Quote:
Originally Posted by 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..Rigil 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
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Hi Pete, quite a few of the bright stars have more than one name.
Alpha, is the first letter of the Greek alphabet which denotes the brightest star in the Constellation,in this case Alph Centouri
The Bayer catalogue uses the Greek Alphabet to denote the brightness of the star, Alpha being the brightest and Omega being the faintest.
As an amateur Astronomer I use mainly Rigil Kent or Alpha Cent when I am talking about this star in the abreviated form I have put here, as you may in the future if you talk to other observers .
Its Arabic name is Rigil Kentaurus which means foot of the Centour.
Same with Hadar,Beta Centauri which also has the name of Agena,but to most is Hadar or Beta Cent.
I hope this helps ?
Cheers
PS it is Rigil, not Rigel.