For years, Astronomy.com has offered visitors the ability to make maps of the night sky. Now, through a partnership with Software Bisque, maker of acclaimed planetarium software TheSky6, Astronomy has completely redesigned and expanded its on-line star chart.

We call it Star Dome, a name once used for the star chart we offer in the magazine each month. All visitors to Astronomy.com may create a similar all-sky view using our open-access version of Star Dome. With it, you can view the brightest stars and follow the Sun, Moon, planets, and selected comets and asteroids from 100 locations on Earth.

But we've reserved Star Dome's extended features for Astronomy's readers:

View the night sky as it appears anywhere on Earth — choose from more than 2 million locations.

Chart stars down to magnitude 11.5.

Enjoy easy access to more than 800 deep-sky objects selected by Astronomy's editors.

New controls let you select the faintest stars on the map and overlay an equatorial grid, constellation borders, constellation figures, and object labels.

Zoom into the Star Dome and pan around the sky on your own, or click on compass directions for 100°-wide views along the horizon.

Quickly display a single constellation or center the map on a single deep-sky object.

Every constellation view features a table of fascinating deep-sky objects. Astronomy's editors have arranged each table according to the minimum aperture — from binoculars to a 10-inch telescope — required to see some detail in the object.

Star Dome presents the sky as it should be seen — complete with a photo-realistic Milky Way and embedded images of many deep-sky objects.