# Any online, free, starcharts, for both hemispheres?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-online-free-starcharts-for-both-hemispheres/217533>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 7, 2003, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-online-free-starcharts-for-both-hemispheres/217533 "2003-12-07T08:22:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-online-free-starcharts-for-both-hemispheres/217533/1 "2003-12-07T08:22:14Z")

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…complete with constellations, AND notation of stellar magnitudes?

It’s for a friend of a friend, who’s working on putting on putting an accurate night sky into a flight simulator. (If that’s of any help.)

I kind of have a feeling about what the answer’s going to be…but still, I thank y’all for your patience,  
Ranchoth

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**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-online-free-starcharts-for-both-hemispheres/217533/2 "2003-12-07T10:38:41Z")

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I use Celestia, myself-  
[http://www.shatters.net/celestia/](http://www.shatters.net/celestia/)  
an excellent 3d star simulator…

and sometimes  
yoursky  
[http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/](http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/)

or 3d universe  
[http://www.astronexus.com/3duniv/contents/main.html](http://www.astronexus.com/3duniv/contents/main.html)

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**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-online-free-starcharts-for-both-hemispheres/217533/3 "2003-12-08T01:16:40Z")

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Thanks for the links, **eburacum**. And I’m finally glad to find a [decent map of neighboring star systems](http://anzwers.org/free/universe/12lys.html)…

…but I think my friend needs something like a diagram/printout of the “skin” of a[star globe/constellation globe.](http://www.astronomers.net/astronomy/ua120.htm) I’m not sure he’d have the patience to work from a full-3D simulation. ☹

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**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-online-free-starcharts-for-both-hemispheres/217533/4 "2003-12-08T05:08:58Z")

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If your friend needs data for a computer program, what he/she needs is a star _catalog_, i.e. a list of star coordinates. The [SAO Catalog](http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/catalogs/sao.html) contains stars up to magnitude 9, so it has everything visible to the naked eye. That page also has a link to the PPM catalog which is a bit newer and more complete; I’ve never worked with it but it might be a better choice. You might want to add the Milky Way, the moon and the planets, but that’s about it. Any introductory book or web site on astronomy should have the formulas necessary to convert from stellar coordinates to terrestrial (altitude & azimuth), but ask again if you have any problems.

If you were making a planetarium software with closeup views I’d advise you to use the Hubble Guide Star Catalog, but that’s a complete overkill for a flight sim background.