Hello

> I have seen that the name "Bayer" has been removed from almost any place
> in Guide8 and it has been replaced by "Greek" (I think the change was made
> quite recentely).
> There is any good reason for that change?
> IMHO I think the last change not correct: or you use "Bayer/Flamsteed" or you
> use "Greek/Numbers" or, more complete, "Bayer letters/Flamsteed numbers"
> As far as I know the designation Bayer-Flamsteed is still accepted by the IAU.

There are actually four flavours of designations involved:
- lower case greek letters from Bayer (alpha to omega, alf to ome)
- upper case latin letters from Bayer (A to Q for bright stars: e.g. Q Cyg or P Cyg)
Remark: The upper case latin letters R to Z (and the combinations RR, RS to ZZ,
and AA to AZ, BB to BZ, ..., QQ to QZ, and V335/V0335, V336/V0336, ...) are
exclusivly used just for variables (GCVS variable star names).
- lower case latin letters from Bayer (a to z?; e.g. u Her that is a different star than
U Her)
- arabic numbers (1, 2, ...) according Flamsteed

So using "greek" and "numbers" does exclude the two latin letter designations
in the list.

If the latin letters are covered too, using "Bayer letters/Flamsteed numbers", or
just "Bayer/Flamsteed" or "letter/number" for the designations is OK.

If the latin letters are NOT covered, using "greek Bayer letters/arabic Flamsteed
numbers" or "greek letters/arabic numbers", or just "greek/numbers" is OK.

E.g. the Simbad Dictionary of Nomenclature of Celestial Objects:
http://cds.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/Dic-Simbad?*%2068
is not complete in this sense although Simbad can handle the latin letter desig-
nations too. The Sesame name resolver:
http://cds.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/Sesame
used in VizieR can handle all designations too. But both require to add the "*"
(for star) prefix for the lower case latin letter designations to distinguish them from
the "V*" (for variable star) GCVS variable star name designations (e.g. * u Her or
* U Her or V* u Her vs. u Her or U Her or V* U Her) as the upper case interpretation
is the default.
E.g. the GCVS search:
http://www.sai.msu.su/gcvs/cgi-bin/search.htm
for the GCVS-Designations can also handel the latin letter designations (with the
exception that u Her must be written as "u. Her"):
http://www.sai.msu.su/gcvs/gcvs/name.txt
The BAY (for Bayer designations) GCVS Cross-Identification search just handels
the abbreviated constellation plus abbreviated lower case greek letter designa-
tions.

Clear skies
Wolfgang

--
Wolfgang Renz, Karlsruhe, Germany