Celestia Forums

While browsing through starnames.dat I see stars that appear to have multiple names. For example:

677:Alpheratz:Sirrah:ALF And:21 And:DEL Peg

Which tells me that the star with the HIP ID of 677 seems to have 5 names:

Alpheratz
Sirrah
ALF And
21 And
DEL Peg

Are these names in a specific order? Are they unique within the database of names? Are they all various common names? I know these are beginner questions, but I am a beginner

- Jeff

Hello

Yes indeed!
Stars may have several names. Alpheratz and Sirrah are traditional names inherited from Arabic tradition.
Then to organize that, in the 17th century, stars where put in different catalogs and named from them. Moreover limits of constellations where not fixed very well. So Sirrah is on the limit of Andromeda and Pegasus. Hence the surprising names of alpha Andromedae and delta Pegasi together. But there are still more names and in Celestia the display shows also HIP 677, HD 358 and SAO 73765 from more recent corresponding catalogs.

jdavies wrote:While browsing through starnames.dat I see stars that appear to have multiple names. For example:

677:Alpheratz:Sirrah:ALF And:21 And:DEL Peg

Which tells me that the star with the HIP ID of 677 seems to have 5 names:

Alpheratz
Sirrah
ALF And
21 And
DEL Peg

Are these names in a specific order? Are they unique within the database of names? Are they all various common names? I know these are beginner questions, but I am a beginner

- Jeff

Jeff,

I propose you get used to the professional world astronomy database SIMBAD.
Here is its URL

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/

Click "By Identifier" and enter any of the above names.
Then you get a lot of official info about this object, including ALL it's names!

Fridger

Thanks guys. I appreciate the help.

- Jeff