Which is Girtab

[angelof (Angelo)]

Greetings

I am doing some research and am finding different answers as to which star Girtab actually is. Some sources show iSco, some kSco, and others theta Sco .

Is there an actual definitive list of names?
Can someone help me out on this?

Thanks

[gaseous (Patrick)]

Originally Posted by angelof

Greetings

I am doing some research and am finding different answers as to which star Girtab actually is. Some sources show iSco, some kSco, and others theta Sco .

Is there an actual definitive list of names?
Can someone help me out on this?

Thanks

Hi Angelo, the IAU has a list of genuine star names - oddly Girtab isn't on the list that I could see, but Sargas is definitely theta scorpii on the list. Girtab comes up as kappa scorpii in both Sky safari and Wikipedia, so I'd probably run with that until you find otherwise. Girtab and Sargas are relatively close together in the constellation, whereas iSco is a bit more removed.

[angelof (Angelo)]

Greetings
Thanks for your informed reply

Originally Posted by gaseous

Girtab comes up as kappa scorpii in both Sky safari and Wikipedia, so I'd probably run with that until you find otherwise.

Stellarium comes up with Girtab as i1 Sco. Hence my confusion.
I suppose i will use HIP87073 and HIP86670 as my search in my Stellarium scripts.

Thanks

[gaseous (Patrick)]

Yes, Stellarium looks to have called iSco as Girtab, whereas the correct star for Girtab (HR 6580), is noted as Mula, which is not in the IAU list of stars, or anywhere else that I can see. I could be wrong, but it looks like an error in Stellarium.

[gary]

As mentioned by Patrick, the IAU Working Group on Star Names (WGSN)
recently set about to formally catalogue star names, starting with the
brightest first.

The first official list came out in 2016 and there has been a handful of
revisions every year since then.

See https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming_stars/

The IAU decided to name individual stars rather than multiple systems.

Wikipedia cites a reference to "The Mythology of the Night Sky:
An Amateur Astronomer's Guide to the Ancient Greek and Roman Legends" by David E. Falkner
which says Girthab was an asterism formed by "Kappa Sco, Lesath, Shaula and Iota Sco".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_Scorpii

https://books.google.com.au/books?id...page&q&f=false

So with that in mind, it is likely the reason why Girthab isn't in the IAU
list because historically it was not a single star.

[angelof (Angelo)]

That is fantastic. Great resources.
Thanks everyone