Vincent van Gogh, a Dutch painter famous for his vivid use of color and dramatic depictions of the night sky, painted several canvases that have recently been examined for their astronomical accuracy. Jean-Pierre Luminet, an astrophysicist and author of The Starry Nights of Vincent van Gogh, studied these works by combining astronomy, Van Gogh's letters, and visual analysis to assess how accurately the constellations in his paintings match real celestial patterns. Luminet discovered that in paintings such as Terrace of a Café at Night and Starry Night over the Rhône, Van Gogh accurately portrayed identifiable constellations like Aquarius and the Big Dipper. These works were created during Van Gogh’s time in Arles, France, where he was inspired by the bright, colorful night sky of Provence. He described the sky as richly colored, with stars of different hues, and noted the difficulty of painting a starry night without simply placing white dots on a black background. Van Gogh’s approach to painting the night sky evolved over time. In his earlier works, such as Starry Night over the Rhône, he combined precise astronomical observations with the landscape, creating a vivid and realistic scene. However, after his stay at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in 1889, his style became more imaginative. In The Starry Night, painted in 1889, the positions of the sky, hills, and village appear altered, suggesting a mix of real observations and personal memory. Using modern astronomical software, Luminet found that the stars in The Starry Night were based on observations made on May 25, 1889, at 4:40 AM. However, the land elements—like the hills and village—were likely painted from a different perspective after Van Gogh was allowed to leave his room. The village in the painting seems to be a combination of Saint-Rémy and a memory of his childhood home in Brabant. In Road with a Cypress and a Star, painted in April 1890, Van Gogh depicted a rare alignment of Mercury, Venus, and the crescent moon. While the painting does not exactly match the actual alignment, it shows that Van Gogh balanced real observations with creative interpretation. His artistic process involved careful planning and working on multiple canvases at once, contrary to the popular belief that he painted one painting per day. Luminet’s research highlights how Van Gogh’s work bridges science and art, revealing both his keen observations and his imaginative vision of the night.