How stars get their Names

L

LIGHTBEING

Registered Senior Member
Star names, as well as the names for comets, asteroids, galaxies, and nebulae, are approved and catalogued by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Paris. The brighter stars are designated by the constellation in which they appear and are ranked by Greek letters, generally according to their relative brightness; Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the constellation Centaurus, Beta Centauri is the next brightest, and so on. Historical names, such as Regulus (Alpha Leonis) and Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) also are commonly used.

Dimmer stars have a less aesthetic fate. Once the Greek alphabet is exhausted in a constellation, the IAU turns to a simple numbering system. A recently discovered brown dwarf — a very dim starlike object — was saddled with the cumbersome moniker GL229B. The B indicates that it orbits the slightly brighter star GL229, and GL refers to the Gliese Catalog of nearby stars.
 
I have a theory that Aldabaran was the inspiration for the star wars planet 'Alderaan.'
 
Finding stars by catalogue number is a confusing process. Mainly because you have to find who named what and in what catalogue it is in.

Bonner Durchmusterung started a catalogue in 1837, at the Bonn Observatory. Over 1/3 of a million stars ar listed by BD numbers.

There is also the SAO catalogue (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory), The Yale Star Catalogue, The Henry Draper Catalog, the Deep Objective Prism Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud (specialized catalogue) the IAU, and The Messier catalog. This is by no means the end of the list of catalogues.

Those listed by Greek lettering were called the Bayer System; those by number the Flamsteed method.

In 1983, the First Dictionary of the Nomenclature of Celestial Objects listed over a 1000 different naming systems. So it is likely that it will remain a confusing boggle.
 
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