Celestia Forums

I was adding in Stein 2051 today believing it was not included in Celestia, only to find that in some small, and very buggy way it was.

The small star labeled HIP 21088 is in fact Stein 2051 B, a white dwarf. There appears to be no inclusion of Stein 2051 A, a red dwarf of approximately 20 % Solar Mass and of class M4 V.

Celestia lists HIP 21088 as a star of "?5 V" status, with a surfate temp of 8200K and an absolute magnitude of 12.11. The actual Data for Stein 2051 B is as follows:

RA 67.798
Dec 58.977083
Distance 17.98350961
SpectralType "DC5"
AppMag 12.44

For posterities sake here is my data for the not included Stein 2051 A

RA 67.798
Dec 58.977083
Distance 17.98411998
SpectralType "M4.0 V"
AppMag 11.08

anyway, hope this helps, at the least if this isn't to be a binary system, include the A component preferably.

I'd guess this is an error in assigning a spectral class to A, rather than a deliberate effort to plot B and not A - if B had been intended, the spectral class would have been given as "WD". But it does again reflect the slightly shakey content of stars.dat at present.

The list of Hip and HD catalogue numbers for many nearby stars is certainly confusing. I've been doing a bit of manual tidying, and should soon have the nearest 25ly of starnames.dat stocked with more familiar names and catalogue numbers.

Grant

Well Grant I can see your point, HIP 21088 in fact seems to refer just to the "system" of Stein 2051, not any one star. The Two stars are actually labeled, LHS (Luyten Half Second) 26 for A, and LHS 27 for B.

The naming mistakes are going to happen, its no big deal. In fact I noticed several earlier in relation to Lalande 21185, GB 34, and Ross 128, though someone else already mentioned those. I don't know if I mentioned this earlier but in the case of 36 Ophiuchi, the Hipparcos designation fits, but the A Component is assigned the name HD 155885 which in reality is the figure for the B component, 36 Oph A is HD 155886.

And of course theres the case of Achird (Eta Cas) a Double Star 19.42 light years distant. However in Celestia its listed as being 1411.977 light years away with an absolute magnitude of -4.73 and a Radius of 76.98 Sol. Heh, well the more stuff that is caught now the better. cheers.