Star ASCII art in 33 pieces, one line to 19: five-point outlines, solid asterisk stars, sparkles, shooting stars, night skies, the Plough. The 15 five-point stars were laid out for a character about twice as tall as it is wide.
Read the full guide
Five points, outlined or solid
The plain outlines are 4, 12 and 14 lines. In each, one row of underscores makes both side points, which keeps them level. The solid stars are 6, 9 and 11 lines of asterisks, beside a hollow one and one spelled in the word STAR. Fits a comment box marks the 23 pieces within 8 lines and 30 columns.
Two pieces plotted from a catalogue
The Plough, seven stars and Finding the North Star are plotted, not freehand: a script rounded each star's catalogue position to the nearest character. The Plough is the Big Dipper in the United States and Canada. By the usual rule, a line from Merak through Dubhe reaches Polaris after about five times their gap. Here it comes out at 5.3.
Tips
Gold star to edit comes first: type over GOLD STAR, 9 characters, and the label stays centred under the star.
Past one line, an ascii art star needs a monospaced font: see the cat ASCII art page. Where spaces fold, 8 are Squash-proof.
Star ratings, 1 to 5 holds every score: copy the lot, then delete the four lines you do not mean.
Questions and answers
Why did my star turn into italics or a line?
Markdown did it: a pair of asterisks marks emphasis, so both vanish and the text between slants; three or more alone on a line become a rule. Use a code block, or one of the 10 with no asterisk, such as Gold star to edit.
How do I draw a five-point star myself?
Top: a full stop, then / and \ moving apart one character a line. Two or three lines down, run underscores both ways as side points. Bring the lower edges in with '-._, drop the legs with slashes, close the notch with _._. Gold star to edit shows it.
Where are the star symbols and the tree?
On other pages. Everything here is typed from the keyboard, so its only star character is the asterisk. One-character stars are on star symbols, faces with stars on star kaomoji, and the tree with a star on top belongs to Christmas ASCII art.
Rating stars on one lineFour stars out of five. Put an asterisk in the empty box, or take one out of a full box, to change the score. 1 line, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Shooting star on one lineA one-line shooting star: the trail grows from a full stop to a row of equals signs, then the star. 1 line, 16 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Starburst on one lineA star with rays to the left and right, 11 characters wide. 1 line, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Twinkling stars, one lineA strip of night sky for the top or bottom of a message, with single spaces only. 1 line, 27 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Show all 33 pieces (29 more)
Small, 2 to 4 lines 4
Five-point star, 4 linesThe smallest outline star here that still has five points, 9 characters wide. The two side points are underscores, so they sit at the foot of the second line. 4 lines, 9 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Five-star review, to editFive stars on a card with a line of your own under them. The words here are 21 characters, and anything up to 25 fits between the bars. 4 lines, 27 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Shooting star, 4 linesA trail that thickens as it falls, from a tick and a hyphen at the top left to equals signs behind the star. 4 lines, 23 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Star sparkle, 3 linesEight short rays round an asterisk, 5 characters wide. 3 lines, 5 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Medium, 5 to 9 lines 21
Asterisk star, 6 linesA solid five-point star 13 characters wide, small enough for most comment boxes. Where Markdown is switched on, four of its six lines turn into rules across the page, so use a code block there. 6 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Asterisk star, 9 linesA solid five-point star, filled row by row from a plotted shape and tidied by hand. 19 characters at the side points. 9 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Crescent moon and starsA crescent moon with its horns to the right and six stars round it. 7 lines, 23 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Eight-ray star, 7 linesAn asterisk with eight long rays. The slanted rays step two characters a line, which comes out close to 45 degrees in most monospaced fonts. 7 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Four-point star sparkleA star with four long points and hollow curved sides, the shape a glint of light is usually drawn with. The side points are underscores, so they sit on the join between lines 4 and 5. 8 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Gold star to editA five-point star in outline with a label under it. Type over GOLD STAR: 9 characters sit centred between the brackets, and the star stays as it is. 8 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Hollow star of asterisksThe outline of a five-point star picked out in single asterisks, with one more in the middle where the legs part. 9 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
The Plough, seven starsSeven bright stars of Ursa Major, called the Plough in the United Kingdom and Ireland and the Big Dipper in the United States and Canada. Each is plotted from its catalogue position to the nearest character, turned so the top of the bowl runs level. Three stars make the handle and four the bowl. 7 lines, 34 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Small star, no gapsA five-line star on full stops, 11 characters wide with no space anywhere. 5 lines, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Solid star, no gapsThe 9-line solid star on a ground of full stops, every line 19 characters with no space in it, for a box that squashes spaces. 9 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Star made of the word STARThe 9-line solid star with its asterisks replaced by S, T, A, R in reading order. For another word, keep the spaces where they are and type over the letters. 9 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Star medalA round medal on a ribbon with a five-point star in the middle. 8 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Star ratings, 1 to 5Every score from one star to five, one to a line. Copy the lot, then delete the lines you do not mean. 5 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Star sparkle clusterOne large four-point sparkle with two small ones beside it, the way a shine is drawn on something polished. 8 lines, 22 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Star wandA small five-point star on a stick, with a few sparks coming off it. 8 lines, 14 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Star with a faceThe outline star with two eyes and a smile in its widest part. Swap each o for a caret or a hyphen to change its mood. 7 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Starfield, no gapsA block of night sky with no spaces in it: full stops for the dark, and asterisks, plus signs and ticks for the stars. 5 lines, 24 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Starry night over hillsA scatter of stars over two lines of hills. The asterisks are the bright stars, the plus signs the middling ones and the full stops the faint. 6 lines, 30 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Three falling starsThree short trails falling the same way, each ending in an asterisk. 5 lines, 23 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Three stars on stringsThree small stars hanging at different heights, for the top of a message. 7 lines, 33 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Wish on a star, to editA shooting star crossing a small sky with a caption under it. Type over MAKE A WISH: 11 characters fill the brackets. 5 lines, 26 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Large, 10 lines and up 4
Asterisk star, 11 linesThe largest solid star, 25 characters wide. The notch between the legs is one character on the ninth line and opens below it. 11 lines, 25 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Finding the North StarThe Plough with a dotted line from the two stars at the front of its bowl, Merak below and Dubhe above, up to Polaris, the North Star. All eight stars are plotted from catalogue positions, then rounded to whole characters, which stretches the dotted line: in the sky it is a little over five times the gap between the two pointers, here 15 lines against 2. 19 lines, 30 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Five-point star, 12 linesAn outline star 25 characters wide. The tops of the two side points are one level row of underscores, as they are level on a regular five-point star. 12 lines, 25 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Large star, 14 linesThe biggest outline star on the page, 31 characters wide, with room inside for a few words of your own. 14 lines, 31 wide. Keyboard characters only.
How this list was compiled: Every piece was drawn for this page and checked in a monospaced font on 2026-09-19; none is copied from an archive or another site. The five-point stars start from the geometry of a regular star worked out for a character cell about twice as tall as it is wide: the two side points level, the steep edges one character a line, the shallow edges three or four. The solid stars were filled row by row from that plotted shape and evened up by hand. Round them are sparkles and ray stars, a night sky, and a few pieces with words to type over. There is no tree, because the Christmas page keeps the tree with a star on top, no starfish, and no star symbols outside the keyboard set, which have pages of their own. Each character was looked up in the Unicode Character Database, version 18.0.0: names and categories in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt, width classes in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/EastAsianWidth.txt, the Emoji property in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/emoji/emoji-data.txt, all read on 2026-09-19. Keyboard characters only means the 95 printable ASCII characters, U+0020 to U+007E. Squash-proof means no line starts with a space and no two spaces touch. The comment box badge means at most 8 lines and 30 columns: a rule of thumb of this site, not a promise about any app. The two constellation pieces were plotted by a script written for this page from the J2000 right ascension and declination of Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar and Alkaid given at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Ursa_Major and of Polaris given at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris, both read on 2026-09-19, each star rounded to the nearest character. The names the Plough (United Kingdom and Ireland) and the Big Dipper (United States and Canada), the seven stars of Ursa Major, three in the handle and four in the bowl, and the rule that a line from Merak through Dubhe carried on about five times their separation reaches Polaris were checked against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dipper on 2026-09-19; worked from the same J2000 positions the sky ratio is 5.3, and in the published piece, after rounding to whole characters, Polaris stands 15 lines above Dubhe and the pointers 2 lines apart, about 7.5. Licence: own work