From the Sun to Andromeda at true distances — rotatable 3D view

A rotation-first view of the stars within 2,000 light-years of the Sun, where turning the map is how you work out which star sits close in front and which one hangs far behind it.

The depth that only shows up when you turn it

Looking up at the night sky, every star seems glued to the same curved ceiling. This view places those same stars at real three-dimensional coordinates, so depth reveals itself through motion: as you swing the viewpoint, nearby stars slide a long way across the screen while distant ones barely budge. That difference in apparent motion is the distance information. A still picture cannot carry it, which is why this view is built around turning rather than looking.

Turning, zooming, picking

Drag to swing the map in any direction. Use the wheel or a two-finger pinch to zoom in on the handful of light-years right next to the Sun, or pull back until the whole 2,000-light-year volume fits in one frame. Selecting a star brings up its name and where it sits along the line of sight. A small rocking motion left and right reads better than one long spin: the back-and-forth is what your eye converts into depth, and a few seconds of it usually settles the ordering of a group.

Where the coordinates come from

Each star is placed by combining its direction on the sky with a measured distance, converted into rectangular coordinates. Those distances come from observational catalogs, so uncertainty grows with range and the far end of the map is more approximate than the near end. The dot sizes convey brightness and spectral class; they are not physical diameters, which would be invisible here. Treat the layout as an educational picture of the neighborhood, and check a published catalog when you need exact figures.

When this view earns its keep

Find a constellation you know, then rotate slowly. Within seconds the figure falls apart, because the stars drawn into one shape turn out to sit at wildly different distances. Jumping between a close neighbor like Proxima Centauri and a remote one like Deneb gives the scale gap a physical feel that a number on a page does not. In a classroom or a talk it replaces the sentence "a constellation is just a direction from Earth" with something the audience watches happen. Any star that catches your attention can be followed up in the site's object encyclopedia.

Look it up here

• Where in the sky is the constellation Orion? The whole Orion pattern is drawn on the flat sky map for tonight, with its direction and each star named. Show it here →
• What kind of star is Alpha Centauri? The nearest star system: a Sun-like A and an orange B circling each other, with Proxima nearby. Show it here →
• Are constellation shapes real or just line of sight? Constellation shapes line up by direction only; in the neighbourhood view their stars scatter at wildly different distances. Show it here →
• How far away is the star Deneb? Deneb lies about 2,600 light-years away, unusually far for a naked-eye star, and the 3D map shows the gap. Show it here →
• How far is Sirius from the Sun? Sirius is a neighbour 8.6 light-years away, with the white dwarf Sirius B tucked beside it. Show it here →
• What is the largest known star? Stephenson 2-18 spans about 2,150 solar radii; put in the Sun's place it would swallow Saturn's orbit. Show it here →
• How big is UY Scuti? UY Scuti is a red supergiant of roughly 1,700 solar radii, about 5,100 light-years away. Show it here →
• What kind of star is VY Canis Majoris? One of the most luminous red hypergiants, shedding huge shells of gas and headed for a supernova. Show it here →
• How far away is the Orion Nebula? The Orion Nebula is a star-forming region about 1,344 light-years away, drawn at its true place in the 3D map. Show it here →
• How many stars are in the Pleiades? Six or seven to the eye, but really a young open cluster of a thousand-odd stars about 444 light-years away. Show it here →
• How far away is the Andromeda Galaxy? Andromeda is our neighbouring spiral about 2.5 million light-years away, shown side by side with the Milky Way. Show it here →
• What shape is the Milky Way? A barred spiral about 100,000 light-years across; the Sun sits between spiral arms some 26,000 light-years from the centre. Show it here →
• What lies at the centre of the Milky Way? Sagittarius A*, a black hole of about four million solar masses, with stars whipping around it. Show it here →
• How fast does the Vela Pulsar spin? The Vela Pulsar is a neutron star turning once every 89 milliseconds, more than eleven times a second. Show it here →
• Where is the nearest known black hole? Gaia BH1, about 1,560 light-years away in Ophiuchus, is the closest black hole confirmed so far. Show it here →
• How massive is the black hole TON 618? Around 66 billion solar masses, among the heaviest known, powering a quasar 10.4 billion light-years away. Show it here →
• Which black hole was photographed first? M87*, imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2019, at the heart of the galaxy M87 some 53 million light-years away. Show it here →
• How far is the Hercules Cluster M13? M13 is a globular cluster of several hundred thousand stars packed into a ball about 22,000 light-years away. Show it here →
• Where is the Large Magellanic Cloud? A satellite galaxy of the Milky Way about 160,000 light-years away in the southern sky, home to the Tarantula Nebula. Show it here →
• How far away is Polaris? Polaris is a yellow supergiant about 430 light-years away; the light you see left it some four centuries ago. Show it here →
• Where does the Solar System end? The heliopause sits near 120 AU, but the Oort cloud of comets stretches out to 100,000 AU, about 1.6 light-years. Show it here →
• Where is Voyager 1 now? Voyager 1 is beyond 160 AU from the Sun, crossing interstellar space at 17 km per second. Show it here →
• Where is the Kuiper belt? A belt of icy bodies from 30 to 50 AU, just beyond Neptune, with Pluto orbiting inside it. Show it here →
• What is the Helix Nebula? A planetary nebula about 650 light-years away, the shed outer layers of a dying Sun-like star seen as a ring. Show it here →
• How long would it take to reach Andromeda at light speed? Light takes 8 min 19 s to Earth, 4 h to Neptune, 4.2 yr to Proxima and 2.5 million yr to Andromeda — ride the whole trip at true time ratios. Show it here →
• Why is Barnard's Star famous? A red dwarf six light-years away with the fastest apparent motion of any star, a full-Moon width every 180 years. Show it here →

Things to try

At light speed, by rocket, by car — journeys computed from real positions and speeds. Every item below is a custom-journey link.

• 💡To Proxima at light speedFour years and three months to the nearest star — its light left in 2022.
• 💡To Sirius at light speed8.6 years to the brightest star in the night sky.
• 💡To Betelgeuse at light speedAbout 550 years — the Betelgeuse you see is light from the 15th century.
• 💡To the Orion Nebula at light speed1,344 years to the nearest great star-forming cloud.
• 💡To the galactic centre at light speed26,000 years to the black hole Sagittarius A*.
• 💡To the Large Magellanic Cloud at light speed160,000 years to our satellite galaxy.
• 💡To Andromeda at light speed2.5 million years — the Andromeda you see predates humanity.
• 🚀To Proxima with today's rocketsAt Earth-escape speed (40,000 km/h) about 110,000 years — why a generation ship would be needed.
• 🛰To Proxima at Voyager 1's speedAt 17 km/s, roughly 74,000 years.
• 🌞To Proxima at Parker Solar Probe's top speedEven the fastest human-made object (690,000 km/h) needs about 6,600 years.
• ✈To Proxima by airlinerAt 900 km/h, about five million years.
• ☄To the edge of the Solar System at light speedOne year and seven months to the outer Oort cloud, 1.6 light-years out.

Make your own: the custom-journey grammar (cj=) puts a name, up to 10 stops, a speed per leg and arrival captions into one link — see llms.txt. In the 3D map the ✈ button opens a visual editor that turns selected bodies into stops (Pro plan).

FAQ

Why does a constellation fall apart when I rotate it?

A constellation groups stars that merely happen to lie in similar directions as seen from Earth. This view puts them at their measured distances, so once the viewpoint leaves Earth there is nothing holding the pattern together. Watching the shape dissolve is the point of the view, not a glitch.

How is this different from a flat star chart?

A flat chart keeps direction and throws distance away. Here distance is kept as a coordinate, so rotating splits stars that looked stacked on top of each other into a front-to-back order. The trade-off is that a flat chart is still the better tool when you want to know where to point your eyes outdoors tonight.

How far out does this map go?

It covers the major stars within 2,000 light-years of the Sun. That is a small chip of the galaxy, but it contains most of the bright stars visible to the naked eye.

→ Keep reading in the object index → Sky news