Sorry, I don't have the time now to comment, but this might be sensational news, so don't delete this thread ;)

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40976000/jpg/_40976356_cib_kashlinsky_203.jpg

Astronomers have detected a faint glow from the first stars to form in the Universe, Nature journal reports.

This earliest group of stars, called Population III, probably formed from primordial gas less than 200 million years after the Big Bang.

These objects cannot be seen by any present or planned telescopes.

Nasa scientists detected the stars from the imprint they have left on the general glow of infrared radiation dispersed throughout the cosmos.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4400672.stm

why did they not count up?

these should have been called population 1 stars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_population

i realise that avatar but when they were naming them they should have STARTED with the oldest stars being pop 1 so when they find really NEW stars they could name them pop 4 and 5 insted of pop 0 and -1

why did they not count up?...(Want to note the sillyness of astronomers naming things, note that carbon and oxygen are "metals" to them.)

To your question: I think because they only knew about the "geneneration I" stars (third to be born) at first.

I am troubled by the whole concept of generations. If a little star smaller than the sun did happen to form back when there were no "metals" it might still be around and in its life time, 10 big ones, in sequence, could have been born and died.

The whole idea of "generations" makes no sense. It is better to refer to the star's "metal" content to guess at how many "parents" died before it. MHO.

Well, those are not generations really, but populations.
Generation somehow implies one life cycle, but there can be more than one generation in a population - as I understand. :/

i realise that avatar but when they were naming them they should have STARTED with the oldest stars being pop 1 so when they find really NEW stars they could name them pop 4 and 5 insted of pop 0 and -1

the number of things like that in astronomy are astounding. luckily quite a few of them have been rectified but its still a bit of a hodge podge (is that saying used outside england?)

true and I agree, though I don't think we need to concern ourselves with Population -1 ;)

The article says that "these objects cannot be seen by any present or planned telescopes"

According to this other page, the James Webb telescope could be able to detect their supernova explosions, or clusters of these stars, but not individual Pop III stars
http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/project_highlights/SAT_report_interim.pdf