Medieval Islamic astronomers gave Arabic names to many stars that are still used today and they

invented numerous astronomical instruments that could compute the positions of the stars. They
built the first large observatory research institutes, mainly to produce Zij star catalogues.[19] Among
these, the Book of Fixed Stars (964) was written by the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi,
who observed a number of stars, star clusters (including the Omicron Velorum and Brocchi's
Clusters) and galaxies (including the Andromeda Galaxy).[20] According to A. Zahoor, in the 11th
century, the Persian polymath scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni described the Milky Way galaxy as a
multitude of fragments having the properties of nebulous stars, and gave the latitudes of various
stars during a lunar eclipse in 1019.[21]
According to Josep Puig, the Andalusian astronomer Ibn Bajjah proposed that the Milky Way was
made up of many stars that almost touched one another and appeared to be a continuous image
due to the effect of refraction from sublunary material, citing his observation of the conjunction of
Jupiter and Mars on 500 AH (1106/1107 AD) as evidence.[22] Early European astronomers such
as Tycho Brahe identified new stars in the night sky (later termed novae), suggesting that the
heavens were not immutable. In 1584, Giordano Bruno suggested that the stars were like the Sun,
and may have other planets, possibly even Earth-like, in orbit around them,[23] an idea that had been
suggested earlier by the ancient Greek philosophers, Democritus and Epicurus,[24] and by
medieval Islamic cosmologists[25] such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi.[26] By the following century, the idea of
the stars being the same as the Sun was reaching a consensus among astronomers. To explain why
these stars exerted no net gravitational pull on the Solar System, Isaac Newton suggested that the
stars were equally distributed in every direction, an idea prompted by the theologian Richard
Bentley.[27]
The Italian astronomer Geminiano Montanari recorded observing variations in luminosity of the
star Algol in 1667. Edmond Halley published the first measurements of the proper motion of a pair of
nearby "fixed" stars, demonstrating that they had changed positions since the time of the
ancient Greek astronomers Ptolemy and Hipparchus.[23]
William Herschel was the first astronomer to attempt to determine the distribution of stars in the sky.
During the 1780s, he established a series of gauges in 600 directions and counted the stars
observed along each line of sight. From this, he deduced that the number of stars steadily increased
toward one side of the sky, in the direction of the Milky Way core. His son John Herschel repeated
this study in the southern hemisphere and found a corresponding increase in the same direction. [28] In
addition to his other accomplishments, William Herschel is noted for his discovery that some stars do
not merely lie along the same line of sight, but are physical companions that form binary star
systems.[29]
The science of stellar spectroscopy was pioneered by Joseph von Fraunhofer and Angelo Secchi.
By comparing the spectra of stars such as Sirius to the Sun, they found differences in the strength
and number of their absorption lines—the dark lines in stellar spectra caused by the atmosphere's
absorption of specific frequencies. In 1865, Secchi began classifying stars into spectral types.[30] The
modern version of the stellar classification scheme was developed by Annie J. Cannon during the
early 1900s.[31]
The first direct measurement of the distance to a star (61 Cygni at 11.4 light-years) was made in
1838 by Friedrich Bessel using the parallax technique. Parallax measurements demonstrated the
vast separation of the stars in the heavens.[23] Observation of double stars gained increasing
importance during the 19th century. In 1834, Friedrich Bessel observed changes in the proper
motion of the star Sirius and inferred a hidden companion. Edward Pickering discovered the
first spectroscopic binary in 1899 when he observed the periodic splitting of the spectral lines of the
star Mizar in a 104-day period. Detailed observations of many binary star systems were collected by
astronomers such as Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve and S. W. Burnham, allowing the masses
of stars to be determined from computation of orbital elements. The first solution to the problem of
deriving an orbit of binary stars from telescope observations was made by Felix Savary in 1827. [32]
The twentieth century saw increasingly rapid advances in the scientific study of stars. The
photograph became a valuable astronomical tool. Karl Schwarzschild discovered that the color of a
star and, hence, its temperature, could be determined by comparing the visual magnitude against
the photographic magnitude. The development of the photoelectric photometer allowed precise
measurements of magnitude at multiple wavelength intervals. In 1921 Albert A. Michelson made the
first measurements of a stellar diameter using an interferometer on the Hooker telescope at Mount
Wilson Observatory.[33]
Important theoretical work on the physical structure of stars occurred during the first decades of the
twentieth century. In 1913, the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram was developed, propelling the
astrophysical study of stars. Successful models were developed to explain the interiors of stars and
stellar evolution. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin first proposed that stars were made primarily of
hydrogen and helium in her 1925 PhD thesis.[34] The spectra of stars were further understood through
advances in quantum physics. This allowed the chemical composition of the stellar atmosphere to be
determined.[35]

Infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope showing

With the exception of rare events such as supernovae and supernova impostors, individual stars
have primarily been observed in the Local Group,[36] and especially in the visible part of the Milky
Way (as demonstrated by the detailed star catalogues available for the Milky Way galaxy) and its
satellites.[37] Individual stars such as Cepheid variables have been observed in
the M87[38] and M100 galaxies of the Virgo Cluster,[39] as well as luminous stars in some other
relatively nearby galaxies.[40] With the aid of gravitational lensing, a single star (named Icarus) has
been observed at 9 billion light-years away.[41][42]

Designations
Main articles: Stellar designation, Astronomical naming conventions, and Star catalogue

The concept of a constellation was known to exist during the Babylonian period. Ancient sky
watchers imagined that prominent arrangements of stars formed patterns, and they associated these
with particular aspects of nature or their myths. Twelve of these formations lay along the band of
the ecliptic and these became the basis of astrology.[43] Many of the more prominent individual stars
were given names, particularly with Arabic or Latin designations.
As well as certain constellations and the Sun itself, individual stars have their own myths.[44] To
the Ancient Greeks, some "stars", known as planets (Greek πλανήτης (planētēs), meaning
"wanderer"), represented various important deities, from which the names of the
planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were taken.
[44]
(Uranus and Neptune were Greek and Roman gods, but neither planet was known in Antiquity
because of their low brightness. Their names were assigned by later astronomers.)