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Originally Posted by tony873004
But if they simply use stars as faint as mag 12, there are 10s of millions of stars at their disposal. If they run out of those, the simply swich magnitudes again. They needn't ever run out.
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Actually, around 5 million (see the link that George provided).
Since I have seen a mag 14 star that was "sold", I would guess they are already past mag 12.
Edited to add: Just had a thought, do they only sell stars visible from the Northern Hemisphere? If so, that would reduce the available pool. Although with a magnitude 14 star, it doesn't matter much because most people that buy one will never see it, even if they have a big enough telescope it takes a lot of accuracy to find and identify a mag 14 star.