how many stars in the Southern Cross?

[OICURMT]

Tell your colleagues that there are 8 stars in the primary asterism of the Southern Cross, Alpha Crux is a double star and Gamma is a triple...

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Oh excellent! That'll confuse them even more

[gary]

It is amazing what you can find on Wikipedia ...

It would not help Troy's case, but it is interesting to note that in the
Wikipedia article on Crux, that in Mapundungun, the language of
Patagonian Mapuches, the name for Crux is Melipal which means
"four stars". A quick check of online Mapundugun dictionaries confirms
that indeed the word for the number four is Meli.

As a side note, the four main VLT telescopes have Mapudungun names,
one of which is Melipal. Graphic here -
http://www.eso.org/public/archives/i...screen/vlt.jpg
Discussion of VLT names here -
http://www.eso.org/public/teles-inst...vlt-names.html

So it seems the Mapuches and New Zealanders have one thing in common,
which is that their idea of the Southern Cross only has four stars.

Wikipedia is a wonderful resource. Here is an article on cataract surgery -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract_surgery

[OICURMT]

I believe CRUX is taken from the Latin language meaning cross or crossroads ("Crux of the problem")...

I can understand the four stars... but a crux could have many more, as long as they line up in a cross pattern...


But then again, I could be fulla-crap-ola and have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about...


As for Wikipedia... got to admit... I love it. However, there is a saying about it... "Wikipedia is like the Bible, just because a lot of people contribute to it does not necessarily make it right..."

[ving (David)]

Originally Posted by Gem

Easy:

Southern Cross = 5 in Australia
Southern Cross = 4 in New Zealand

Crux = many!!!

En Zed has more light pollution obviously :p