Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 13:45:38 -0700 (MST) From: Brian Skiff <Brian.Skiff@lowell.edu> Subject: Re: [vsnet-id 808] Re: AAVSO names in SIMBAD >> Weren't these RA/Dec labels called 'Harvard Designations'? Yes, and they are a terrible anachronism. I agree that these names should not appear first in the SIMBAD headers, since they are misleading. The reason for adding them recently is that eventually there will be a link directly to the AAVSO database from SIMBAD using these IDs as the connection. I once suggested that the old-style names be abandoned by the AAVSO beacuse they were so confusing. (They might have been useful in the early days when there were only some dozens of stars, but now they are just clutter.) The response was that there woudl need to be a "regime change" (i.e. Mattei retires) before anything like this would happen. On the original topic: I will send a note before Monday morning (in France) arguing that the AAVSO names not be at the top of the list, but instead the usual hierarchy apply (HD, BD, GCVS etc) in SIMBAD. \Brian
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