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Since ancient times stars, like people, have had their own proper names, such as Vega or Deneb. But today proper names are widely used only for the brightest few dozen stars — and it's a good thing. Star names are poetic and embody old constellation lore (usually in garbled Arabic), but confusion runs wild.

All the stars we see in the night sky are in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Our galaxy is called the Milky Way because it appears as a milky band of light in the sky when you see it in a really dark area. It is very difficult to count the number of stars in the Milky Way from our position inside the galaxy.

There are seven main types of stars, and they are grouped by a system called spectral classification. This system organizes stars into groups by their temperature, color, and luminosity (brightness). These groups are the O, B, A, F, G, K, and M-class stars.

There are billions of Suns in our galaxy alone and as mentioned, many of the stars we see are also Suns. But many celestial objects you see when looking up are not stars. A star is called a Sun only if positioned at the centre of a planetary system.

This is the same for the stars around the north star Polaris. Because Polaris is close to the point in the sky directly above the axis of spin of the Earth (the north pole) it is always visible.

Sirius. Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, and sometimes the brightest object of all. The Moon and the planets Jupiter, Venus and Mars — and occasionally Mercury — are the only natural objects that are bright enough to outshine it when they're above the horizon.

Orion's Belt or the Belt of Orion, also known as the Three Kings or Three Sisters, is an asterism in the constellation Orion. It consists of the three bright stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

Stars are huge celestial bodies made mostly of hydrogen and helium that produce light and heat from the churning nuclear forges inside their cores. Aside from our sun, the dots of light we see in the sky are all light-years from Earth.