Birthday
Star map gifts for a birthday
A birth-date star map is the rare personalised gift that gets more interesting with age. The sky above a town on a particular night in a particular decade is genuinely unrepeatable, and unlike most birthday presents it does not need to be used to be worth keeping.
Which night to choose
The map is only as good as the date behind it. These are the choices that work best for a birthday.
The birth itself
Use the town of birth, not the town they live in now. If the exact hour is known, use it — birth times are often on the certificate.
A milestone birthday
For a 30th, 40th or 50th, some people prefer the sky on the birthday being celebrated over the birth year. Both read well.
The year they were born
If the date is known but the place is not, a major city in the right country still produces a sky that is accurate to the night.
When to order
No lead time to plan around — the digital print is emailed the moment you pay, so a birthday you were reminded of at breakfast is still fine. If you want something to hand over, print it locally and put it in an off-the-shelf frame.
How file delivery works →Designs for a birthday
Every design takes any date — these are the ones that suit a birthday best.
What to write on it
Every star map carries a title line and a short message beneath the date and place. These are the lines people use most for a birthday — or write your own.
- “The Night You Arrived”
- “Hello, World”
- “Thirty Years Under These Stars”
- “The Sky On Your First Night”
Selling birthday star maps?
Print shops and online sellers use the same editor to make personalised star maps for their own customers. Every file includes a commercial licence to sell the prints.
Cry Me Art for print businesses →Birthday star maps — common questions
- Can I make a star map for a date decades ago?
- Yes. The star positions are computed astronomically rather than looked up, so any date works — a birth in 1950 is calculated exactly as precisely as one last week.
- I do not know the exact birth time. Does it matter?
- It changes how far the sky has rotated, but not which stars were above that place that night. If the time is unknown, pick an evening hour; the result is still a true map of that night's sky.
- Is a star map a good gift for a milestone birthday?
- It suits milestone birthdays particularly well, because the gift's value comes from the distance in time rather than from novelty — a 40-year-old sky feels like a document in a way a recent one does not.
More answers on the full FAQ.
Other occasions
Make a star map for a birthday
Pick the night, the place and the words. See your star map before you pay.
Start creating