[Erg]

Hi All

Am I losing my mind?


I was taught as a young fella in the 70s that the two Crux pointers were named Alpha and Beta Centuri. Not as Starry Night 6 tells me..Rigel Kentaurus and Hadir. I was getting used it in a “something’s not right” kinda way.

I saved some (over 100) old 60s, 70s and 80s high school text books from the bin at work the other day. One of which was entitled “Focus on the Stars” dated 1973.

I started reading and was engrossed by page 2. Turns out it contains lectures given to The Science Foundation for Physics within the University of Sydney in ‘73 by seven speakers including a young Frank Drake and even younger Carl Sagan.

Long story short there is a pic on page 25 taken at Stromlo (a few kms from where I grew up) by A.R Hogg that shows the pointers as Alpha and Beta Centari.

It bought memories flooding back and made me think.

A) Am I mistaken? (be kind)
B) Has there been a change in nomenclature, and if so why.

As Southern Hemisphere Australian observers how do we currently refer to these stars and more importantly why?

Erg - Pete