ca. 134 BC: The star catalogue appears close to the development of the graphical depiction of the sky. It is a list or tabulation of stars referred to simply by numbers. Timocharis (ca. 320-260 BC) and Aristillus (ca. 280 BC), both of Alexandria, are said to have created the first catalogue of the Western world. Over 150 years later, the Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus of Nicaea (ca. 190-120 BC) would compile his own one. By comparison to Timocharis' catalogue, he discovered the precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus' interest for the catalogue may have been inspired by the observation of a new bright star (supernova) that he did not notice before. He decided to plot a map and recorded 850 stars with entries of latitude and longitude relative to the ecliptic. The catalogue was lost during the Middle Ages, but his work was incorporated in the Almagest by Ptolemy. Of the 14 books by Hipparchus, the only survived work is a critical commentary on Aratus' Phaenomena which gives us an indirect link to Eudoxos.

Moreover, Hipparchus arranged the brightnesses of stars in six classes, a system that we basically use today. He is considered the greatest astronomer of antiquity, as his reputed achievements include the discovery of the precession, precise observations of the lunar and solar motions, and possibly the invention of the astrolabe. During his century, armillary spheres appeared for the first time, but the credit of a construction by him is not confirmed. He could have used one armillary sphere during the creation of the star catalogue. Much of the astronomical work started by Hipparchus has had a long lasting heritage, and was updated by many others like Ptolemy (AD 150), Al Sufi (964), Ulugh Beg (1437) and Copernicus (1543).