Free Star Maps / Star Charts, Mirrors and Links

About this project

There are a lot of different types of free star maps and star charts out there, many of which have disappeared over the years. This is my attempt to catalog and mirror as many of them as I can so all amateur astronomers can freely download them because quality printable sky maps are hard to find.

This project started when I went to get a copy of the TriAtlas maps because I could not find what I had done with the ones I downloaded years ago. I was horrified to find out that the website was gone and try as I might, several versions of the charts seemed to be gone forever.

Since I have a pretty good hosting package, plenty of room, and not that many people go looking for these so the bandwidth would be minimal, I decided it would not be a problem to host the maps myself. This of course assumes I can find all the maps.

Once I started on hosting a mirror of the TriAtlas project I found other similar types of maps from other people scattered around and wondered how long it would be before they too disappeared. So now here I go on a quest to host as many as I can before we all lose access to these wonderful works.

The Printable Free Star Maps

The Mag-7 Star Atlas Project Mirror – These 16 A4 charts are more of something you use to navigate than something to explore deep space with. The limiting of magnitude 7 makes for easy to read and uncluttered charts, handy to have at the scope.

Created by Andrew L Johnson originally at http://www.siaris.net/astro/atlas/ these would make an idea free star map for use with a telrad or other red dot finder device.

Taki’s 8.5 Magnitude Star Atlas Mirror – With about 160 A4 charts, these magnitude 8.5 charts are excellent for use at the telescope for navigation, particularly in dense areas of the sky. He has included versions with and without constellation lines, and is the only set of free star maps I know of that also come in PowerPoint format in addition to the standard PDFs.

Toshimi Taki originally created these back in 2005 and as of this writing, they are still available on his http://www.geocities.jp/toshimi_taki/atlas_85/atlas_85.htm website.

The TriAtlas Project Mirror, Free Star Charts – These were the first free star maps I found on the internet years ago and remain the only ones I have ever printed out. They were created by José Ramón Torres and Casey Skelton and were originally housed at https://www.uv.es/jrtorres/triatlas.html.

I love the fact that there are several different versions to choose from and that each set can link to a more detailed set. This means I can start with the set with the least detail to get my bearings and then as I find where I want to focus in I can use the pointers to switch over to the much more detailed charts.

Each set goes down to a specific limiting magnitude; 9.5 for the A set, 11 for the B set, and 12.6 for the C set. This makes these the deepest magnitude of any set of free star maps I know of.

This is also one of the few free star maps out there that the author has made both ISO A4 sets and USA letter sized sets. This made it much easier for me to print out since some other sets are ISO only.

Deep Sky Hunter Star Atlas – Here is another set of free star maps, and the most recent ones of the bunch. Michael Vlasov created these A4 magnitude 10.2 charts and goes into a great amount of detail about them on his website (linked above) including step by step directions on how to print and bind them.

He has a mirror on to his complete second edition at https://app.box.com/s/blczk1xvuo72p69yo1qr

Definitely worth taking a look at.

Closing notes

If you find parts of these that I do not have, entire works I have missed, or are the author of a set you are interested in me mirroring, please use the contact button which is at the top of every page to contact me.