Celestia Forums

Hello.

I've purchased the naming of a star through "International Star Registry". The data of the position of the star is:

RA 22h 35m 56.20s
D 3? 38' 38.40''

How can I look for that star in Celestia (if it exists in this or another program)?

Thanks in advance.

BrainSCAN wrote:I've purchased the naming of a star through "International Star Registry".

Tough luck! I would have sold you the very same star for only half the price!

Seriously, ISR is a scam. Check the following links:

http://www.earthsky.com/Features/News/star.html

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_385.html

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,49345,00.html

http://www.bpccs.com/lcas/Articles/starname.htm

http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/~gibson/star ... _news.html

As to your question, just press RETURN, then enter the name of the star (to select it), then press C to center it on the screen. Or did ISR forget to tell you that your star already has a name?

Actually, I don't see a star in the standard Celestia star database at the coordinates you've indicated. Possibly one of the add-on star databases might have it, if you think it's worth the trouble.

Just so long as you realise that buying star names is purely a vanity thing - no scientific body recognises the names, and there are several agencies that do the star naming thing, so chances are your star already has a name. Essentially you just pay the money for a bit of paper saying 'this star is called XXXX, named by YYYY' - that's it. Nice for the ego, or to make you feel better after the loss of a loved one, but that's all.

I wonder what the going price for about 1000000000000000000000000000 tons of fusing hydrogen and helium is nowadays anyway...

To find the star, your best bet is to head over to the Hipparcos Star Search catalogue page at: http://astro.estec.esa.nl/Hipparcos/HIP ... earch.html

If you set the tolerance to 5 minutes of arc, you find that the star in question is probably TYC 570-1392-1. You won't be able to see it in the default Celestia file though, you need the huge Hipparcos version of star.dat , and I've forgotten where to get that from.

EDIT: Might as well tell you what it is... according to Celestia it's an F5V star 1382.061 lightyears away near the border between the constellations of Pegasus and Aquarius. Apparent magnitude is 11.24 (which means you can't see it unless you have a rather big telescope). One wonders what made you pick that one...

I'm also not sure if the stellar data (spectral type, size etc) in Celestia is correct. The star in question seems to be a bit small to be visible over a thousand lightyears.