A Galactic Chart

This map is a plot of all the stars visible with the naked eye. There are approximately 9000 stars visible with the naked eye. This map is plotted in galactic coordinates - the plane of the Milky Way galaxy passes across the middle of this chart with the zero point of galactic latitude and longitude pointing directly at the galactic centre. The majority of the stars plotted on this map are within a thousand light years from us, which is only a minute part (less than 0.1%) of our galaxy, although there are a few naked eye stars which are probably beyond ten thousand light years. All of the 88 constellations have also been marked onto this map although constellations have no real significance - all constellations consist of stars that lie at very different distances. There is a negative version of this map which might be easier to print.

A Galactic Chart
The Milky Way Galaxy Back to the Milky Way Galaxy page