Interactive sky map
The whole sky above you, right now or at any time you choose. Hold the map overhead with the top towards north: it shows the sky as you see it lying on your back, so east is on the left. The horizon is the outer circle and the point straight overhead is the centre. Tap a star to identify it.
Tap a star to see its name.
Reading the map
- Brighter stars are bigger dots. The map shows every star of magnitude 5 or brighter — about what you can see from a dark suburb. From a city centre, you may see only the brightest few dozen.
- Colours are the stars' real colours, exaggerated: Betelgeuse and Antares are orange-red, Rigel and Spica blue-white.
- The sky turns about 15° an hour, around the celestial pole (near Polaris in the north). Move the time slider to watch stars rise in the east and set in the west.
- Planets are not shown. If you see a bright "star" that is not on the map, near the path of the sun and moon, it is probably a planet such as Venus, Jupiter or Saturn.
Getting started
Find a few anchors first. In the northern hemisphere, the Big Dipper (part of Ursa Major) points to Polaris, which marks north — see how to find north by the stars. In winter, Orion's belt of three stars points down to Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. In the southern hemisphere, the Southern Cross and its two bright pointer stars lead to the south celestial pole. Let your eyes adjust to the dark for 20 minutes and avoid looking at your phone at full brightness.
Stars: the Yale Bright Star Catalogue, 5th revised edition (Hoffleit and Warren, 1991). Star names: the International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Star Names. Constellation figures: d3-celestial by Olaf Frohn (BSD licence). Star, sun and moon positions: our astronomy code (Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms), checked against the US Naval Observatory — 77 navigational star positions agree to within 0.03°. See Sources and credits.