue (every star brighter than magnitude 5.0, i.e. every star a good naked eye can see) is transformed to its altitude and azimuth at that exact moment, and every one of those stars above the horizon is projected onto the circular chart: zenith at the centre, horizon at the rim, north at the top — and east on the left, because a star map is read looking up, which mirrors east and west compared to a ground map.
The 89 constellation figures are drawn with the same math and clipped at the horizon. Star dots are scaled by real brightness (magnitude) and tinted by star colour. The Moon is drawn at its real altitude, azimuth and phase for your moment, and left off entirely when it was below your horizon. It does not show the planets, comets or satellites — those wander against the fixed stars and need ephemerides, which this version does not compute. Everything runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and the page works offline once loaded.
Common questions
How do I turn the file into a physical gift?
Download the file, then order a poster print from any local print shop or online service and frame it. The ink-on-paper theme is the budget-friendly choice — it's dark marks on near-white, so it prints well on standard stock.
Which moment should I pick if I'm not sure?
The wedding night and a child's birth are the classics because the exact time is documented. For “the night we met,” a remembered evening hour is plenty — the sky changes slowly across an evening.
Can I preview before deciding?
Yes — the generator is free and unlimited, so you can try several moments, themes and captions and only print the one you love.