Celestia Forums

The Hipparcos Input Catalogue provides a field for variable star designations. It would therefore not be too difficult to create a cross-index from variable star designations to Hipparcos. A variable star designation can be represented in two numbers: one representing the constellation and one representing the first part of the designation (R=1...Z=9, RR=10...RZ=54, AA=55...QZ=334, V335=335 etc.) The constellation number would be the index to the entry in the constellationInfo[] array in constellationinfo.cpp.

Before I go ahead and make a cross-index file, do people think this be a useful addition to Celestia?

Yes, I think that it would be. More generally, I think that it would be useful to split up starnames.dat in several files:

- Variable star designations
- Bayer designations
- Flamsteed designations
- Proper names

It might be worthwhile to split the proper names file into separate files for common and rare names. I'm often confused when I see uncommon proper names, e.g. 'Zuben Elakrab' instead of Gamma Librae. With the files split, it would be possible to distinguish between sets of names and even allow the user to set some priorities for which names are used. A nice default might be:

Common proper name
Bayer
Flamsteed
Variable
HD
HIPPARCOS

--Chris