How to Print the Sky Chart

If you have a color printer and a generous budget for ink, you can print the maximized All-Sky Chart or Selected View in living color. Simply choose the view you want, then click your browser's PRINT button or choose File > Print from the menu bar. Use the landscape (wider than tall) setting for the Selected View; either the landscape or portrait (taller than wide) setting will work for the All-Sky Chart.

You'd probably rather not use so much ink all at once. So we've provided the capability to generate a black-on-white version of the All-Sky Chart as an Adobe PDF file suitable for economical printing on either a color or black-and-white printer. (Sorry, but this capability does not exist for the Selected View.)

In the lower-left corner of the All-Sky Chart, whether in the Combined View or maximized display, you'll see a CREATE PDF button. If you click it, your browser should call up a PDF file of the All-Sky Chart corresponding to the current date, time, and location settings. This may take a minute or two, and depending on which operating system and browser you're using, the PDF may open in the browser itself or in Adobe Reader.

The PDF chart will show all the objects, lines, and labels that the All-Sky Chart is capable of displaying, regardless of which boxes are currently checked in Advanced Display Options. As a result, the printable chart may look cluttered, and some labels (all of which are in the same orientation) may overlap others. Still, if you print this PDF, you'll have a chart reasonably well suited to use outside under the night sky. (You might be able to minimize label overlap by changing the chart's time by 15 or 20 minutes either way and generating a new PDF.)

The foregoing assumes that you already have the free Adobe Reader program on your computer and that it is properly configured as a "helper" application for your Web browser. If that's not the case, then rather than open the PDF automatically, your browser may ask you to save it to disk.

Note that the printable All-Sky Chart may not open if your copy of Adobe Reader is older than version 5.0 You can get a free upgrade to the latest version (7.0 as of May 2005) at Adobe's Web site. Adobe Reader is available for PCs and Macs running all popular operating systems.

Another alternative is to use one of the bimonthly sky charts provided in our Getting Started in Astronomy flyer, which is available in Adobe PDF format for observers in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The maps in Getting Started produce high-quality 8½-by-11-inch (or A4) printouts in black and white. Here's a detail from one such printout:

These charts don't show the ever-changing positions of the Moon and planets. If you see a bright "star" near the line labeled "ECLIPTIC" that's not on the map, you've located a planet. To figure out which one it is, consult the latest issue of Sky & Telescope or use the Interactive Sky Chart).

If this Help page doesn't answer your questions, please send an e-mail message to help@SkyandTelescope.com. Describe your problem in as much detail as possible, and note which part of the site you were on when you got stuck. Thank you!