Andrew, the article was written by the magazine editor, Greg Bryant, with whom it appears, you have had previous, dare I say, literary battles.
I accept your response as to Lacaillé being the first who separated Crux. My original question though was from where was the astronomer observing. Was Lacaillé also a sailor as was Royer?
I was also a little puzzled by the following in your article:
I N T R O D U C T I O N
This now severely modified article was first published in 1998 as a response to an article in the Journal “
Universe” of the Astronomical Society of New South Wales Inc. written by Greg Bryant entitled “
Stars of the Southern Cross”;
Universe,
45, 7 August (1998). Although the original article points out
the lack of Greek lettered stars in the constellation of Crux, .........
I recall as a 10 y.o. Cub Scout (1949), that we had to learn about the Southern Cross and we gave Greek alphabet symbols to the stars, particularly remembering how the stars were labelled starting at he bottom with alpha and going clockwise to the little star called Epsilon.
So when were the stars forming Crux assigned their current letters? It appears from your other articles that a few hundred years ago they had Greek letters only were assigned differently. I think I'm now getting a little confused.
Robert