Hi Bill,

Well, there you go, I have from time to time tried to use the Bayer
designation and etc in Guide! I've quickly realised that I must use
another designation, which I usually have to hand anyway, but just
thought I'd let you know that at least one person "out there" has done
this.

Cheers,
Roger

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill J Gray" <pluto@...>
To: <guide-user@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2011 5:46 PM
Subject: Re: [guide-user] Names of the stars (Greek/Bayer)


> Hi Stefano, Wolfgang,
>
> I switched from "Bayer" to "Greek" because I got some comments
> from people who hadn't heard of the former. But just about everyone
> will recognize Greek letters when they see them.
>
> Wolfgang is, of course, quite right that not all Bayer
> designations
> are Greek letters. But Guide only knows about the Greek letter
> designations; ask it to find z Pup or G CMi and it will tell you
> "Object not found".
>
> This is for two reasons. First, nobody has ever asked for them.
> Not once. The Bayer Latin-alphabet designations get almost no use
> at all. The second reason is that for a long time, I lacked a
> source for these A-Q and a-z designations. There is now a pretty
> good cross-index for these designations:
>
> http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?IV/27
>
> Separately, I've found some references to the "missing" stars,
> including a list of dual-designation cases (for example, the star
> "normally" known as Beta Tauri was also known as Gamma Aurigae.)
> I spent some time typing and reformatting the list and matching
> it to more modern catalogs some years back. Just in case anyone
> is interested in this list (not very likely, I expect, but I know
> there are a few history buffs out there) :
>
> http://www.projectpluto.com/addenda2.txt
>
> I keep meaning to format this properly and send it off to the
> folks at CdS for use as an appendix to the above catalog. But I
> find it highly unlikely that anyone has ever used Guide to look
> for "Gamma Aurigae" or any similar case.
>
> I may add the ability to display and enter these nearly-obsolete
> designations to Guide, but it's not a priority item right now.
>
> -- Bill
>
>
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