There’s a long tradition in speculative fiction of a certain kind of anthology series. These series generally have the following characteristics:
- New/original stories, not reprints.
- Unthemed; stories can be on any topic.
- Three or more volumes.
- Usually fairly high-profile and fairly prestigious.
- The title of each volume is usually the series title followed by the volume number, such as Starlight 3.
- Usually a mix of science fiction and fantasy.
- The title is usually astronomy-related in some way.
The tradition started with the Star anthologies (the first of which was published in 1953); later series in a similar vein included Orbit, Universe, and Starlight.
In 2023, I created a list of series that meet the above criteria, which I published as a spreadsheet. That spreadsheet also includes a sheet listing anthologies that seem like they might fit the criteria, but turn out not to.