Software for creating custom star charts? I need to produce custom star charts for my website.  I want to be able to do the following:


*

*Specify a region, maybe a constellation or just an arbitrary region

*Specify what appears on the chart (e.g. the Messier objects or the objects in some other AL observing list)

*Specify which markings appear (e.g. constellation boundaries, ecliptic, asterisms, etc.)


Does such software exist?
 A: This software was previously used for all the star charts on Wikipedia. I see they've since been replaced by IAU SVGs, but the software might be what you're after. 
A: There are many different software programs that will do what you want, but planetarium software is very complex and takes a long time to learn before you can use it at its best. I am a technical writer and software support person for Starry Night software and, as part of my job, write a weekly article for Space.com which is almost always illustrated using Starry Night software. I've been using various versions of Starry Night for over a decade and can generally get it to do what I want for my illustrations, though I sometimes need to fudge things a bit with other software.
I doubt whether you'll ever find one program which will do everything you want, so my suggestion is to do what I did: find a program that does most of it, and then work with that program until you can get the best from it.
A: There are multiple options, both commercial and free, some of them are mentioned in the answers to the question Are there websites or programmes that permit a simulation of the night sky in the past and the future on an ordinary computer?
