What did the night sky look like?
The short answer: it depends on the place, not just the date
People usually ask what the sky looked like on a particular date — a birthday, a wedding day, the day someone was born. But the sky is a three-part question: date, time and place. The date fixes the season of stars; the time fixes which of them were above the horizon; the place fixes the angle you saw them from. Change any one and you're looking at a different sky.
So the sky over Regina on 4 July 1998 at 9 pm is not the sky over St. John's at 9 pm the same night — different longitude, different local time, a visibly different arrangement. That is why a real answer needs all three.
Where the answer comes from
The positions of the stars and planets for a given moment are computable. dostad uses NASA JPL ephemeris data to work them out for your exact date, time and coordinates, then draws the result at print resolution. It's a measurement, not an artist's impression: the same data astronomers use, applied to your moment.
Our reference test reproduces a documented event — the Great Conjunction of 21 December 2020, when Jupiter and Saturn passed 6.1 arcminutes apart, their closest approach since 1623. Dates from 1900 to 2100 are supported, anywhere on Earth.
The easiest way to see it
You don't have to read a star chart. Enter a date, a time and a place and you get a free watermarked preview of that sky, right away — no account needed. Search a city, a landmark or a street address; the local time zone is applied automatically, so the sky is the one that was actually overhead there at that hour.
If you're unsure of the exact time, try a few evening times on the right date and compare. An hour shifts the constellations a little, and the Moon moves noticeably from one night to the next.
See the sky on your date — free preview
What people look up
- A birthday — the sky the night you were born.
- A wedding — the sky over the ceremony, exactly as it was.
- An anniversary — the night a couple met or married.
- Someone who's gone — a date that belonged to them.
Each of those has a page with the details: birth star map, wedding star map, anniversary star map, memorial star map.
From a sky to a keepsake
Once you've found the sky you were looking for, you can keep it as a star map:
- Digital download — $2 USD. A high-resolution PNG (up to 4096 px) plus a scalable SVG, delivered instantly. - Framed print — $100 USD. 16 × 20 in (40.6 × 50.8 cm), 300 dpi on matte art stock, framed and ready to hang, shipped within Canada and the US. Includes the digital files.
Every map is made to order and personalised, so all sales are final — please check your date, time and place before you pay. If we got it wrong, we'll fix it or refund you in full. See the refund policy.
Made in Canada. Star positions from NASA JPL ephemerides.