[Enchilada]

Originally Posted by Robert9

Andrew, the article was written by the magazine editor, Greg Bryant, with whom it appears, you have had previous, dare I say, literary battles.

Thanks. I now see the origin of the problem here. Mr. Bryant has made this very same error before. Again he has not gone into the detailed research, as the role of Royer has been perpetuated since Englishman Basil Brown in 1932 ("Astronomical Atlases, Maps and Charts. Pub. Search Publishing (London)" boldly claimed the origin of Crux (actually Crux Australis) was Royer. This is wrong, as there are several source going back into the 13th Century. (English literary sources have traditionally poo-pooed French claims to anything, and many source show significant bias!! (As do French sources - think of the discovery of Neptune, for example.)) It was probably the Spanish in South America!

Originally Posted by Robert9

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?

Royer did not leave France as far as I know, and adapted four celestial maps in 1679 as "Cartes du Ciel Réduites en Quare Tables, Contentes les Constellations" (I saw Map Two in 1998 at a London exhibition in the National Library there.)
He actually never observed Crux at all, and very probably adapted it from a map produced earlier by Edmond Halley from St. Helena in 1669. (who made observations of southern stars mainly to compare these to Ptolemy's positions.) This was published in the same year in London.
Abbe Nicolas Louis de La Caillé (Lacaillé) observed from the Cape of Good Hope using 12mm refractor making a detail southern sky atlas. Lacaillé set most of the order of the Greek letters for the modern southern constellation.

Originally Posted by Robert9

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, .........

The lack of Greek letters refers to Mr. Bryant's contention of why the Greek letter stopped at mu, and did not continue to omega.

Originally Posted by Robert9

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.

Greek letter we assigned to stars first by Ptolemy/ (Hipparcos?), a practice used in the northern skies. They also labelled them by features within the constellation - the Crux stars as horse parts, like "Quae ion extremo anterioris dextri pedis" (Alpha cru) or "Quae est in talo ejusdem pedis" (Beta Cru).

In those days, designations appear with the stars within the then 48 constellation. Centaurus was one of them, with Crux being part of Centaurus - an asterism per se.
In fact Bayer draws Crux over the Centaurus stars, but labels then zeta, xi, epsilon and upsilon Centauri (now discarded). Royer allegedly labelled them alpha through zeta, using Halley's brightness in his observations. Neither the order here is used nor some of the assignments match today's I.e. iota Cru is wrong

So when were the stars forming Crux assigned their current letters?

Lacaillé 1751-52

Thanks for your relentless critical quizzing! Useful feedback, Robert! I will update my own article accordingly.