The night sky, now

Hold your phone up to the sky: the map shows what is there right now, with constellations, planets and the Moon, anywhere in the world. On a computer, drag the sky with the mouse. Tap anything to find out what it is. Under Layers you can add the myths of the constellations, the houses and the ascendant, the planets' paths, the space stations and a grid for navigation.

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Everything is computed: the Sun, Moon and planets in your browser, the stars from the Yale Bright Star Catalogue. Your location never leaves your device. A phone's compass points to magnetic north; the map corrects for your place with the World Magnetic Model. It can still be ten degrees or more off, especially near metal; a bright star or the Moon helps to line it up.

The layers

Under Layers each one can be switched on and off by itself: constellation lines, their names, the names of stars and planets, the zodiac, the paths, the houses, the grid, comets and meteors, the space stations. The map remembers your choice.

• Myths: a small ✦ appears at the constellations. Tap the name to read what the Greeks and others saw there, and what there is to discover today.
• Zodiac: the golden line is the ecliptic, the Sun's path through the year; the Moon and planets always stay close to it. On it stand the twelve zodiac signs as astrology counts them.
• Houses & ascendant: the ascendant is the point of the zodiac rising in the east right now, the MC the one standing highest. The twelve houses divide the sky above and below you into fields; turn your phone and you see which house the Moon is in. Drawn after Campanus, the division that can be drawn on the sky itself.
• Paths: where the Sun, Moon and bright planets go in the next 24 hours, with a dot for each hour. Tap them to learn when they rise and set.
• Navigation: a grid, the celestial equator and poles. From the Big Dipper a line leads to Polaris and so to north; in the southern hemisphere from the Southern Cross to the south celestial pole. The pole's height above the horizon is your latitude: that is how sailors found their position for centuries.
• Space stations: the International Space Station, China's Tiangong and the Hubble telescope, where they are now and their track. Under Events you find their next visible passes over your place: when they cross the sky lit by the Sun while it is already dark for you.

Sky events

Under Events are eclipses, meteor shower peaks, comets, planets meeting and the passes of the space stations. Tap one: the map jumps to the moment your place sees it best and works out how it looks from there, for a solar eclipse for instance how much of the Sun is covered. All events of the coming months are also on the page Sky events.

Zodiac signs and constellations

The zodiac signs are each exactly 30 degrees long, counted from the vernal equinox. The constellations of the same name now lie almost one sign further on: the Earth's axis wobbles slowly, and in a little over 2000 years the vernal equinox has moved from Aries into Pisces. When astrology says the Moon is in Capricorn, it means the sign. On the map you can see which constellation it stands in front of.

How it works

• Compass: on a phone the map follows the direction the camera points. On an iPhone the browser asks for permission once.
• Place: when it opens, the map asks for your location; the browser asks for permission once. The location stays on your device. Under Place you can choose a city anywhere instead; without either, the map uses central Germany. Times are shown in local time.
• Time: the slider moves up to a day back or forward; Dawn jumps to the moment it gets light the next morning.
• Red light: turns the map red so your eyes stay used to the dark.

Constellations: lines and names from d3-celestial by Olaf Frohn (BSD licence). Stars: Yale Bright Star Catalogue, 5th edition. Places: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Magnetic field: World Magnetic Model 2025, NOAA and BGS. Satellite orbits: CelesTrak; orbit model: satellite.js (MIT).