There are a thousand minute details that we unconsciously store in our memories during moments that change our lives forever. For some, these might include the song playing on the night their future spouse first smiled at them across a crowded room; for others, the way a new baby’s head smelled in the car-ride home from the maternity ward. The tricky thing, of course, is that the most important moments of our lives often slip by the radar at the time, disguised as just another day. While there hasn’t yet been an invention that enables us to step back in time to drink in the intricacies of these fleeting instances, a new service known as The Night Sky is offering up the next best thing.
Much like the trajectories of our lives, the position of our tiny planet in the solar system is ever-changing, and at any moment in history, and from any location on earth, the view of the stars above our heads is as unique as the thoughts at play inside of them. Simply by providing a date and a geographical location for The Night Sky to work with, users of the website can generate an 18″ by 24″ star map of the exact view of the heavens from that night, in that place. This innovative, highly-personal print makes an amazing gift for someone special, and an equally-amazing gift for a bare wall at home in need of a special touch.
The mind behind the concept of star map is that of a woman named Ciara – a style-obssessed mother of three young girls, and other half of a husband who’s taken to countries far and wide for business purposes. The result of his jet-setting lifestyle often led to a repeated sentiment at bed time: “I miss Dada.” Ciara’s response to this was the same every time. She’d take her children from bed, pull open the drapes, and tell them, “He’s looking up at the same stars.” Each and every time, her daughters were comforted, and beautiful bed time stories and conversations ensued. “It dawned on me that there is a primal and eternal power in looking at the stars,” Ciara says on The Night Sky’s website. “It’s with us when we are born. They are there for every moment. I wanted to capture that.”
And the fast-growing The Night Sky customer base is glad she did. “For Christmas my boyfriend surprised me with this beautiful gift of our very first night together,” one review says. “For someone who claims that he isn’t a romantic, this showed me he’s the most romantic and thoughtful man I’ve ever known!”
Though all The Night Sky star maps follow a similar design format, several details of the prints, including their colors, are customizable so that every taste is catered for. For the astrology lovers, there’s an option to make visible the constellations that were present on the evening of their choosing, and for the scientifically-inclined, a grid overlay is also available to give an accurate sense of positioning and scale. A star map can have both of these additions, or neither of them –leaving a heartwarmingly realistic image, as perfect and unornamented as the sky that stretched over your life-altering moment. Caption the print with a message that’s special to you to add the finishing touch to this charming product
The Night Sky’s star maps are made with the help of the star catalog created by the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos mission, in which an incredibly powerful space telescope took countless images of the stars and their patterns. These images allow The Night Sky to know the positioning of the stars over any spot in the world, at any date – including those in the future, meaning that a star map would also be an ideal gift for any expectant families with that magical date coming up some time soon.
The price of a star map – $60 – includes free shipping to anywhere in the United States and Canada, with international shipping also available. Free tracking is included with every order, so you can keep one eye to the sky as your map soars towards its new home – and prepare for your heart to soar on receiving this precious memento your most cherished memory.
