Stargate asterism, star distances

OneOfOne (Trevor) · #1 19-08-2009, 08:05 AM

I am putting together a bit of a talk about asterisms and one of my slides talks about the Stargate in Corvus, I thought there was an entry on Wikipedia with the distances to all six stars, but I can't find it. I found a couple of sites that have the distances to 4 of the stars, but I can't find all 6. Does anyone have a link or know the distances of each star? It just seems a bit odd having four distances on the slide...and two missing.

Thanks,

Trevor

renormalised (Carl) · #2 19-08-2009, 08:39 AM

Which ones do you have the distances for??

Here's their distances.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Corvus

OneOfOne (Trevor) · #3 19-08-2009, 08:58 PM

Here is a link to the page I found with the four distances on it, the two "missing" ones don't have an Hiparcos number.

http://platformx.sourceforge.net/Name/index.html

I "know" is saw the data on Wikipedia about a year ago, but now it is not there. There was a whole article on the Stargate...and not the TV show either

Now it has gone....

bojan · #4 19-08-2009, 09:17 PM

Have you tried CdC or Celestia? With Celestia, you can see how the asterism look like in profile.

Enchilada · #5 19-08-2009, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OneOfOne

Here is a link to the page I found with the four distances on it, the two "missing" ones don't have an Hiparcos number.
I "know" is saw the data on Wikipedia about a year ago, but now it is not there. There was a whole article on the Stargate...and not the TV show either.

I really doubt if there is any measures of parallax for these two fainter stars- especially as the magnitudes are 9.91 and 10.95V (11.46 B?), respectively.

I found no data in other older catalogues - likely as the magnitude is too faint for such stellar catalogues to measure.

The plot of these stars showing the direction of the stars can be viewed in the graphic of the "Stargate" SIMBAD field;

Clearly the central triangle of stars share similar proper motions with the outer brighter triangle seeming unrelated and have a high probability of being nothing to do with the central triangle stars.

Sadly, you will have to wait for the Gaia astrometric satellite results which are still years away.

Hope this helps.

OneOfOne (Trevor) · #6 20-08-2009, 07:49 AM

renormalised (Carl) · #7 20-08-2009, 09:39 AM

Here's how we can resolve your dilemma. Get the spectroscopy guys on here to take some spectra of the the stars that have no spectral or distance info and get them to post it in the spectroscopy section. They have to have the calibrated and continuum spectrum posted in their threads. That way, I can determine if the stars are giants, main sequence or whatever, and from there I may be able to determine a reasonable estimated distance for your stars

OneOfOne (Trevor) · #8 21-08-2009, 07:38 AM

Maybe I should make up some numbers....they'll never know

renormalised (Carl) · #9 21-08-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OneOfOne

Maybe I should make up some numbers....they'll never know

That's cheating

Although, just add up the others, find the average distance and then add +- 100ly to those figures....that'll be good enough

Funny if they turned out to be correct!!!!

Enchilada · #10 21-08-2009, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OneOfOne

Maybe I should make up some numbers....they'll never know

Never, ever do that. It immediately discredits anything you do and punishes the very heart of astronomy as a science.

I would suggest something like...

"The current distance and relationships of all these stars is uncertain. Assuming mean distances of the brighter stars in the asterism that have known Hipparcos parallaxes, the approximate distance is xx parsecs. Projected size of the asterism at this distance is xxx parsecs."