Star Names

[pjholybloke]

Mrs Holybloke bought me a star for my 40th birthday, nice touch, I get to name it but I'll never see it due to it's distance from earth and it having the same luminescent properties as a 40w lamp (no Trazor, not even with my magic telescope, lol).

4 months on, and I'm still mulling over a name (and also still trying to identify which part of the sky it's in - anyone seen a star map?).

However, I've just been out the back for a fag (Mrs Holybloke having some years ago introduced a unilateral household diktat against tobacco and it's consumption on premises - both visionary and totally beyond question), and whilst musing over my terrible addiction, I happened to stare into space (finding that more of a regular occurrence nowadays), and two things immediately struck me.

1. An over-enthusiastic moth (incidentally, if they are that fascinated by light, why don't they get up during the day?) - idle b**tards!

2. "The Plough" was directly overhead in it's full glory.

At this point I started to wonder.

Why "The plough?"

My historical awareness tends to gravitate around military affairs, so I may be well off the page here, but surely something is badly out of chronological order on that score.

At a push, I can relate to the agricultural machinery shape sort of reference, but surely well before mankind headed out on a path of tilling, tending and harvesting arable crops, we would have invented something to a). stop us burning our fingers getting our freshly killed meat from the fire and/or b). charcoaling said nourishment to a point beyond human consumption?

Clearly it should be called "The Pan".

As a result of this thought process, I'm considering calling my star something really earthy ( I'm coming clean - pun intended. Sorry ), something like "burnt out & jaded" or "Billy no light", the only stipulation I have is that "the chosen name" will end in PJ&TEH18.02.05; but other than that all replies will be considered and one ultimately chosen.

Please help me name my star.

Ta.

 

[BOB D.O.L.E]

Mrs Holybloke bought me a star for my 40th birthday, nice touch, I get to name it but I'll never see it due to it's distance from earth and it having the same luminescent properties as a 40w lamp (no Trazor, not even with my magic telescope, lol).

4 months on, and I'm still mulling over a name (and also still trying to identify which part of the sky it's in - anyone seen a star map?).

However, I've just been out the back for a fag (Mrs Holybloke having some years ago introduced a unilateral household diktat against tobacco and it's consumption on premises - both visionary and totally beyond question), and whilst musing over my terrible addiction, I happened to stare into space (finding that more of a regular occurrence nowadays), and two things immediately struck me.

1. An over-enthusiastic moth (incidentally, if they are that fascinated by light, why don't they get up during the day?) - idle b**tards!

2. "The Plough" was directly overhead in it's full glory.

At this point I started to wonder.

Why "The plough?"

My historical awareness tends to gravitate around military affairs, so I may be well off the page here, but surely something is badly out of chronological order on that score.

At a push, I can relate to the agricultural machinery shape sort of reference, but surely well before mankind headed out on a path of tilling, tending and harvesting arable crops, we would have invented something to a). stop us burning our fingers getting our freshly killed meat from the fire and/or b). charcoaling said nourishment to a point beyond human consumption?

Clearly it should be called "The Pan".

As a result of this thought process, I'm considering calling my star something really earthy ( I'm coming clean - pun intended. Sorry ), something like "burnt out & jaded" or "Billy no light", the only stipulation I have is that "the chosen name" will end in PJ&TEH18.02.05; but other than that all replies will be considered and one ultimately chosen.

Please help me name my star.

Ta.

You could call it after my little gerbels whisky and lemonade or
waste of money, or dun again or stupid cow.

 

[wanabechippie]

Please help me name my star.

'Steve'.

Good, strong name that.

Steve PJ&TEH18.02.05

Or '.05' to it's mates.

 

[Steve]

Please help me name my star.

'Steve'.

Good, strong name that.

Steve PJ&TEH18.02.05

Or '.05' to it's mates.

Yes, Steve is a good name. not sure i'd like the rest of the junk after my name.

Steve (really, thats my name!)

 

[Soggy_weetabix]

I had a beer (well a few beers) with Eddie Irvine last Saturday at the Brit Grand Prix, and I was seeing stars after trying to match his beer drinking skills.

The guy is the size of a hampster but boy can he drink.

David

 

[pjholybloke]

Please help me name my star.

'Steve'.

Good, strong name that.

Steve PJ&TEH18.02.05

Or '.05' to it's mates.

that's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for, strong contender (out of two) already.

BOB. After Mrs H put some thought into an interesting gift, she might not fully appreciate it being called "stupid cow" or waste of money, real whiskey is spelt with an 'e' in it, and you don't mix it with anything but a glass.

But I do appreciate you making an effort.

This isn't a whimsical post people, I will name that star from the results to this post and so far it's "Steve".

Don't be shy, it's friday so I'm expecting some "creativity".

 

[noseall]

Vast Serest.

 

[pjholybloke]

Vast Serest.

Now that is intriguing, that is creativity incarnate - I love anagrams

Especially when the result is something that actually sounds right, Noseall has it by a nose so far (with a little help from Wannabechippie).

Like it

 

[wanabechippie]

Anagrams, eh?

Hows about:

Taste Her Vest, ... steve the star
Lard S.lut, ...... dull star
Kelly Hop Job, .... pjholybloke.
Abbot Swat,..... Bobs a t.wat
Frosty T.wat Art, .... forty watt star
Hybrid Strata? .... Birthday Star.




Yes, I do have too much time on my hands

 

[pjholybloke]

Too much time or not, the effort is there to see and I appreciate it.

Hybrid Strata?

I think you're back in contention my friend.

Taste her vest? that's so Avid Merrion,

 

[Stulz]

I hate to pour cold water on this, but whatever name you give the star it will only be known to you.

Any extra-terrestrial object is usually only named by it's discoverer, and that name, in the modern era, is always ratified by a committee of the International Astronomical Union.

Of the millions of catalogued stars, there are only a few hundred that have what they call "proper names". With very few exceptions, these are all naked eye stars, as they have been known by that name since antiquity in most cases.

The companies that "sell" star names are nothing more than an elaborate contrick. It's OK if it's taken as a bit of fun, but if it is meant to have meaning then forget it.

 

[pjholybloke]

I hate to pour cold water on this

Mate, you can't see this thing without the assistance of the Hubble, it's one of zillions of stars that are registered in an insignificant catalogue that only exists as a result of humankind's manically driven insistance on keeping lists and organising stuff. This thing is so far away any water you would want to pour on it would lose it's molecular memory before you even got halfway there.

I understand your concern about me and potentially future others being ripped off, but I have to disagree on the use of the word contrick.

To be fair to the organisation behind it, they're just selling the romantic idea of naming a celestial body. It will be registered in a catalogue at the British Library, but there any notion of celestial fame ends.

They freely admit that you can't see it, add that no-one is ever likely to take the slightest interest in it and top it all off by admitting that because there is no restriction on star names the only accurate form of reference would be it's catalogue number and location, and therefore it will be consigned to anonimity forever.

But I love the idea, and, along with the original copy of the Sunday Express published on my actual birthday (an exceptional effort on Mrs H's behalf as it was Easter Sunday 1967) a very personally meaningful gift to both of us (hence the rider on PJ&TEH18.02.05).

Thereafter it's just what you see here, an opportunity to have some harmless fun, and consign a creative but otherwise pointless "label" to an obscure and largely invisible lump of space poo.

But Ta anyway.

Just for anybody remotely interested, they state that a star's degree of brightness is expressed by its Magnitude, the lower - the brighter; e.g. our sun has a magnitude of -26.73, the faintest visible star to the naked eye has a magnitude of 6, and the faintest objects visible to Hubble have a magnitude of 30. "My star" has a magnitude of 13.7

Mid-table Hubble mediocrity.


But I still love it.

 

[Stulz]

I understand your concern about me and potentially future others being ripped off, but I have to disagree on the use of the word contrick.

Fair enough, but they are selling something that is meaningless and worthless, and usually that type of selling is a con, just like snake oil.

To be fair to the organisation behind it, they're just selling the romantic idea of naming a celestial body. It will be registered in a catalogue at the British Library, but there any notion of celestial fame ends.

At least you recognise that, however I would contest their claim to be publishing this in the British Library, I think the IAU, RAS, BAA. AAVSO and several other organisations would throw a **** fit at this notion as it would give the impression of legitimacy to this organisation.

They freely admit that you can't see it, add that no-one is ever likely to take the slightest interest in it and top it all off by admitting that because there is no restriction on star names the only accurate form of reference would be it's catalogue number and location, and therefore it will be consigned to anonimity forever.

Glad they are admiting that these days, it never used to be the case. There are restrictions on Star names however. They either have to follow the ancient Arabic or Greek nomenclature: eg: Bet' el' Geuse (Betelgeuse), Sirius, Rigel Kentaurus (Alpha Centauri), Rigel, Spica etc, or they are named for the catalogue they appear in, which is usually named after the researcher (s) or the instrument used, such as HDD, Sanduleak, Hubble, Palomar, Gliese or a raft of others restricted to particular types of star.

But I love the idea, and, along with the original copy of the Sunday Express published on my actual birthday (an exceptional effort on Mrs H's behalf as it was Easter Sunday 1967) a very personally meaningful gift to both of us (hence the rider on PJ&TEH18.02.05).

Thats good, I like the newspaper idea, I have one for my birthday of the Times, and it was interesting reading.

Thereafter it's just what you see here, an opportunity to have some harmless fun, and consign a creative but otherwise pointless "label" to an obscure and largely invisible lump of space poo.

Glad you accept it is for fun only and that you do not feel "ripped off", as that is by far the most important part of it. Without knowing which star it is by catalogue number, I could not say whether it is "poo" or not.

Just for anybody remotely interested, they state that a star's degree of brightness is expressed by its Magnitude, the lower - the brighter; e.g. our sun has a magnitude of -26.73, the faintest visible star to the naked eye has a magnitude of 6, and the faintest objects visible to Hubble have a magnitude of 30. "My star" has a magnitude of 13.7

This is largely true, although it is the APPARENT magnitude they describe, this is based on the logarythmic scale, so that 1 magnitude change means that a star of magnitude 1 is 2.512 times as bright as a star of magnitude 2, and a star of magnitude 6 is 100 times fainter than that of magnitude 1.

However this is only a visual illusion based on proximity. There are many stars out there that are millions of times fainter than our neighbours in space, but in reality they are millions of times brighter. Faintness and distance does not mean mediocrity.

A good example of this is the Star Sanduleac -69:202, this was a star that had previously been "named" by companies such as being discussed here. The star itself appeared faint, at apparent magnitude of about +14. Located in the Large Magnellanic cloud, the Star was in fact some 160,000 light years from us. However the Star was in fact a Blue Supergiant (class Ia). If placed at the standard distance of 32.6 light years, this star would cast shadows on Earth at night, whilst at this distance the Sun would be barely visible in the background.

The star became famous as Supernova 1987a, and the nearest supernova to Earth since Tycho's supernova of 1604.

Another good example is Eta Carina, this star is some 6000 light years from Earth, and currently around magnitude +6, however there was a time when it would have rivaled the brightest stars in the sky, and this star, in it's heyday, at 32.6 light years, would have cast shadows in broad daylight. It is a Galactic Hypergiant, with mass estimates from 80 to 150 times that of the Sun. It is expected to explode as a supernova within the next 100,000 years.

You cannot judge a book by it's cover, and you cannot judge a star by it's "apparent brightness".

 

[Softus]

Not sure why Steve became the nom de jour, but perhaps Alpha Stevetauri, or whatever name with which you care to flamboyantly prefix "tauri".

Or Rigil Stevetaurus. Or, come to that, Rigil Steve.

 

[pjholybloke]

An essay I think

Stultz, respect to you for your astronomic awareness, you clearly have a passion for the celestial.

I hope you were'nt offended by my space poo reference.

I would be interested in establishing just how honest I think this org is, so if you have the time check this out, I would be obliged if you let me know what you find.

Star Code: STARH6WNRTD75S

AGASC_ID: 3809880 (apparently a code for the AXAF Guide and Acquisition Star Catalogue)

RA: 1h44m19s

DEC: 1 55' 59"

The reference to The British Library states "The information is entered into the Star Registry and you are sent a certificate confirming your star registration. These details are also submitted to The British Library"

Admittedly, I could "submit" something to The British Library, but that don't mean a thing does it?

My mistake in using the term "published"

Cheers.