Hack 14. Identify Stars by Name
Learn common star names and how they're pronounced so the other kids won't laugh at you. From remotest antiquity, every culture has given names to the brightest stars. Such names are called the common name or proper name of a star. Several hundred of the brightest stars have common names, but most amateur astronomers know and use only a few dozen. One star may have many common names. Vega, for example, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, is said to have more than 50 known names. Hundreds more, no doubt, are lost in the mists of time. Many stars have similar names because they share common root names. For example, the syllable "al" is Arabic for "the" and appears in many common star names, as does "deneb" for "tail." The same common name is sometimes used for more than one star. When used without qualification, that practice is fortunately limited to less prominent stars. For important stars that share a name, that name is qualified for at least one of the stars. For example, the name Rigel used alone refers unambiguously to the brightest star in Orion. Another bright star named Rigel exists in the constellation Centaurus, but that star is always referred to as Rigel Kentaurus to avoid confusion. Some common star namesincluding Sirius, Procyon, Castor, and Pollux originated with ancient Greek astronomers like Hipparchus and Ptolemy and have come down to us unchanged. The Romans, great engineers but poor scientists, also contributed a few common star names, including Arcturus, Bellatrix, Regulus, and Vindemiatrix. A few common star names, like Polaris and Cor Caroli, are Latin but of relatively recent origin. But the vast majority of common star names come from the Arabic. The pronunciation and even the spelling of many common star names varies. Original pronunciations and spellings have often been lost or corrupted beyond recognition. For example, the star Almach in Andromeda may be spelled Almaak, Almaach, Almaak, Almak, or even Alamach, with similarly differing pronunciations. Vega is properly pronounced WAY-guh, but if you say it that way people think you're strange. The common pronunciation is VAY-guh, with VEE-guh also sometimes heard. Table 2-2 lists alphabetically by constellation the common star names that are familiar to most amateur astronomers. The most important ones to know are italicized. When multiple pronunciations are given, the first is preferred or more common, but the other(s) are also used commonly. (The Arabic "al" is commonly pronounced "al," "ahl," or "ul", so we simply leave it as "al." The Arabic "g" is variously pronounced hard (game), soft (gelatin), or with the "zh" sound in Dr. Zhivago.)
It's important to know common star names because you'll routinely need to know them when you point out objects to another observer (or vice versa), when you align a go-to scope, and for other common activities. It's important to pronounce the names properly to avoid looking like a complete newbie, regardless of how experienced you may be. You needn't learn all of the common star names, nor even all of those listed in Table 2-2. But it does help to learn the few dozen names shown in italic. The best way to learn them is to memorize the named stars in each constellation as you study or work that constellation. |