1. What is stellar archaeology? The first minutes after the Big Bang ; Stellar archaeology
2. Two centuries of pursuing stars. First glimpses of stellar rainbows ; Decoding starlight ; A new perspective of the cosmos ; Looking into the hearts of stars ; Modern alchemy ; The foundation of cosmology ; The origin of the elements
3. Stars, stars, more stars. The cycle of matter in the universe ; Astronomers and their metals ; Element nucleosynthesis in the cosmic kitchen ; Stellar diversity
4. Stellar evolution : from birth to death. Sorting stars ; A protostar forms ; The evolution of a low-mass star ; The evolution of a massive star ; Supernovae and supernova remnants ; Preliminary thoughts about working with metal-poor stars
5. Neutron-capture processes and the heaviest elements. How neon lamps relate to giant stars : element synthesis in the s-process ; Thorium, uranium, and r-process element synthesis ; Cosmo-chronometry : the oldest stars ; Nuclear astrophysics
6. Welcome to our Milky Way. A milky way above us ; The Milky Way's structure ; Dwarf galaxies ; Star clusters ; Naming stars
7. Tales told by light. A little lexicon of light ; Spectroscopy : deciphering starlight ; Element abundance analyses of stars ; The largest telescopes in the world ; Three steps toward success ; Observations with MIKE
8. Let's go observe some stars! Going stargazing ; Good-weather beer ; A sunset ; The observa-thon ; One hundred and five stars per night ; Computers, computers... ; Tested by fire
9. The chemical evolution of the early universe. The first stars in the universe ; The family of metal-poor stars ; The most iron-poor stars ; The cosmic chemical evolution
10. Finding the oldest stars. Pursuing metal-poor stars ; Bright metal-poor stars ; Mt. Stromlo succumbs to bushfires ; The discovery of a record-breaking most iron-poor star ; The astronomical community
11. At the end of a cosmic journey. Cosmological simulations ; Where do metal-poor stars come from? ; Expectations of future surveys ; The next generation of giant telescopes ; Little diamonds in the sky.