Institute of Astronomy   Ask an Astronomer - Galaxies  Number of
stars in a galaxy  Published on 24/06/2013   As an astronomer
when you look at distant galaxies do you sometimes wonder what
it would be like in those galaxies? Perhaps ellipictal and dwarf
galaxies not spiral galaxies because our milky way is one of
them. Also how do astronomers approximate the number of stars in
each galaxy?  It is indeed interesting to think about what it
would be like in a different galaxy, or even in a different part
of our own galaxy.  Nearer to the galactic centre for example
there would be many more stars in the night sky.  To approximate
the number of stars in a galaxy essentially what we do is look
at how bright the whole galaxy is and then divide that by the
brightness of an individual star.  There are additional things
we do to make it more accurate however, not all stars are the
same mass and brightness for example, and there may be dust in
the galaxy obscuring some of the stars, but we can look at the
spectrum of l