Hi folks,

A belated reply to Truman Kohman's post about Barnard's Star:

"...While making a chart of the region of Barnard's Star (GSC 425 2502),
I noticed a star (designated GSC 425 184) ("X") that isn't on older charts
- for example, page 1253 of Burnham's Celestial Handbook and a section of
POSS I that I downloaded from the Web. "More info" on X gives a date 24
Jun 82, but little other information. Its position is about where
Barnard's was in 1981 or 1982 (Burnham page 1252).

Is it possible that X is indeed Barnard's star at the time the GSC
was made? How come Barnard's Star now has a different GSC number?"

Yes, this is Barnard's Star. (Set Guide's date/time back to 24 June
1982, and GSC 425 2502 will move back to "cover" GSC 425 184.) There
are several such cases where the folks who put Tycho together apparently
neglected proper motion in attempting to match GSC to Tycho. Proxima
Centauri, for example, appears twice (once as imaged in 1976, and
again as imaged in 1987). For instructions on eliminating display of
these odd objects (as well as most of the spurious GSC "non-stars" in
the middle of galaxies and planetary nebulae), see

http://www.projectpluto.com/update8.htm#err_suppress

-- Bill