How many stars can we count at night?

            On a clear night, if we look up at the sky, we will see innumerable stars — small and big, bright and dim. Have you ever tried counting them? You’ll be surprised to find that out of these innumerable stars about 6000 can be seen without the help of a telescope!

            That does not mean that a person can just look up and count 6000 stars. From any one place on earth, only one-half are visible at one time as the rest of them are on the other side of it. Many of the stars near the horizon cannot be seen on account of haze. Hence if someone starts counting the stars, he would probably not be able to count more than 1000 of them. 

            By using a very powerful telescope we can see even very dim and distant stars. This way it would be possible to photograph more than 1,000,000,000 stars. Today astronomers have succeeded in identifying more than 4,57,000 stars.

            Now the question arises – why can’t we count more stars?

            Stars vary considerably in size, temperature, brightness and distance from the earth. We can count only those stars which are bigger in size, nearer to the earth, and bright enough to be seen by naked eyes. We can’t see the faint, smaller and distant stars without a telescope. However if we take a photograph from the same place by attaching a camera with the telescope, we can count more stars on the photograph, than we would with the naked eye.