Sky Map 2000 guides

Explore the sky with confidence.

These pages describe every panel, tool and layer in Sky Map 2000, and cover the astronomy that sits behind them. Use them to explore the night sky, identify stars, planets and deep-sky objects, discover constellations, and plan observations for any date and location.

Sky Map 2000 interface with observer controls, constellation lines, stars and map tools — Sky Map 2000 is a browser planetarium and configurable star atlas for the sky above your selected place, tuned for orientation, teaching and everyday observing plans.

Start here

First read

Introduction

What Sky Map 2000 is designed to help with, the data it draws on and what it does not try to be.

Read the introduction

Five minutes

Getting started

Set an observing location, choose a time and make your first working view of the sky.

Begin the guide

What this guide will help you do

Find your bearings

Tie the map to a real place and time, then move between the horizon-based view and the atlas grid depending on what you want to see.

Choose a target

Search stars, planets and deep-sky objects, read the object card and see whether the target is up now or waiting for later.

Plan realistically

Take a shortlist from the observation planner and weigh it against the weather, the moon and the light pollution you cannot see from your desk.

About these guides

Written against the running app

Every description here tracks the current build of Sky Map 2000, and is updated when a control moves, a data source changes or a new feature ships.

Next guides

Continue with map controls and tools, observer location, date and time, coordinate systems, layers and labels, meteor showers, search and object cards, object cards and map key, and the observation planner.