While there are also a few free well-known atlases online: Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas by Ronald Stoyan and Stephan Schurig.Uranometria 2000.0 by Tirion, Rappaport, and Remaklus.Sky and Telescope’s Pocket Sly Atlas by Roger W.Sky Atlas 2000.0 by Wil Tirion & Roger W.Here is a non-complete list of the probably most widely-known atlases on the market: My goal was to produce a publication quality, both practical and visually pleasing star atlas aimed at amateur astronomers. To do this I had to first study the atlases currently available on the market, because I did not want to reinvent the wheel. Now that I know quite a lot about astronomical data, and I know how to make nice plots using the python programming language, I though the time was just about right to actually try and see if I can really make one.

My practical participation in amateur astronomy ceased to continue soon after I started my university studies, and moving under the heavily light-polluted skies of Belgium did not help to reignite my interests later on, but I always kept my fascination towards mapping (the night sky), and I always wanted to make a proper (sky) atlas myself. It was (and still is) a great black and white atlas positioned somewhere between Uranometria 2000.0 and Sky Atlas 2000.0 (based on its limited magnitude and resolution). It took a few years until I managed to buy a proper atlas, thanks to the release of the “Égabrosz” in 2004, which was the first professional-quality sky atlas produced in Hungary. I went on youth astronomy camps, where I tried to find as many Messier objects as I could under the dark rural skies of the Mátra mountains (besides regularly drawing sunspots and observing variable stars whenever I could), and for this I definitely needed a sky map.īack then – just like 99% of the Hungarian amateurs – I had no money to order any of the nice star atlases from abroad (e.g., the actual edition of Uranometria 2000.0 was definitely high on my wish-list, but always way over my budget), so I used mostly the AAVSO charts for variable stars, and an “atlas” that I printed at home using a free version of the SkyMap Pro software. Even though my love of astronomy dates back to long before that, joining the HAA was the start of my actual amateur astronomy career. But let me start with a small background story: I joined the Hungarian Astronomical Association in 1999 (the year of the great European total solar eclipse) at the age of 14, just after receiving a 76/700 Newton reflector from my parents for Christmas. I am a professional astronomer who loves maps.

Uranometria map online