[gary]

Some may find the following footnote interesting.

Within minutes of landing, one of the first tasks the astronauts performed
was a star sighting in order to re-establish the attitude of the LM's on-board
IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit).

Aldrin performed a two-star alignment using Rigel and Gamma Cassiopeiae,
the later of which the astronauts referred to by the name "Navi".

The origin of the name "Navi" is interesting and is discussed in the Apollo 15
Lunar Surface Journal.

Originally Posted by Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Journal

[Scott - "We had 36 stars and, when we started, there were only 33 with
prominent names. Now there are 36 with prominent names. The three that
didn't have names are now called Navi, Dnoces and Regor. If you go look
at the (Apollo) star catalog, there are a lot of stars - all the ones
you're familiar with - and then these three."]

[Dave is, of course, overstating the case when he says that there were
"three that didn't have names" because, in fact, the three already had
names that had long been recognized by the astronomical community.
"Navi" is Gamma Cassiopeia; "Dnoces" is Iota Ursa Majoris; and "Regor"
is Gamma Velorum. See the article Dnoces, Navi, and Regor by E.C. Krupp,
which was published in the October 1994 edition of Sky & Telescope.]

[Scott - "And do you know where the names came from? For the record:
Virgil Ivan Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger Chaffee. I hope they
got left in the catalog."]

[For readers who have not tumbled to the connection between the star
names and the Apollo 1 crew, "Navi" is "Ivan" spelled backwards, "Regor"
is "Roger", and "Dnoces" is "Second".]

[During our Apollo 15 mission review, Dave recalled that the stars had
been named for the Grissom crew after the Apollo 1 fire; but educators
Betty Niver and Mary Zornio called my attention to a story in Wally
Schirra's book to the effect that, long before the fire, Grissom
conspired with the Director of the Morehead Planetarium, Tony Jenzano,
to name the three stars after the members of his crew. Journal
Contributor Charles Rolston notes that there is also a discussion of the
star names in the James Michener novel Space.] Editors notes - [Late in
1996, I was able to contact Jenzano, who provided the following
clarification: "The great majority of celestial navigation training for
the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts was conducted at the Morehead
Planetarium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At the time a summary report
was written in 1969, the astronauts had already logged over 1700 hours
of training at the Morehead Planetarium. Training continued up to the
Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. In 1959, Link Trainers were designed and
constructed (by Jenzano) which mirrored the view the astronauts would
have in their capsules while in space. The astronauts memorized specific
constellations and significant stars and utilized this information with
accompanying star charts in order to be able to plot their position in
space at any given time. The Mercury trainer had the capacity to yaw
left or right in order to simulate the action of the thruster rockets.
New trainers were constructed for the Gemini (and Apollo) missions."]

["I was not involved in the 'renaming' of the stars (Navi, Dnoces, and
Regor). Shortly after the Apollo tragedy, NASA sent star charts from the
mission for me to review and edit. In that review, I noticed three stars
on the charts that had been named incorrectly and included this
information in my report back to NASA officials. I made no attempt to
discern why the star names were incorrect. Several years later, I met
with one of the original Mercury astronauts, Wally Schirra, at a
conference and, in the course of the conversation, the renamed stars
were mentioned as a private joke made by Gus Grissom. When I returned
home from the conference, I looked through my records and retrieved the
letter I had written to NASA. I then copied the letter and sent it to
Mr. Schirra. In the (cover) letter to Mr. Schirra, I acknowledged that,
obviously, I had inadvertently 'spilled the beans' on the astronauts. I
noted that, if I had known, I might have 'gone along with the joke' to
see how far it would go!"]

In honor of Grissom, White and Chaffee, our own Argo Navis uses the name
Navi in its list of alignment stars and northern hemisphere observers routinely
select it to align their scopes just as Aldrin used Navi to align the IMU
whislt on the Moon in July of 1969.