Alf Cen B vs Alpha Centauri B

[ajtribick]

The version of Celestia is 1.3.0 running on Windows XP (GeForce graphics card)

The program accepts "Rigel Kentaurus B" and "Alf Cen B" but does not accept "Alpha Centauri B" in the Goto and Select windows.

Is there any way to get round this or will I have to keep reminding myself to use abbreviated star names in future?

[granthutchison]

You could edit starnames.dat. Open it in Word, search for Alf Cen A and Alf Cen B, and then add/substitute your preferred name. Save it as a text file.
(But please back up the original file before doing this, just in case ...)

Grant

[ajtribick]

My point is really that starnames.dat contains entries such as "DEL Cep" and the program will automatically accept "Delta Cephei" from that. If the name given is "TET2 Ori" then it will accept "Theta2 Orionis". However it does not seem to treat suffixes such as "Alpha Centauri B" from "ALF Cen B" or "61 Cygni B" from "61 Cyg B"

I know I could get round this by adding the relevant data to starnames.dat, but seeing as the program already handles other expansions I would have thought that it would handle the expanded form with a suffix.

[chris]

Your explanation of the problem is spot on. Celestia checks for star names that end with a space and a three letter constellation abbreviation. The trailing component identifier throws it off, however. I'll see if there's an easy fix for this.

--Chris