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Hi Andrew,
Yep interesting thoughts.
A few further points arising from your post. I think it a pity that such a noble object such as the Theta Carinae cluster (IC 2602) has to the called the "_Southern_ Pleiades".
Using this train of thought, we could call Omega Centauri "The Southern M13"?? More correctly it should be the other way round of course.
I like the train of thought on the "Fruit Loop" cluster -- NGC 104 or 47 Tucanae. You have referred the "Bode" number, and I might be wrong but I thought it was a Flamsteed number?
Given the splendor of these two objects particularly compared to piddling M13 maybe we could continue the commercial theme by calling them the "Coke" cluster and the "Diet Coke" cluster (I'll leave it up to you as to which is which) -- on the basis that that Coca-Cola claims to be "the real thing"? (they did use that slogan way back when we were lads) We could then call M13 the "Pepsi cluster". Hmmm ... I quite like that idea actually!
Which common name? is another problem. How many common names has M17 got? 3 or 4 I think. But which one is the "commonest" common name? That surely depends where you live to an extent.
The problem with common names for stars is an equally thorny one. Having just written a mass of text and editing the star-maps for someone elses upcoming book you find a similar problem to the object names. Lots of stars bear multiple names, many are highly corrupted and the question becmes "which one is most common?" And is this really a "common" common name? Where do we draw the line? There are also several stars that bear the same name in different constellations.
Additionally so many star names have become so corrupted over time that thay no longer mean what they did originally. They have been translated from Arabic to Greek then from Greek to Latin (or sometimes just latinised Greek) which is later re-translated back into Arabic and anglicised. Result: Something that was originally meant to mean "Most beautiful maiden" now means "My uncles' clubb foot"!
That is where we run into other star names that too make me cringe in disgust like (as we have previously discussed privately) - "Becrux" -- grrrrrr as we well know it is Mimosa. Or Atria -- arrraghhaaaaaa!!!
I could go on longer but I've just run out of stemetil!
Best,
Les D
The laws of Thermodynamics (summarised)
1st Law: You can't win.
2nd Law: You can't break even.
3rd Law: You can't leave the game.
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