Where the sky on our prints comes from
Nothing on an Atlas Print is a stock illustration of space. The Moon, the planets and the stars come from real missions and real catalogues, and the people who made them asked to be credited. So here they are.
Sun
Mercury
Venus
Moon
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
The Moon
Built from the colour map and elevation model of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, published by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. We light it ourselves, to the positions of the Sun and Moon for your birth date, because no camera was pointed at the Moon for you that night. The shadows along the edge come from the real terrain.
| Source | What we use |
|---|---|
| NASA Scientific Visualization Studio | CGI Moon Kit: the LRO LROC colour map and LOLA elevation (SVS 4720) |
The planets
Each one is a photograph taken by the spacecraft that went there, cut out of black space so it sits on navy, white or black paper.
| Body | Mission | Image | Credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Sun | Solar Dynamics Observatory, visible light | HMI | NASA/SDO and the HMI science team |
| Mercury | MESSENGER, 2009 | PIA12371 | NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington |
| Venus | Mariner 10, 1974 | PIA23791 | NASA/JPL-Caltech |
| Mars | Viking Orbiter global mosaic | PIA00407 | NASA/JPL/USGS |
| Jupiter | Cassini, 2000 | PIA04866 | NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Saturn | Cassini, 2004 | PIA06193 | NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Uranus | Voyager 2, 1986 | PIA18182 | NASA/JPL-Caltech |
| Neptune | Voyager 2, 1989 | PIA01492 | NASA/JPL |
| Pluto | New Horizons, 2015 | PIA19857 | NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute |
The stars
Every star on a constellation print is placed at its catalogued position and drawn at its catalogued brightness, down to what you could see on a dark night. The lines joining them are the International Astronomical Union's figures.
| What | Source |
|---|---|
| Star positions | XHIP, an extended Hipparcos compilation (Anderson and Francis, 2012), J2000 |
| Constellation figures | After the IAU constellation charts, via d3-celestial by Olaf Frohn (BSD licence) |
The homepage
The worlds that drift behind the homepage are drawn from these surface maps.
| What | Source |
|---|---|
| Planet surfaces | Solar System Scope textures, CC BY 4.0 |
| Earth | NASA Blue Marble |
| The Sun | Surface map by James Hastings-Trew |
NASA imagery is used under NASA's media guidelines, which ask for credit and do not imply that NASA endorses anything, including us.
Your own sky
The same real Moon, planets and stars, set to the night you were born. The one thing on your wall that's about you.