[AJames]

Les,

You wrote;

"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?"

As a comment, these numbers are certainly Bode numbers. Flamsteed did his numbering system in 1725, of all naked eye stars as seen from Greenwich, England. The first star in order of Right Ascension in a particular constellation was assigned as 1 followed by 2, 3 etc., despite any other system, until the last one was recorded. This sequence was also applied to stars north of declination -23 degrees, so only the northern constellations were included and a few southern ones. In all, some 2 682 stars have numbers. Highest is 140 Tauri.
Flamsteed numbers today do not follow the true sequence as the slow true movements of the stars over the centuries have change, due to proper motion. For example; 20, 21, 22, 23 Herculis are now 22, 20, 23, 21 Herculis. A number have moved into neighbour constellations. i.e. 34 Vulpeculae that now found within Pegasus.
An example of southern constellation with Flamsteed numbers is northern Centaurus, which has 1, 2, 3 and 4 Centauri - the last two being splendid doubles. Lupus has star 1 and 2. Below this, no Flamsteed numbers exist.
An example of a southern star with a Bode number is p Eridani, which is also 6 Eridani.
These numbers were originally printed with the star catalogue associated with the 1801 version of the original Uranographia. The curse with this is that the numbers remain unavailable in any form and do not appear electronically. The numbers were taken from the observations made from Lacaille's 1752 star positions.
James Dunlop, who had a copy when producing the Paramatta Star Catalogue (PSC), which he used also for his double star catalogue, later used this same numbering system. For example DUN 4 is 100 Phoenicis, DUN 88 is 558 Argus, DUN 173 is 323 Argus, while DUN 204 is 57 Normae etc. Dunlop must have finally dumped the system for those pairs between about 15h and 24h RA, as only 6 of the last 113 doubles have Bode numbers. This is probably because he could not decide in which constellation that each double was placed.
These Bode numbers were eventually dumped completely by the 1840's - (To me) wrongly killed off as "silly" by John Herschel - mainly because it made no practical sense.
Having it today is probably useless anyway, as the boundaries of the constellation did nor follow the rigid RA/Dec boundaries at all and are drawn as huge ovals around them. Worst is constellations like Argo made the stars total just over 1100.

At one time i considered reproducing a kind of "Southern Flamsteed Number Catalogue", but realised it would probably be folly and was not likely to be used by amateurs. it would be fairly easy to do, labelling the stars with a cut-off magnitude of 6.2 - same as Flamsteed - an use the Hipparcos Catalogue to pick them off one by one in increasing R.A.

As for the designation of Roman letters Ie. b Car, J Cen, etc, well that another mess given as a substitute.

Those vaguely interested in star designations might like to read;
"Greek Designations of Southern Stars" - that will fill in the historical gaps here.

http://homepage.mac.com/andjames/Page206.htm

There is also a French translation of Delporte "Demarcation of the Constellations" at; http://homepage.mac.com/andjames/Page207.htm

Regards,
Andrew