Bright stars and the history of stellar astronomy

Abstract

"It is a poor workman who blames his tools" - but that said, a stellar astronomer can only work with the material and the tools that have been provided. When it comes to the early history of stellar astronomy the "tool" was the naked eye and the "material" was the collection of so called 'fixed' stars that were visible, these being scattered over that part of the celestial sphere that rose above the horizon. Complaining that there were too few stars or too many was nugatory, as was complaining that these stars had the wrong magnitude distribution, or were too far away, or were not moving fast enough, or were too white. This paper investigates how the history of astronomy, and specifically the pace of astronomical development, was governed by the "material" that the early astronomers were provided with.