All Skies Encyclopaedia

From All Skies Encyclopaedia
Revision as of 10:00, 27 March 2026 by Sushoff (talk | contribs)

Authors and Editors: IAU WGSN, copy-editing: Ian Ridpath.

This is a project of the Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The website of the WGSN is https://exopla.net

Welcome to the All Skies Encyclopaedia!

We collate and collect the data on cultural names of stars and constellations in order to keep their heritage and distribute the knowledge about them beyond their culture of origin. For the same reason, the IAU policy of naming stars aims at the conscious inclusion of all cultures and to enrich the names used in astrophysics with names from all cultures and not only the commonly used Latin, Arabic and Greek ones.

About Newest
This encyclopaedia serves as a container for many illustrated dictionaries of indigenous sky cultures - past and present ones.

It is a knowledge base created in the framework of an independent research project (partially) funded by the Austrian Academy of Science (Planetarium Babylonicum 2.0 embeded in the ASE), linked to Stellarium, and a working tool used by the Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

The IAU-Catalog of Star Names is a living document displayed on the WGSN's website. These modern star names are used in research papers; they are supposed to be a convention for global communication undertaken in English, and can, of course, only represent a subset of all existing names: This star catalog can only have one name per star in order to reduce confusion. Yet, the IAU wants to preserve all other cultural names for the same star, and the names of the IAU-Catalog of Star Name will never replace the names of local traditions and cultural heritage. Therefore, we create this encyclopaedia.

In March 2026, we adopted the new star names:
  1. Krios
  2. Kronos
  3. Pherkad Minor
  4. Pistol Star
  5. Ping (屏)
  6. Bade
  7. Darlugal

Earlier this year:

  1. Udang
  2. Gaja (गज)
  3. Lumbung
  4. Yuyu
  5. Naga (नाग)
  6. Tonglingxing


GUIDELINES for IAU-star names.

In 2025,
  1. Simbad created the new acronym NAME-IAU
  2. Simbad and Stellarium were both updated with our names in December.
Map of modern star names adopted by IAU WGSN in 2025 (CC BY M. Sadegh Faghanpour, IAU-OAE Iran)


How to cite this encyclopaedia

"cite this page" with the link at the very bottom get the specific information for the encyclopaedia entry (page) you're looking at.
This example highlights where you find the information on authors and of the specific page you cite and the date of the version.

This encyclopaedia is created by researchers who should be acknowledged: CC-BY licence, see footer. It is the product of scholarly work, compiling decades of research and academic studies. Hence, please cite it appropriately!

There are two versions of citation:

  • We provide the formated citation for the entire encyclopaedia in many common citation styles in the left sidebar menu, always on top.
  • If you directly quote passages from a specific page, please treat it like a chapter in a book: at the very bottom of the left sidebar menu, you find another link to "Cite this page" which provides the information (actual authors) of the specific page that you are looking at.

In your paper's acknowledgement, you could also state something like:

"For our research we thankfully made use of the IAU-All Skies Encyclopaedia (ASE)."

Citation Form

[Author Name] [date/ year], [Title of Page (entry)], in: All Skies Encyclopaedia

Furthermore, you can view the complete edit history of each page with the "History" link at the upper right of the page.

The encyclopaedia is written in English only. The options to apply GoogleTranslate on it are provided as an aid for educational purposes, as we know that IAU-information is used in schools all over the globe. These machine translations by third-party providers may contain mistakes or ambiguous/ misleading information - we only provide this option to ease the usability in the general public and education: please don't rely on this only and cite only the English original.

About Celestial Nomenclature

Traditionally, all human cultures made their own names for stars, planets and other celestial (and meteorological) phenomena.

Historical Note

Although astronomy has been practiced in all cultures since the dawn of humankind, global collaborations between astronomers started only in the 19th century. The first international congress of (European) astronomers took place in August 1798 at the historical Observatory Seeberg at Gotha (Thuringia, now Germany). This was following the initiative of collecting global observations of the transits of Venus in front of the Sun in the 1760s, which enabled astronomers to accurately measure the astronomical unit (AU).

At that time, two new planets of the solar system (Uranus 1781, Neptune 1846) and numerous asteroids were discovered, which caused new debates on celestial nomenclature (e.g. there was a long discussion in the late 1700s whether to use "Uranus" or "Urania" for the new planet).

Throughout the 19th century, astrophysics was invented as a new research method and variable stars became the cutting-edge research field. It was because of the nomenclature of variable stars (they are named with a number and the constellation name) and research on variables as an emerging field in the early 20th century that the young IAU in the 1920s aimed to define the names and boundaries of constellations officially, globally binding for use in international communication in research. However, back then, they did not officially define any star names. Only in the early 2000s with yet another emerging field in astronomy, i.e. the research on extrasolar planets, the necessity for global agreements on “scientific names” for stars evolved. These are the names that shall be used in research papers – but of course, all planetariums, school teachers and hobby astronomers will (hopefully) keep their local traditions in addition. We encourage everybody to keep their own cultural heritage!

Who is the IAU?

ASE logo
logo of the All Skies Encyclopaedia

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) was established in 1919 as a reaction to the obstacles astronomy and astrophysics had experienced during World War I. Astronomy is such a small field of research that success depends on global collaboration: see, there are billions of people on Earth but only roughly ten thousand astronomers. To overcome political and military constrains, the IAU was built as a global astronomers' network.

One of the most important duties of the IAU is, thus, to set the framework and "common language" of astronomers, defining standards and celestial nomenclature. In modern science, these standards are, of course, the units used for measurements, the frames of reference (e.g. when exactly is equinox: when the first edge or the middle or the last contact point of the Sun crossed the equator?), and the nomenclature for science. Among the IAU's "scientific bodies" are the nomenclature working groups on Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN, WG98), on Small Body Nomenclature (WGSBN, WG97) and - since 2016 - also the Working Group on Star Names (WGSN, WG280)

“Among the other tasks of the IAU are the definition of fundamental astronomical and physical constants; unambiguous astronomical nomenclature…” (IAU Website, page "About")

These working groups are in charge of standardising the names of small bodies of the solar system, landscape features of other planets, and - recently - also of stars. The working groups are independent groups of researchers of the appropriate fields, aiming to generate standards that fit the needs of astrophysics.

The IAU's responsibility on celestial nomenclature was pronounced already with its foundation in 1919, as one of the first activities of the IAU in the 1920s was the successive definition of 89 names, abbreviations, and 88 boundaries of constellations. This responsibility has later been recognised by the United Nations.

IAU WGSBN - Names of Small Bodies (asteroids etc.)

Ten thousands of names of asteroids have been established in the past ~200 years. The WGSBN releases new names every three weeks in their bulletin. For asteroids, the discoverer(s) have a priority to suggest a name. They have to hand in a note on their reasons for their suggestion and the name suggestion needs to obey some rules (see guidelines). The decision is made by the members of WGSBN based on (electronic) voting.

IAU WGSN - Star Names

logos combined IAU+WGSN

Modern astronomy & astrophysics for a long time hesitated to name stars at all. For any bright (naked eye) star, there are different names in all cultures. As a newly established working group of the IAU, WGSN developed two branches: The branch of research on cultural heritage and historical names for the bright stars with which we now aim to name the bright stars (facing a lot of cultural struggles, as we want to include everybody and don’t want to be intrusive), and the other branch of naming faint stars (invisible to the naked eye observer) with all sorts of names suggested by the public – which can be names of local cultures, global pop culture or anything else…

As WGSN is a rather young working group within the IAU and still in the process of developing their "best practice", updating the terms of reference, and published theGUIDELINES only in 2025, it may take a while until a specific star is named.

In the years 2023 to 2025, we have been creating some research tools and providing information publicly on our website https://exopla.net

  • The IAU-Catalog of Star Names (CSN) is a list of unambiguous names of stars
  • The IAU-Catalog of Exoplanet Names (CEN) originates from the IAU Name ExoWorlds Campaigns
  • This Encyclopaedia (ASE) that preserves all cultural heritage - i.e. all names, also those unsuitable for adoption in the CSN.
  • The Naked Eye (star) Catalog (NEC) is a list of visible stars and star clusters, a research tool. We compiled it for use in historical research but it may be updated while using it.
  • As this star catalog contains only the star data for objects brighter than 6.5 mag (V) and the IAU-CSN contains also names of fainter stars, we also maintain a catalog of these fainter stars, i.e. a catalog of stars fainter than the visibility threshold that bear IAU-names: the WGSN-Faints catalog.

The IAU-Catalog of Star Names is a list of names to be used in astrophysics. Although WGSN aims to increase diversity of cultures in the names for science use, the IAU-CSN can (necessarily) not consist of all cultural names that are used (e.g. because all cultures have a name for Vega and only one name is used in astrophysics research papers), the IAU aims to acknowledge and recognize the names in this encyclopaedia.

Reliability of this encyclopaedia

The information presented in this encyclopaedia is 100% human-generated (not AI-generated) and entered by a selected group of researchers to the best of their knowledge (like in books). Researchers of astronomy collaborate in the framework of the International Astronomical Union. When we enter the information here, we refer to reliable researchers' scientific publications and explicitly give references.

Due to copyright issues, we cannot copy all books. However, we will summarize the information and refer to the original publication(s), where you can read all arguments in their completeness.

All entries must have at least four categories from these areas.

Basic Guideline

  1. The Encyclopaedia compiles published research comprensively. It is not a means to publish new ideas. However, it might be a means to publish more images, colour images, animated images, movies, and other material that could not be published in the original research papers.
  2. Sources (published research) are linked by the authors.
  3. Each entry in this encyclopaedia must have at least three categories for
    1. the geographical region on Earth
    2. the language and culture of origin
    3. the nature of celestial object or phaenomenon behind the name.

Selected Authors

The ASE compiles information provided by leadings scholars in the research fields of Cultural Astronomy. Particularly pioneering projects are

  • the dictionaries of Mesopotamian celestial names compiled by F. Gössmann (1950)[1] and G.E. Kurtik (2007)[2] - revisited by G.E. Kurtik†2023, W. Horowitz, H. Hunger and S.M.Hoffmann in various research projects,
  • the books and datasets on Arabic celestial names compiled by R. Laffitte (2012[3],2025[4]), Kh. AlAjaji in Stellarium[5][6], D.Adams[7] (website),
  • the most recent work on Chinese celestial names by B. Yang (2023)[8], updating earlier views, e.g. in Sun and Kistemaker (1997)[9],
  • several editions of ancient Greek scholarship (see references), e.g. standard editions and translationy of Aratus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy's Almagest,
  • the famous historical information on the history of the IAU-constellations "Star Tales" by Ian Ridpath[10] and the more recent work by Susanne M Hoffmann (2021)[11].
  1. ↑ Gössmann P.F. Planetarium Babylonicum, Rom, 1950 (A. Deimel. Šumerisches Lexikon 4/2).
  2. ↑ Звездное небо Древней Месопотамии. Шумеро-аккадские названия созвездий и других светил [The Star Heaven of Ancient Mesopotamia: Sumero-Akkadian Names of Constellations and Other Heavenly Bodies], Aletejja, St. Petersburg, Russia.
  3. ↑ Roland Laffitte (2012), Le ciel des Arabes, Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner
  4. ↑ Roland Laffitte (2025), Nommer les étoile: 500 noms hérités des Arabes - Apport de l'uranographie arabe, Orient des Mots
  5. ↑ Zotti, G., Hoffmann, S. M., Wolf, A., Chéreau, F., & Chéreau, G. (2021). The Simulated Sky: Stellarium for Cultural Astronomy Research. Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, 6(2), 221–258. DOI: 10.1558/jsa.17822
  6. ↑ Kh. AlAjaji: Arabic (Al-Sufi), Arabic (Arabian Peninsula), Arabic (Indigenous), Arabic (Lunar Mansions) sky cultures in Stellarium, in: Hoffmann and Wolfschmidt (eds.): Astronomy in Culture – Cultures of Astronomy. Featuring the Proceedings of the Splinter Meeting in the Annual Meeting of the German Astronomical Society, Sept. 14-16, 2021., Reihe: Nuncius Hamburgensis 57, tredition, Hamburg & OpenScienceTechnology Berlin (cBook)
  7. ↑ Adams, Danielle (2018), Rain Stars Set, Lunar Stations Rise, PhD dissertation at the University of Arizona.
  8. ↑ Boshun Yang (2023). 杨伯顺, Zhongguo Chuantong Hengxing Guance Jingdu ji Xingguan Yanbian Yanjiu 中国传统恒星观测精度及星官演变研究 (A Research on the Accuracy of Chinese Traditional Star Observation and the Evolution of Constellations), PhD Dissertation, University of Science and Technology of China (Hefei)
  9. ↑ Sun Xiaochun & Kistemaker, Jacob, The Chinese Sky during the Han: Constellating Stars and Society (Leiden [etc.]: Brill, 1997 [= Sinica Leidensia, vol. XXXVIII]) ISBN 90-04-10737-1.
  10. ↑ Ridpath, Ian, Star Tales (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1988) ISBN 0-7188-2695-7 [Internet Archive link] -- a revised and expanded edition was published in 2018 [ISBN 978-07188-9478-8] -- online version on Ridpath's website.
  11. ↑ Hoffmann, Susanne M. Wie der Löwe an den Himmel kam. Franckh Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 2021
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