Charting the sky…
The download is the finished print: pick the size first and the file comes out in those proportions, ready for any photo lab, print shop or frame. Matte paper suits the darker styles; the light Paper and Atlas styles look best on an uncoated or textured stock.
We're setting up printed and framed versions shipped straight to your door, so you can order the exact map you see here. Leave your email and we'll write once, when it's ready.
Every map is computed for the exact place and minute you choose: the stars where they stood above that spot, the planets where they actually were, and the Moon at its real phase, lit from the side the Sun was on. Things below the horizon are left off, because you couldn't have seen them.
That's why the hour matters as much as the date. The sky turns a full circle every day, so 9 pm and 3 am on the same night show different halves of it, and the same minute looks different from Sydney than from Chicago.
Star positions from the Hipparcos-derived catalog in d3-celestial (BSD); planets and Moon from astronomy-engine. Map is a stereographic projection centered on the point straight overhead, with north at the top and east on the left, as it looks lying on your back with your head to the north.
Many people don't know the minute they were born. Midnight or noon are honest defaults; or choose 9 pm that evening for the sky as it looked once it got dark.