Naming objects

[speach]

Myself I dislike the use the common names of celestial objects, for one thing you have to have a very fertile imagination to see any likeness between the name and the object. Also it could lead to confusion much better to have say M83 rather than Whirlpool, southern Whirlpool etc.
Anyway that's my beef!

[julianh72]

Do you eschew Constellation names as well, and only refer to targets by their RA and Dec to navigate around the night sky?

What about the planets - do you like looking at Sol 6, or Saturn?

:lol:

Seriously, I think having distinct "common names" for large "collections" of similar or related objects makes it a lot easier to recall the attributes of the objects, even if those names have no rational linkage to the object in question.

It's a fair bet that one of Neil Armstrong's distant ancestors was a physically powerful man, but that isn't what we remember Neil for. And when it comes to DSOs in a small telescope - if we tried to give them a meaningful name based on what you can actually see, we would just end up with a list of entries like "Very Faint Fuzzy Object No. xxx" - but "Running Chicken Nebula" will help me remember where I need to look, and what to look for, far more than IC 2948 or C 100 or RCW 62

I think most people only have a capacity to recall a very small selection of numbered items on a list (particularly when you are dealing with 3-, 4- and even 5-digit numbers), but we can remember much more detail from a much longer list of named objects.

"PGC 17223? What's that? Oh! You mean the Large Magellanic Cloud? It's right over there!"

[Robh]

Are you talking purely visual or are we extending to photographs as well?
In any case, I would have to disagree with you on your point of the object not having much likeness to its common name. The names most often describe some property of the object(s) or perhaps its location.

I can give many examples: Blue Planetary, Ghost of Jupiter, Saturn Nebula, Helix Nebula, Clown Face Nebula, Ring Nebula, Dumbbell Nebula, Sombrero Galaxy, Sculptor Galaxy, Needle Galaxy, Spindle Galaxy, Black-eye Galaxy, Coma Pinwheel, the Andromeda Galaxy, Leo Triplet, Markarian's Chain, Swan Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula, eta Carinae Nebula, the Beehive, the Pleiades, the Southern Pleaides, omicron Velorum Cluster etc.

It is fairly easy to build a large repertoire of objects by common name and have an idea of what they look like. If you can't remember its Messier, NGC or IC number, you can quickly get it from its common name on a phone or tablet.

Of course, if you can remember all the designated Messier, NGC or IC numbers that would be quite impressive!

Regards, Rob