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Re: [vsnet-chat 6385] Astronomical nomenclature (was blah-blah...) > I agree there's is some utility in that, but it is easy to find > examples where either the object-class is uncertain or ambiguous, or > more commonly, the object belongs to several categories. An imaginary > example would be the spectroscopic binary that's also a Be star, that's > also a UV-bright and IRAS source, etc. Why not just use the good ol' > HD number and to heck with the rest? When we are speaking of variability of such a star, we would call the star by a GCVS name (and a supplementary other designations). When we are discussing about a comparison of infrared signatures among a large number of IRAS sources in the same field, one would use the IRAS name. Similar solutions are more frequently met in proto-planetary nebula (PPN) and candidates -- because their class identity has been often recognized through IRAS observations (sometimes even if there are HD names). The single usage of HD numbers is neither an ideal nor complete solution. The HD numbers only covers 200000+ objects, and if one would pursuit similar general-puropose catalogs, the class-specific nature of a name becomes increasingly less specific. But if the same star has a BS (HR) name, would you prefer to use it instead of the HD name? Then what would be the reasoning for your priority? > That a particular > star happens to be a variable is often of no particular interest (can I > say that on these lists?!), so proliferating added names when it becomes > known as variable is not really desireable---though it's done (for now) > as a bookkeeping measure, deriving from the days when variable stars > were really unusual. If the object's nature is irrelevant to its variability, simply use a better name to better specify the nature. If its an HD number, we can still see that the object is a bright one. If its an IRAS number, we can see that that the object must be bright in the infrared. If the object is discussed in the context of variability, the variable star designation will be more appropriate. There is no ambiguity, and the discussion is irrelevant to the historical significance of stellar variabilty. Adding a new "class specifier" (i.e. "V*") is fundamentally difference from adding a yet another specifier in the same class (i.e. AAVSO designation in addition to a GCVS name). Regards, Taichi Kato
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