List of Chinese star names

A catalog of traditional Chinese names for stars, linking them to the asterisms and celestial traditions in which they were identified.

Connect

Chinese constellations: Traditional Chinese groupings of stars organized into asterisms rather than the Western constellations defined by official boundaries. The catalog’s names belong to asterisms within this larger stellar grouping system.
Star catalogue: A systematic listing of stars with identifiers and measured or descriptive properties. This catalog combines inherited names with the identification practices of star catalogues.
Shi Shen: An ancient Chinese astronomer traditionally associated with an early star catalogue and observations of the heavens. Traditions about early catalogues connect Chinese star naming to ancient observational scholarship.
Vega: A bright blue-white star in the constellation Lyra and one of the closest bright stars to Earth. Its traditional identity as the Weaver Girl links a familiar star to Chinese celestial storytelling.
IAU-approved star names: Star names formally approved by the International Astronomical Union for standardized astronomical use. Approval status separates standardized modern names from many traditional Chinese names.
Chinese asterisms: Traditional Chinese patterns of stars, often representing people, objects, or institutions in a celestial bureaucracy. Most traditional star names identify a star’s place in one of these patterns.
Bayer designation: A stellar naming system using Greek letters and constellation genitives, introduced by Johann Bayer in 1603. Unlike traditional Chinese names, Bayer designations organize stars within Western constellations.
Gan De: An ancient Chinese astronomer associated with early astronomical observations and a lost star catalogue. His attributed catalogue is part of the early record behind Chinese stellar identifications.
Altair: A bright star in the constellation Aquila, forming one vertex of the Summer Triangle. Its traditional name identifies the Cowherd in the Qixi star-crossed pair.
Western constellation: One of the 88 officially defined regions that divide the modern celestial sphere. Chinese asterisms divide and group stars differently from these bounded regions.