All constellation lines are drawn from Earth's viewpoint, and these shapes deform quickly with a retreat of just a few light-years. Watch constellation shapes shift to reveal the vast differences in distances and brightnesses that make up the asterisms we're familiar with in our night sky.
Albireo appears as a gold-and-blue coloured binary pair visible through a small telescope. Seen in 3D, this optical double splits into two stars separated by over 30 light years, far too distant to be bound in an orbit. This beautiful colour pairing is a chance alignment seen from Earth, and the true separation can only be seen in simulation.
2,888 binary pairs are in the catalogue with published orbits. Period, eccentricity and inclination come from observation, and separation is either measured or derived from Kepler's laws where no orbit has been observed visually. View any measured system both live and under time acceleration to see the 3D dynamics of multiple star systems visible to the naked eye like Castor, Algol, and Alula Australis.
All eight planets and Pluto sit at their real-time positions, including all major moons, atmospheres, axial tilt and rotation. The clock indicates the current moment in the simulation and can be accelerated and scrubbed anywhere from 3000 BCE to 3000 CE.
The heliopause, a teardrop-shaped boundary around the Sun, marks the equilibrium point between its stellar energy and interstellar space. NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 probes measured it as they left our Solar System, crossing its outer edge in 2012 and 2018 respectively.
Watch the Moon's shadow race across the surface of the Earth during a solar eclipse or watch the Sun disappear behind the Moon. Use the time scrubber to experience any eclipse within the last 5,000 years. Try looking up a lunar eclipse, too!
Use Observe mode to see the night sky as it appears from any star, moon, or planet in the catalogue. Stars appear at their local brightness, colour, position, and size according to your viewing location. See what Orion looks like from Tau Ceti, Vega, Aldebaran or Polaris.
Chart mode renders the sky as it would be set in a paper atlas from any location you're observing from, whether Earth or another star. Variable and binary stars are marked on the chart alongside molecular clouds, constellations, and your chosen celestial sphere grid reference.
Invisible to the naked eye, sparse but massive dust clouds dim and redden the light from distant stars. Both named molecular clouds and analytical dust volumes are incorporated into the model volume, accurately showing what you would see and how individual stars would appear from any vantage you're viewing from.
Stellata's model is built from 34 catalogues and datasets ranging from historical observations through to the latest data from Gaia and Hipparcos. Beyond catalogue placement, the modelling record cites 200 published works, each held in a detailed citation index with the precise claims that each is cited for.
Every formula, calibration, deliberate simplification, and choice is written down and attributed, always moving towards the highest fidelity model based on current data. Where a value departs from the paper it cites, the codebase gives both values and states why.
| Subsystem | Sources | Principal authorities |
|---|---|---|
| Stars | 12 | Gaia DR3 · Tycho-2 · Hipparcos · CNS5 · Bright Star Catalogue · Bailer-Jones 2021 geometric distances · GCVS 5.1 · the IAU Working Group on Star Names |
| Double & multiple stars | 4 | Washington Double Star Catalog · Sixth Orbit Catalog · Tokovinin 2018 Multiple Star Catalog · the Hipparcos CCDM component register |
| Milky Way band | 6 | Bland-Hawthorn 2016 · Leinert 1998 diffuse night-sky brightness · Drimmel 2001 · Cardelli 1989 extinction law |
| Interstellar medium | 3 | Edenhofer 2024 3D dust map · Zucker 2020 & 2021 molecular clouds · Zucker 2022 Local Bubble surface |
| Planets & moons | 5 | Standish 1992 planetary elements (JPL) · JPL Solar System Dynamics moon elements · NASA planetary fact sheets · Archinal 2018 (IAU WGCCRE) rotation and pole · Mallama 2017 albedos and phase curves |
| Heliopause | 2 | Voyager 1 & 2 boundary crossings, IBEX and Cassini heliotail estimates · McComas 2015 IBEX interstellar inflow direction |
| Nearby galaxies | 2 | McConnachie 2012 · Pace 2025 Local Volume Database, with structural detail for the Magellanic Clouds, M31, M33 and Sagittarius from the primary literature |
WebGPU is the latest rendering standard and gives browsers direct access to on-device GPUs. Runs best on Chrome.
Browser support: Chrome and Edge 113+ on Windows, macOS and ChromeOS (Linux from 144, depending on the graphics card), Safari 26+ (macOS Tahoe, iOS and iPadOS 26+), Firefox 141+ on Windows and 147+ on Macs with Apple silicon, Chrome for Android 121+ on most Android 12+ devices.
Stellata loads and renders on any device, but is intended for a desktop or tablet. The expansive views and interface are built around using a keyboard and a pointer. A small-screen interface is planned for the future and not available yet.
Two-finger rotation and pinch gestures work on touch devices and with a trackpad on Safari.