This website is a joint realisation of the institute IREM of Lille (France) and the association F-HOU with the support of the European project ARISTARCHUS.

Our objective is to allow anyone to create an Orrery, that is a chronophotography of the orbits of different objects of the Solar System. An Orrery may also be described as a spatio-temporal map. Indeed it indicates the spatial position of different objects at different time.

As any map, it includes a spatial scale with the length of one Astronomical Unit. It also includes a temporal scale with the duration required to travel from any disc numbered N to the next disc (numbered N+1) along any orbit. For some orbits, discs are numbered three by three, or even five by five. It then requires three or five time the temporal scale to travel from one disc to the next along those orbits.

The direction of the vernal axe is always indicated as a short arrow.

You need to provide your name or the name of your institution, and specify some options, such as the date of discs numbered 0 (the starting date), which objects you want to have and the size of your map (in Astronomical Units).

Logos of IREM, F-HOU and Aristarchus are always used. You may add one image (of a high enough resolution). At the end of the process, you will get a PDF will all orbits and one PDF of each individual orbit. The PDF does not open properly with Adobe. You may use any internet explorer or the software InkScape.