Your sky, right now

The experimentDrawn from memory, then graded

How it worksNo lookups, no server, no library

Everything on this page is worked out in your browser from formulas Fable 5.1 wrote down from memory too: the Sun's path, the Moon's orbit (a 100-term series with its phase and distance), the planets from their orbital elements with Kepler's equation solved each time, the slow 26,000-year wobble of the Earth's axis so a 1960s birthday lands in the right place, and your local sidereal time to turn it all into what is up where you stand.

Before shipping I tested it against events with known answers: the Jupiter–Saturn great conjunction of 21 December 2020 (the page puts them 0.11° apart; the real figure was 0.1°), the total solar eclipse of 8 April 2024, and the full Moon of 25 January 2024. The Moon's lit side always points at the Sun's position on the chart, even when the Sun is below the horizon.

East is on the left, as on every star chart: hold the screen over your head with N pointing north and it lines up with the real sky.

It stays cool on purpose. The sky is computed and drawn once, then nothing runs until you drag it, change the date, or a minute passes. Your location never leaves your browser: by default the page guesses a city from your time zone, GPS is used only if you tap for it, and the address bar changes only when you share or copy a link, so a link carries just what you chose to put in it.

Honest limitsWhat it does not do

• Planets are good to a few tenths of a degree and the Moon to about a tenth; fine for a chart, not for an eclipse map.
• The Milky Way, nebulae and galaxies are not drawn, and stars fainter than fifth magnitude are left out.
• The time-zone guess can be hundreds of miles off. Tap Use my location if the horizon matters to you.
• Dates run from 1900 to 2099. Earlier or later and the planet formulas drift.