Our Map of the Month is the National Geographic Heavens – Majesty of the Night Sky Map.
Winner of the British Cartographic Society’s 2024 Stanfords Award for Printed Mapping.
Across time and culture, humanity has gazed at the Heavens and marveled at the beauty and mystery each night provides. This poster was included in the special space issue of National Geographic Magazine. This chart of the stars is an all-new compilation using the latest NASA data on star locations, constellation boundaries, asterisms, and deep-sky objects.
QGIS and MAPublisher were used to select and plot every star from magnitude 5 and brighter, the visual threshold of what can be perceived by the naked eye.
The key to the deep-sky objects used new images of selected examples of each type of celestial object to add visual appeal, while star magnitudes and variable stars are given graduated symbols, the larger, the brighter.
For the map’s background, the latest whole-sky survey was projected into the view. A supplemental set of hemispheres display what the sky looks like in infrared with the Milky Way glowing with energy. Both the Bayer system using Greek letters and the traditional names for stars are included.
National Geographic Heavens – Majesty of the Night Sky Map is available now for £19.99
Please note: due to the depth of dark colour on this map, ink may transfer so handle with care.