Was Van Gogh’s The Starry Night a Real Sky? Astronomers Point to the Dawn of July 22, 1889

Quick answer: A study published on October 22, 2026, in Scientific Reports argues that the sky in Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night was based on a real view: the dawn sky over Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, around July 22, 1889. The authors match the painting’s crescent Moon, its bright “star” (Venus) and a cluster of stars to the Hyades in the constellation Taurus. The claim is disputed. The Van Gogh Museum says the painting was made in June 1889, and at least one leading forensic astronomer is not convinced.

The Starry Night, now held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is one of the most reproduced paintings in the world. For more than a century, people have argued about whether its swirling sky was invented or observed. The new paper offers the most detailed attempt yet to test that question with numbers, and it has reopened an old debate about when the painting was made.

What did the researchers claim?

The study, titled “The actual sky of Van Gogh’s Starry Night: a multidisciplinary reconstruction,” is by Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim, Suna Kang, Jungwoo Song and Ho Jin of the telescope company SLLAB Inc. and Kyung Hee University’s School of Space Research in South Korea. It reports no external funding.

Their conclusion is that, at dawn around July 22, 1889, a waning crescent Moon, the planet Venus and the Hyades star cluster would have appeared together in the narrow slice of sky that Van Gogh painted, in an arrangement that matches the canvas. In the authors’ words, the findings “suggest that the night sky in The Starry Night originated from observation of a specific celestial arrangement, and call for reconsidering the June dating.”

Why the date matters

Van Gogh painted the work while staying at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy, which he entered in May 1889. Art historians usually date it to mid-June, because of a letter to his brother Theo written on or about June 18: “At last I have a landscape with olive trees, and also a new study of a starry sky.” The original is in the scholarly edition of Van Gogh’s letters (letter 782).

That date created a puzzle for astronomers. In the 1980s, two researchers tried to match the painting to the mid-June sky and reached conflicting answers. One proposed the dawn of June 19 and read the central group of stars as the constellation Aries. The other ruled out June 19 on weather grounds and called the sky “a celestial composite.” On June 19, 1889, the Moon was also a waxing gibbous, not the thin waning crescent seen in the painting, as Science News reported.

Venus was already the one object most people accepted as real. In an earlier letter, written around the start of June (letter 777), Van Gogh described seeing the countryside from his window before sunrise “with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.”

How the team tested the painting

Finding the painter’s field of view

During field trips to France in June and July 2019, the team identified a ridge southwest of the asylum that matches the landscape in an earlier Van Gogh drawing of the village. By overlaying the drawing on the real terrain, they estimated that Van Gogh depicted a narrow slice of the scene, comparable to a photo taken with a 134 mm lens on a 35 mm camera (about 18 degrees across the diagonal).

Simulating every dawn of June and July 1889

Using planetarium software (TheSkyX, checked against Stellarium), they recreated the eastern sky over Saint-Rémy for each dawn in June and July 1889. They looked for mornings when the Moon sat above Venus, as in the painting, and both fit inside that narrow frame. Only three dates qualified: June 23 and July 22 and 23. The July dawns gave the best fit, with the Hyades falling near the center of the frame.

Measuring the star pattern

To test whether the painted stars really resemble the Hyades, the team used Procrustes shape analysis, a statistical method that measures how closely two sets of points match after allowing for scaling and rotation. They first checked the method on night scenes whose skies are better known, including works by Adam Elsheimer and Jean-François Millet and Van Gogh’s own 1888 paintings Starry Night Over the Rhône and Café Terrace at Night, whose painting sites in Arles still exist. They also compared 19th-century weather records from nearby stations, including Avignon, and Van Gogh’s letters.

Why other experts are skeptical

The study has drawn pushback from people who know the painting and the method well.

• The Van Gogh Museum disagrees on the date. The Amsterdam museum, which was not involved, told The Guardian that its experts have established a June 1889 date. It said the painting was made on a roll of canvas Van Gogh received in early June, that he sent Theo a drawing based on it on July 2, and that he had a severe breakdown around July 22 that left him unable to paint for more than a month. “Van Gogh was not concerned with exact likenesses,” a spokesperson said, so the positions of the celestial bodies “can therefore not form a reliable basis for dating the work.”
• A forensic astronomer questions the geometry. Donald Olson, professor emeritus at Texas State University, who has spent decades using astronomy to date artworks and historical events, told Science News that the narrow field of view the theory depends on “is inconsistent with the much wider field of view required to encompass” the painting’s hills and cliffs. He also said the positions of Venus and the Hyades on the canvas do not match their calculated positions.
• The authors list their own limits. The paper says it does not determine when the canvas was begun or whether it was later reworked, and that Van Gogh may have combined impressions from several nights. It notes that a good shape match alone is not proof, since other constellations can fit similarly well, and that 19th-century weather records are incomplete.

In short, the paper makes a testable case that the sky was observed rather than invented. It has not settled when the painting was made, and the June date backed by Van Gogh’s own letters and the museum’s records still stands for now.

Why astronomers keep studying old paintings and records

Using astronomy to check art and history has a long track record. Calculating where the Sun, Moon and planets stood on a given date can confirm or rule out stories, and the method keeps producing discoveries. Astronomers recently traced a supernova recorded by observers in 1181 to its glowing remains. Modern telescopes keep adding new objects to the sky our ancestors saw, from the first known green star to one of the coldest exoplanets ever imaged. For more, browse our science section.

Frequently asked questions

Was The Starry Night painted from a real sky?

Possibly in part. A 2026 study in Scientific Reports argues that the Moon, Venus and a star cluster in the painting match the real dawn sky over Saint-Rémy around July 22, 1889. Venus, which Van Gogh mentioned seeing from his window, was already widely accepted as real. The Van Gogh Museum and some astronomers dispute the new interpretation.

When was The Starry Night painted?

The accepted date is June 1889, based on Van Gogh’s letter of about June 18 describing “a new study of a starry sky.” The new study argues the sky better matches late July, but its authors say they cannot fix when the canvas was begun or whether it was reworked.

What is the bright star in The Starry Night?

The large bright “star” near the horizon is generally identified as Venus, the morning star. Van Gogh wrote to his brother around early June 1889 that he had seen it before sunrise and that it “looked very big.”

What are the Hyades?

The Hyades are a nearby cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus, the Bull. Several of its brighter stars form a V shape near the bright star Aldebaran. The new study identifies the central group of stars in the painting as this cluster.

Where is The Starry Night today?

The painting is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Sources: Kim et al., Scientific Reports (2026); Science News; The Guardian; Van Gogh Letters, letter 782; letter 777.

Featured image: Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night (1889), Museum of Modern Art, New York. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Google Art Project).