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En EspañolTen years under lucky stars
Our birthday monthNovember 2026
On November 24, 2016, a stranger in San Francisco trusted a brand-new website with no reviews and no reputation. Ten years and nearly half a million star maps later, these are the moments we love most.
2016
It started with Margaret
On November 24, 2016, Margaret from San Francisco became our first customer. She ordered a black and white map of the sky above Big Sur, titled WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARSTUFF.
She had every reason not to trust us. The website looked homemade, because it was. There were no reviews, no press and nothing else to tell her we were real. We weren't even ready to send her a confirmation email, so Zoltán wrote it by hand. Margaret, thank you for taking a chance on us.
The website she trusted
Zoltán built it in the evenings and on weekends, next to his day job, for months before that first order.
2017 → 2025
Maps in the wild
We print star maps on paper. Some of you had bigger ideas.
Four tattoos (that we know of)
In May 2017, a brother and sister in Albania each had the sky of the other's birth tattooed. We found out from their Instagram story, "we became a tattoo", and sent them a free map each.
In 2019, a couple in Luxembourg had a whole map tattooed on his arm: title, Milky Way, compass ring and all. And in 2020, Kelly told us on our blog: "I also put together a tattoo, and put some of the star constellations from that night in it."
A wedding guest book
"Used it as a 'guest book' for my wedding in July," a customer told us. Other couples have done it since: the guests sign the sky.
Cosmic Creation
At eight months pregnant, one of our customers made a plaster cast of her belly. After her daughter was born, she and her friends painted it indigo, pierced it with the constellations from her daughter's star map and lit it from behind, so the stars of the birth night glow. She called it Cosmic Creation, and told the whole story on our blog.
A song
In February 2019, a customer sent us a video over Instagram: guitar in hand, in front of the star map on the wall, singing about the night on it. The message that came with it: "I thought that is different to say thank you ☺️"
When we first met, when we first met… We had the stars, we had the sky, we had all the things that shine
The song
A birthday cake
In Colombia, a star map became a cake, with FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS MI ESTRELLA in icing next to the printed sky.
A chew toy
A customer's dog destroyed the print, "but he said the stars are all in place so 10/10 job on that". Zoltán has a personal policy for this: a free reprint in exchange for a photo of the perpetrator with the map.
Made by hand
Some of you took our files further than we ever could. One customer built the frame himself and hand-painted a galaxy around it, "to give it that total universe feeling", 26 years after they started dating at Starlight Park Elementary. Another covered a canvas in glitter and little diamonds: "The photo doesn't capture how much it shines." And in 2025 a contest winner laser-engraved his digital file on a round of wood, as an anniversary present for his wife.
2017 → 2026
The stories you sent us
Every map has a story, and many of you told us yours. These are a few we still talk about.
The same gift, twice
It keeps happening: couples secretly buy each other the same star map. One husband told his wife their wedding sky was unique. She answered, "It is special indeed... but not unique". She had bought one too, from another company. Ours went on the living room wall.
The first thing out the door
My wife said, 'If the house catches on fire, apart from people and animals, this will be the first/only thing I grab as we run out.'
A customer, 2019
Maps for fallen firefighters
Katie, a social worker who supports a dozen fire departments around Dallas, Texas, gives a map of the night a firefighter died in the line of duty, and each department hands the tradition on to the next.
There is healing in the hand off… Thank you for creating a product that can be used in such a healing and helpful way.
Katie, 2020
Perfect timing
One customer cut it fine, ordering with less than our recommended 7 to 10 days to spare. At their backyard wedding, "the UPS truck rolled up right as we were walking down the aisle after the ceremony".
The map that arrived in time
A customer rush-ordered a map for their brother's wife, who had run out of treatment options, and got the date wrong. Our team fixed it before printing, without knowing the story behind it. The map arrived on January 19. She died a week later.
It's one thing to give a perfect gift. It's another story when the company you buy it from goes out of its way to help bring some joy to a tragic situation. We'll never forget it.
The customer, 2025
Her big sister, legally
Andrea is the oldest of nine children, and she helped raise the youngest, Jessica, from a baby. She even left college to come home and do it. Years later, Jessica asked Andrea to adopt her and make it official. On May 8, 2017, a judge in Hot Springs, Arkansas, did, and Andrea gave her the sky of that day.
Dad's last gift
Jorja's father died after a motorcycle accident in New Zealand in February 2018. The next day at 12:34, his heart, lungs and other organs went to families around the country. That is the moment Jorja chose for her map.
The night at Disneyland
Angelo's parents met by chance at Disneyland on November 14, 1971, and a friend took their photo that night. They married two years later and were together for 45 years. After his father passed away in 2018, Angelo gave his mother the sky of the night they met. She keeps it by her bed.
Legally yours day
Amanda was adopted at ten days old, and it took her mother years of fighting to make it final. For Mother's Day 2020, Amanda gave her a map of the day the adoption went through in 1991, with a line from the children's book her mother used to read her. Amanda is a nurse, so she handed it over in a mask.
Many tears were shed by her and I when she saw it and realized exactly what it was, but the tears were of happiness.
Amanda, May 2020
Over the years, many of you sent us the story behind your map and agreed to share it. We collected them all here.
Happy tears, caught on camera
The moment we never get to see is the one we work for: when the paper comes off and someone recognizes the night on the map. Some of you filmed it for us. There was laughing, hugging, hands over mouths, and a lot of crying.
And when there was no camera, you told us about it. "My wife cried tears of joy," wrote Sam. Jenna's son gave one to his girlfriend: "She absolutely loved it!!! Might've cried a little but happy tears." Vincent's cousin "was in tears at the thought that a person can feel so deeply about another and come up with such a beautiful idea for a gift."
Ten years for you too
Some of the couples whose maps we printed in our first years are turning ten with us. "Next year we will have been together 10 years," one of them wrote to us recently. If your map is as old as we are, we'd love to see where it hangs today: support@underluckystars.com.
2018 → 2025
Famous skies
A wall in MKBHD's studio
In 2018, Marques Brownlee's team was furnishing a new studio, and we designed three maps in custom colors for its dark gray wall: the skies of the first public cell phone call, the launch of the Nokia 3310 and the first iPhone announcement. They turned up behind him in his videos in 2019, and again in 2024.
Lowkey this is the nerdiest poster you will ever see.
MKBHD on Instagram
On StarTalk
In 2020, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice featured our maps in two StarTalk videos: the sky on the night the Titanic sank, and the sky of Van Gogh's The Starry Night.
"WE BUILT A ROCKET!"
On the day NASA's Artemis I lifted off, someone ordered a map of the sky over Kennedy Space Center at 1:47am, the minute of the launch, titled WE BUILT A ROCKET! It was Jeffrey's present for Ashleigh, an engineer who worked on the mission. "That thing would not have launched without her," he told us.
I have been waiting for that launch for 10 years, so awesome to finally see our hard work pay off.
Ashleigh, November 2022
Four astronauts
In December 2024, Dr. Sian Proctor, pilot of Inspiration4, the first all-civilian mission to orbit, wrote to us. We made launch-night maps for all four crew members, with their names and call signs, and at her request drew in a Dragon capsule, angled to the mission's 51.6° orbit. She posted her unboxing on Instagram, with a poem she wrote for it.
And the creators
Guga Foods, Simon Whistler's channels, physicist Sabine Hossenfelder and astronomy creator AstroKobi all featured our maps, and 385 Instagram creators posted theirs in 2020 and 2021. One post in September 2020 pushed our Instagram past 250,000 followers.
2019
Getting the sky right
Not everyone trusts astronomy. Over the years we've heard from flat earthers, from people who wanted us to know that "The moon landing was faked. Look it up", and from one customer who wrote: "I wouldn't believe a single word a NASA related person said 😂, but I think this would make a beautiful present."
So, naturally, in 2019 we asked a NASA astrophysicist to try to break our maps.
Dr. Tom Barclay, a research scientist at NASA Goddard who helped run the space telescopes that search other solar systems for Earth-like planets, rebuilt our maps independently with K2Fov, the tool NASA used to choose Kepler's target stars, and laid his maps over ours. He tried the North Pole, the South Pole, both sides of the equator and Hawaii in 1900. That last one looked wrong, until he found that Hawaii's clocks ran ten and a half hours behind UTC until 1947, and that our maps already knew.
Ok, I am happy to say that everything looks in order.
Dr. Tom Barclay, April 2019
His full report is on our Astronomically Verified page.
2020 → 2021
In the news
#SaveOurStars
Our petition asked Elon Musk's SpaceX to stop its Starlink satellites from crowding the night sky. Along with our pictures of famous cities without light pollution, it ran in about 80 articles, from the Daily Mail and Fox News to The Independent, Sky News and Forbes. Sadly, it didn't work: there are more Starlink satellites up there every year.
America's darkest skies
Our guide to the best national parks for stargazing was picked up by Forbes.com, Lonely Planet and ABC13.
Forbes Hungary
Forbes Hungary told our story under the headline "Not even NASA's astrophysicist found a flaw in the Barcelona Hungarian startup's software" (in Hungarian).
In Vogue, sort of
We ran print ads in US Vogue and GQ, then a full page in The New Yorker.
2019 → 2026
Behind the scenes
A team trip set by the Moon
We took the team to the Montsec observatory for a midnight tour, then hiked the Mont-rebei gorge the next morning. The date was not up for discussion: "it's literally set by the new moon so cannot be moved."
Budmo!
Our 24/7 support team started in Lviv, Ukraine, in September 2019, and Zoltán and Fiona visited them that November. At our Barcelona Christmas dinner a few weeks later, the team raised the cherry wine the Lviv team had given us: "Budmo!"
that was an amazing time together! Thank you for coming and inspiring us! You are the best team!
Anastasiia, Lviv
Masks and laptops
In the spring of 2020, protective equipment was impossible to buy. Even hospitals were running out, and every shipment that reached Europe was fought over. Through a friend in Hong Kong we got hold of 10,000 surgical masks and delivered them to Hospital Clínic in Barcelona.
When schools closed and lessons moved online, we found out that many children in our neighborhood had no computer at home. So we bought them 35 laptops.
A night on La Pedrera's roof
In a normal summer, the roof of Gaudí's La Pedrera is full of tourists. In August 2020 there were none, and the building rented it to us for a night: a once-in-a-lifetime chance. A film crew shot Katia Homs and Yimmy Trawally among the warrior chimneys, with everyone back in their masks between takes. That night gave us our 30-second film, What's Under Lucky Stars?, and the photo at the top of our homepage to this day.
Seven and a half years
Fiona joined to help with the Valentine's rush of 2019 and stayed for seven and a half years, as Head of Customer Service from 2020. Over those years she became the soul of Under Lucky Stars, and our 4.8-star rating and the very happy customers behind it are largely thanks to her.
2016 → 2026
Under the hood
The first line of code was written on September 6, 2016, in the star map generator. Ten years and about 5,000 changes later, Under Lucky Stars runs on about 207,000 lines of code we wrote ourselves, from the website to the code that calculates and draws every star map.
| Year | Lines |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 6,396 |
| 2017 | 20,738 |
| 2018 | 43,996 |
| 2019 | 61,432 |
| 2020 | 83,450 |
| 2021 | 96,380 |
| 2022 | 103,655 |
| 2023 | 121,877 |
| 2024 | 133,525 |
| 2025 | 139,977 |
| Today | 207,253 |
2019 → 2025
Things that made us laugh
One of our favorite parts of the job is reading the titles you write on your maps. Some are very sweet, some are very quirky. A few that made the team's day:
- I garlic bread you
- I f#%*ing love you ok!!!
- The night you ate sh*t outside Red Robins
- I lowkey know you
- Death triangle
- Man United beat Chelsea 2-0
- You will always be my favorite swipe
- Out of order
- Elephant shoe, octopus toes & zebra stripes
- Stars aligned when Mr Chocolate Bear and Miss Milky Bar both felt that Kuch Kuch Hota Hai feeling and made it official
Buckle up
A customer in Kuwait City strapped the map tube into the passenger seat: "I cannot wait to see the reaction on my girl face". Always buckle up your star maps, people.
2017 → today
The copycats
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say. Since we opened in November 2016, at least 24 star map brands have launched, and by October 2021 Etsy listed 10,992 "custom star map" products. Some borrowed more than the idea: our tagline, "Star map of the happiest moments of your life", turned up as the title of other shops' pages, and one competitor copied our weekly quiz word for word.
Our customers have our backs. One fan made a habit of replying under a competitor's ads to tell people to buy from us instead. Thank you for sticking with us.
2016 → 2026
Ten years in numbers
Paid orders only, from November 24, 2016 to October 29, 2026. Countries count printed maps only, not digital files.
2016 → 2026
Thank you
Ten years ago, Under Lucky Stars was me, sending order confirmations by hand. Everything since was built together with the people below, and I'm grateful to every one of them.
Zoltán Tóth-Czifra, founder
The team
- Kadri Reis our first employee, 2017–20
- María Elisa Gómez support and operations, 2017–19
- Mariana Malo and Joy Pranav Christmas 2018
- Leo Wall and Jennifer Olejarz support, 2019
- Fiona King Head of Customer Service, 2019–26
- Alec Snook support, social and partnerships, 2019–21
- Paula Mata Reina marketing consultant, 2019
- Daniel Begué video and content, 2019–21
- Nellie English copy and blog, 2019–20
- Narcís Davins developer, 2020–22
- Natalia Kardash support, 2020–25
- María "Maro" Borsani influencers and social, 2020–21
- Juliia Omelchuk support, 2024–25
- Andrii Bashynskyi, Dariia Zharka, Serhii Chepiha, Khrystyna Chovnitska, Nadiia Dehtiarova and Adem Jouirou support, 2025–26
Our 24/7 team in Lviv
- Oksana Klok team lead
- Anastasiia Holovnia our first 24/7 agent, 2019–20
- Oksana Zozuk and Olena "Olenka" Kushnir 2019–22
- Marta Smuk and Marta "Rosié" Khomutenko 2019–22
- Natalia Kardash 2020–22
Influencer outreach, 2020–21
- Dmytro Kvasovskyi lead
- Yuliia Savka, Khrystyna Rohozynska, Christina Ivasyshyn, Solomiya Koval, Miroslava Dultseva, Olha Vakoliuk, Olha Verko, Diana Heysun and Yuliia Melnykovska
Simply Contact, 2025–26
- Oksana Skitsko, Alona Shandyba, Yuliia Melnyk, Olha Maksymiv and Olha Zahorska
Science, art and film
- Dr. Tom Barclay the 2019 audit
- Andrew McCarthy our Moon photo
- Andrea Minini, Amy Louise Baker, Aina Oset and Enkel Dika artist designs
- Kevin Jaeger 3D
- Ornella and Ivan actors, 2019
- Katia Homs, Yimmy Trawally and the La Pedrera crew 2020
Partners
- Prodigi (Pwinty) printing our maps since December 2016, Hannah Davies, James Old and team
- Galton Voysey 2022–23: Kim Woo, Ringo Wong, Katherine Booth, Kat Yip and William Wolfram
And thank you to everyone who trusted a small company in Barcelona with nearly half a million of their happiest, and sometimes hardest, moments. Starting with Margaret.
Here's to the next ten
Some of the photos you sent us over the years.
