We map the sky, exactly as it was

What we make

A Cry Me Art star map is a map of the night sky above one place on earth at one moment in time. You give us a date, a time and a location; we compute which stars were above that horizon and render them, with your names and words, as a print-ready file.

Most people make one for their own wall or as a gift, and have it printed locally. Print shops and online sellers use the same editor to produce personalised star maps for their own customers — every file includes a commercial licence, so they can sell the prints.

Real astronomy, not a decorative starfield

A lot of “star map” products print a generic starfield and add a date underneath as a caption. Ours is a real projection — change the date by six months and the constellations move, because they did.

We render 2,865 stars, down to magnitude 5.5 — the limit of what the human eye can see from a dark site. A print with every catalogued star would be a grey wash, so the result is the sky as it would actually have looked. For any moment we convert each star’s catalogue coordinates into the altitude and azimuth it had from the given latitude and longitude, accounting for the earth’s rotation and its position in orbit. Constellation lines follow the standard IAU figures.

What you receive

Every paid download is rendered at full resolution as a 300 DPI print-ready PDF, PNG and JPG at 44.5 × 59.4 cm — the same long edge as an A2 poster. It is usually ready in under a minute and works with any professional press or print-on-demand service. The full details are on the delivery and file formats page.

Printing it, and selling prints

Every paid download can be printed as many times as you like, at any size. It also includes a commercial licence, so print businesses may sell the printed products to their own customers, with no royalties. Reselling, sharing or distributing the digital file or the design template itself is not permitted.

We sell digital prints only — we do not print or post posters. That means no shipping, no customs and no waiting, anywhere in the world; any print shop can produce the file, usually the same day.

Talking to us

We are a small team, which means email reaches an actual person rather than a ticket queue. Write to [email protected] — or use the contact page — and you will usually hear back within one business day.