Hipparcos Star Globe

The Hipparcos Star Globe depicts the celestial sphere that was astrometrically viewed as a whole for the first time by the Hipparcos satellite. It is a projection of the night sky onto an icosahedron (a polyhedron with 20 triangle faces), highlighting especially bright stars and the constellations. Printed onto two sheets of A4 paper, the globe can be assembled to form a 3D star map that fits in the palm of your hand.

The globe draws on the Hipparcos map of the sky: a colour, all-sky map in Galactic coordinates synthesised from Hipparcos and Tycho data products. The full-size map shows around 2.5 million of the brightest stars in the sky, as well as the luminous cloudy profile of the Milky Way itself. On the Hipparcos Star Globe, the Hipparcos map appears as the clouds of the Milky Way and the brighter point-like stars. Exceptionally bright stars are picked out for a more 'star chart'-like feature, and the 20 brightest have been labelled.

Images of the globe components, instructions for assembling the globe, and an accompanying booklet giving some background information on the Hipparcos mission can be downloade here:

Star Globe Components

Star Globe Folding Instructions

The Hipparcos Star Globe Booklet

Booklet Folding Instructions