# Creating the celestial sphere for astronomical demonstrations

Quick question: has anybody produced (and/or willing to produce and share) a nice celestial sphere with some stars and/or constellations? I am traveling , so I cannot do it myself right now, but I would get the coord. of the 10 brightest stars and/or some constellation data from W/A and then put them on a sphere together with some ref. points/circles (equator, ect).

I'll just show you how to put visible stars on a sphere in proportion to their "ApparentMagnitude".

data = EntityValue[
EntityClass["Star", "NakedEyeStar"], {"RightAscension",
"Declination", "ApparentMagnitude"}];

t = With[{m =
Rescale[Round[#[[3]]], m, {1, .1}]} & /@ data];
g = GatherBy[t, #[[3]] &];
s = With[{r = 1}, {PointSize[#[[1, 3]]*.01],
Point[{-r Cos[#[[1]]] Sin[#[[2]] + Pi/2],
r Sin[#[[1]]] Sin[#[[2]] + Pi/2], -r Cos[#[[2]] +
Pi/2]} & /@ #]}] & /@ g;
Graphics3D[{{Yellow, s}, {Blue, Opacity[0.75] , Sphere[{0, 0, 0}]}},
Boxed -> False]


• Very nice, thank you Alex. – magma Dec 2 '18 at 11:52