<b> Depopulating the sky: changing patterns of stellar identification in the <i>Philosophical Transactions</i> </b>

The article provides a quantitative survey of the ways in which individual stars were identified in astronomical articles published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London between 1665 and 1829. The great majority of stellar references fall into one or more of the following four categories: figural references (identifying objects as structural parts of constellation figures), proper names, Bayer letters, and catalogue numbers (primarily, Flamsteed numbers). The survey investigates how the quantities and proportions of these referential types changed over time, and what identification patterns each referential type displayed. The results are interpreted under the assumption that the dynamics of the mixture of practices were not only a matter of convenience and increasing practicality, but that they were also tied to underlying transformations in the conceptual identity of fixed stars. The gradual, spontaneous, and unreflected disappearance of figural identifications, and their replacement with references to designated catalogue entries, is tied to a transition from sidereal identity—stars being position markers in the celestial sphere—to stellar identity belonging to spatially distributed physical bodies.