page_title: Moravian star
section_title: Types of stars
hierarchical_section_title: Moravian star / Types of stars
caption_attribution_description: English: Pyramids augmented to central rhombicuboctahedron
context_page_description: A Moravian star is an illuminated Advent, Christmas, or Epiphany decoration popular in Germany and in places in Europe and America where there are Moravian congregations. The stars take their English name from the Moravian Church, originating in Moravia. In Germany, they are known as Herrnhut stars, named after the Moravian Mother Community in Saxony, Germany, where they were first commercially produced.
context_section_description: The original Moravian star as manufactured in Herrnhut since 1897 exists only in a 25-point form, composed of eighteen square and seven triangular cone-shaped points. The 26th point is missing and used for mounting. This shape is technically known as an augmented rhombicuboctahedron. Each face of the geometric solid in the middle, the rhombicuboctahedron, serves as the base for one of the pyramid augmentations or starburst points. This is the most commonly seen and most widely available form of Christmas star. 
  Other forms of Christmas stars exist, but are not to be confused with the original Herrnhut Moravian star. No matter how many points a star has, it has a symmetrical shape based on polyhedra. There are other stars with 20, 32, 50, 62 and 110 points that are commonly hand-made. The variety comes from various ways of forming the polyhedron that provides a base for the points—using an octagonal face instead of a square face, for example. The common original Herrnhut Moravian star becomes a 50-point star when the squares and triangles that normally make up the faces of the polyhedron become octagons and hexagons. This leaves a 4-sided trapezoidal hole in the corners of the faces which is then filled with an irregular four sided point. These 4-sided points form a "starburst" in the midst of an otherwise regular 26-point star.
  Froebel stars, which are paper decorations made from four folded strips of paper, are sometimes also called Moravian stars, among many other names.
caption: Augmented rhombicuboctahedron (26-points)
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