About & method

What this site is for

StarryNight is a field atlas for amateur observers. It is not trying to retell astrophysics, and it is not trying to be another encyclopaedia entry per constellation. It answers three practical questions before you go outside: what is up tonight, where exactly is it, and how much of it will my equipment actually show me.

There are currently 15 published constellation sheets and 4 monthly guides, with the rest of the atlas arriving on a published schedule.

How the sheets are made

• Catalogue values come from published sources: IAU constellation boundaries and areas, bright-star catalogues and spectral classifications. Areas are given in square degrees and the brightest star is quoted with its magnitude.
• Finding directions are written as star-hops from a bright star you already know, not as "somewhere near" a constellation name.
• Observing notes are graded by aperture: what binoculars show, what 60–100 mm shows, what 150–200 mm adds.
• The illustrations are not photographs. Each is a vector star chart generated from that page's own data, so the table and the chart can never disagree.
• Monthly guides publish before their month starts, with phase and shower dates given as approximations and a reminder to check an almanac.

Corrections

Astronomical data is easy to get subtly wrong in transcription, especially magnitudes, spectral types and the mapping between English and Chinese star names. If a value on a sheet disagrees with your catalogue, write to us and tell us what you are comparing against. Once confirmed, we fix it and log the change on this page.

Confirmed corrections will be listed here with the date they were made.

Contact

Corrections, suggestions and reuse requests all go to [email protected]. We usually reply within a week.