The stars of someone’s own day

Why a star map makes a good birthday gift

Everyone has a birthday, yet almost nobody has ever seen what the sky looked like that night. That is exactly what this gift does: it shows something that always existed but was never looked at. It works well for milestone birthdays — eighteen, thirty, fifty — and for people who already have everything, because this is not something you can buy for yourself without entering your own date of birth. It is also one of the few gifts that works just as well for a teenager as for an eighty-year-old.

What details you need

The date and place of birth are enough. The hour of birth makes the map more precise, but it is not essential: if you don’t know it, 22:00 is a safe choice that gives a well-filled evening sky. If you don’t know the exact place of birth, the nearest city is accurate enough — the night sky barely differs across a few dozen kilometres.

How it works

You choose a date, a time and a place. From that we calculate the exact star positions using the HYG catalogue and the IAU 1982 sidereal time formula — the same method professional planetarium software uses. What you see in the preview is what gets printed.

Frequently asked questions

I don’t know the hour of birth. Can I still order?

Yes. Leave it at 22:00; that gives an evening sky with plenty of visible stars. It is the date and the place that make the map personal.

Does this work for someone born abroad?

Yes. You can enter any place in the world; we calculate with the coordinates and the time zone of that location.

How quickly will it arrive for a birthday next week?

Within the EU usually three to six working days after ordering. If the birthday is four days away it will be tight — in that case announcing it with the preview is a good alternative.