Star Naming For The Mentally Challenged Or The Independently Wealthy (Or Both)!
Hello again loyal readers. I hope everyone is doing well.
The title of today's post concerns star naming. By "stars" I do not mean the folks on tv and in the movies, they are "actors" not stars. I mean the celestial balls of (mostly) hydrogen that shine in the night sky (they shine in the day sky, but our own star is so bright that you can't see them).
It would seem that because I listed astronomy as one of my hobbies in my email profile, the scum of the internet (spammers) have seen fit to bombard me with dozens of emails concerning certain star naming organizations. The organizations mentioned in the spam are not the International Astronomical Union (IAU) which is the organization that gives stars their official scientific names. No, the organizations mentioned are the ones that will name a star for or after someone for a fee.
Now being an amateur astronomer, I know that if I discover something, I am supposed to send a telegram to the IAU telling them exactly what I discovered, where it is located in the sky, and when I made the discovery. After they receive the telegram, they will have the object confirmed, and make sure that no one has discovered it before me. Once these, and a few other checks, are done I would get the credit for the discovery (providing I did indeed discover the object), but as I read the rules, they, the IAU, get to name the object. As it sits now, planets pretty much get named after Greek or Roman gods, comets get named after the discoverer, and stars get a rather mundane catalog number owing to the fact that there are so many of them. So, if I discovered a star, unless it is something spectacular, or unless I am a world famous astronomer (say on the par of someone like Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan or the like) the star would get a number and not a name.
Having said this, there are certain companies (who shall remain nameless to keep me from getting sued rather than to protect those who are obvious scam artists) out there who are more than willing to name a star for a fee. The companies will allow you to name a star anything you like as long as you pony up the cash. The fee for naming your own star runs from roughly $40 up to roughly $150. For your cash, you get a nice certificate, the coordinates of your star, and, in some cases, the star is placed in a book containing the name you give it and the coordinates. That is all well and fine except for one thing...no legitimate astronomer in the world will be using the name of your star to refer to that star! I'll give you an example of what I mean: Say your pet turtle passes on to turtle Heaven. Having had your pet for some number of years, and while grieving his loss, you decide that you want to do something special in memory of him. So after searching a bit and finding that headstones cost too much, you decide to name a star after your late pet turtle. So you go to a star naming company's website and enter all of the necessary information, pick your naming package, and voila, several dollars later you have named a star Gamera after your deceased turtle. After a few days, you decide that you want to see your star, so you truck on down to the local observatory and hook up with the resident astronomer. You tell the astronomer that you want to see your star named Gamera. It is then that the astronomer has to tell you that there is no star with the officially recognized name of Gamera.
Now this may not sound too bad, considering that the star was named for a pet turtle, but imagine being an astronomer and having to break that kind of news to a person who named a star after a recently departed loved one. Let's just say that I wouldn't want to be the one to do it.
So my advice to those who want to name a star is: Avoid the commercial star naming places, take your $40 to $150 and get some nice certificate making software, pick a random star either out of a star catalog or the sky, then use your computer to print out a nice certificate with your name for the star and the star's coordinates on it. It will be just as official as using the commercial star naming places and it will save you a few bucks.
Oh, and to the spammers who keep sending me these emails...don't bother, they just get trashed anyway, so you are wasting your time!
I am Chuck and I will be having the spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, eggs, and spam! (Apologies to Monty Python for the shameless reference).
The title of today's post concerns star naming. By "stars" I do not mean the folks on tv and in the movies, they are "actors" not stars. I mean the celestial balls of (mostly) hydrogen that shine in the night sky (they shine in the day sky, but our own star is so bright that you can't see them).
It would seem that because I listed astronomy as one of my hobbies in my email profile, the scum of the internet (spammers) have seen fit to bombard me with dozens of emails concerning certain star naming organizations. The organizations mentioned in the spam are not the International Astronomical Union (IAU) which is the organization that gives stars their official scientific names. No, the organizations mentioned are the ones that will name a star for or after someone for a fee.
Now being an amateur astronomer, I know that if I discover something, I am supposed to send a telegram to the IAU telling them exactly what I discovered, where it is located in the sky, and when I made the discovery. After they receive the telegram, they will have the object confirmed, and make sure that no one has discovered it before me. Once these, and a few other checks, are done I would get the credit for the discovery (providing I did indeed discover the object), but as I read the rules, they, the IAU, get to name the object. As it sits now, planets pretty much get named after Greek or Roman gods, comets get named after the discoverer, and stars get a rather mundane catalog number owing to the fact that there are so many of them. So, if I discovered a star, unless it is something spectacular, or unless I am a world famous astronomer (say on the par of someone like Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan or the like) the star would get a number and not a name.
Having said this, there are certain companies (who shall remain nameless to keep me from getting sued rather than to protect those who are obvious scam artists) out there who are more than willing to name a star for a fee. The companies will allow you to name a star anything you like as long as you pony up the cash. The fee for naming your own star runs from roughly $40 up to roughly $150. For your cash, you get a nice certificate, the coordinates of your star, and, in some cases, the star is placed in a book containing the name you give it and the coordinates. That is all well and fine except for one thing...no legitimate astronomer in the world will be using the name of your star to refer to that star! I'll give you an example of what I mean: Say your pet turtle passes on to turtle Heaven. Having had your pet for some number of years, and while grieving his loss, you decide that you want to do something special in memory of him. So after searching a bit and finding that headstones cost too much, you decide to name a star after your late pet turtle. So you go to a star naming company's website and enter all of the necessary information, pick your naming package, and voila, several dollars later you have named a star Gamera after your deceased turtle. After a few days, you decide that you want to see your star, so you truck on down to the local observatory and hook up with the resident astronomer. You tell the astronomer that you want to see your star named Gamera. It is then that the astronomer has to tell you that there is no star with the officially recognized name of Gamera.
Now this may not sound too bad, considering that the star was named for a pet turtle, but imagine being an astronomer and having to break that kind of news to a person who named a star after a recently departed loved one. Let's just say that I wouldn't want to be the one to do it.
So my advice to those who want to name a star is: Avoid the commercial star naming places, take your $40 to $150 and get some nice certificate making software, pick a random star either out of a star catalog or the sky, then use your computer to print out a nice certificate with your name for the star and the star's coordinates on it. It will be just as official as using the commercial star naming places and it will save you a few bucks.
Oh, and to the spammers who keep sending me these emails...don't bother, they just get trashed anyway, so you are wasting your time!
I am Chuck and I will be having the spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, eggs, and spam! (Apologies to Monty Python for the shameless reference).
posted by Chuck | 02:30
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