# To what extent are the naked eye stars classified? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 1, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-are-the-naked-eye-stars-classified/675180 "2013-12-01T02:22:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Willcross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-are-the-naked-eye-stars-classified/675180/1 "2013-12-01T02:22:25Z")
If I went to the middle of the Sahara, or the top of a mountain, basically the best dark sky site imaginable, how many of those stars I see with my naked eye have been categorized? By categorized, I mean having a name or designation, or being assigned a magnitude in some official record. If the answer is “all naked eye stars”, then how much aperture would I need before the number of stars that are visible exceeds the documentation of scientist? Are all stars visible with 10x50mm binoculars documented etc? At what point are the stars so numerous and similar that naming them becomes pointless? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-are-the-naked-eye-stars-classified/675180/2 "2013-12-01T03:01:00Z")
Some links to get you started [http://www.nightskyatlas.com/starnames.jsp](http://www.nightskyatlas.com/starnames.jsp) [List of proper names of stars - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proper_names_of_stars) [http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/starname\_list.html](http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/starname_list.html) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2013, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-are-the-naked-eye-stars-classified/675180/3 "2013-12-01T03:04:53Z")
I’m pretty sure that every star that can be imaged has been or is in the process of being given a designation, for the simple reason that you can’t do astronomy if you don’t know what you’re looking at and what’s new and different. The Wikipedia page on [star catalogues](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_catalogue) is a look at historical atlases. The largest one seems to be: > [@](#): > > The Guide Star Catalog is an online catalog of stars produced for the purpose of accurately positioning and identifying stars satisfactory for use as guide stars by the Hubble Space Telescope program. The first version of the catalog was produced in the late 1980s by digitizing photographic plates and contained about 20 million stars, out to about magnitude 15. The latest version of this catalog contains information for 945,592,683 stars, out to magnitude 21. The latest version continues to be used to accurately position the Hubble Space Telescope. ---
**Author:** ![Willcross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2013, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-are-the-naked-eye-stars-classified/675180/4 "2013-12-01T06:14:52Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’m pretty sure that every star that can be imaged has been or is in the process of being given a designation, for the simple reason that you can’t do astronomy if you don’t know what you’re looking at and what’s new and different. > > The Wikipedia page on [star catalogues](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_catalogue) is a look at historical atlases. The largest one seems to be: Amazing! This far exceeds what I expected the answer to be! ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2013, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-are-the-naked-eye-stars-classified/675180/5 "2013-12-01T06:29:01Z")
> [@Willcross](#): > > Amazing! This far exceeds what I expected the answer to be! AFAIK those star catalogs are formed by using software to scan and analyse extremely high resolution photographic plates. Then the software assigns numbers to each star in a systematic way depending on its plate number, position and magnitude. The software can apparently distinguish between stars and galaxies and binary stars. So its not like humans assigned all those 945 million star numbers by hand. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2013, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-are-the-naked-eye-stars-classified/675180/6 "2013-12-01T09:56:37Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > So its not like humans assigned all those 945 million star numbers by hand. Not to mention that most of them are not visible to the naked eye as required by the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2013, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-are-the-naked-eye-stars-classified/675180/7 "2013-12-01T11:06:15Z")
To answer the second part of the question, If all the magnitude 21 stars have been cataloged, that means you’ll need a telescope big enough to see 22nd magnitude stars. I think that puts you somewhere between 40" and 60" of aperture - in the range of a mid-sized scientific observatory.