[vsnet-chat 1336] Re: Designation of new variable stars

[Taichi Kato <tkato>]

Re: [vsnet-chat 1335] Re: Designation of new variable stars

Brian Skiff wrote:

>      It would seem to me that if there is no designation from an ordinary
> catalogue (I would include the GSC and A1.0 as among these), the most
> convneient temporary designations are those based on coordinates, something
> like:  J123456+1234.5, where the position is given to the precision of
> one time-second in RA and 0'.1 in Dec.  This enough "resolution" to prevent
> problems nearly always, and avoids ad hoc designations such as "Peg2" that
> clutter the literature.  It is preferable to include a designator as a 
> prefix as well, so the recent discoveries could be something like:
> "BAO J232845+2834.1" or "KAIT ...." (just making up the numbers).

   My chief concern is why there is no official tentative designating
policy for newly discovered variable stars.  J123456+1234.5 may be acceptable
(and I indeed use this kind of new designations), but is not apparent it
points to a variable star.  There may be number of nearby stars which are
within the same designation grid, esp. in the Milky Way field.
The name "BAO J232845+2834.1" may have the similar disadvantage: there is
no assureance the BAO team will use this designation strategy other than
variable stars.  This may lead to an acronym collision from the same source
of information.  I presume the best resolution is the GCVS team assign a
new variable star-specific acronym, and provide a naming strategy, and
encourage the CBAT or IBVS, in which reports most likely appear, to use
this naming policy.  Otherwise (even if we constrain ourselves to use
J-numbered designations) there will be a number of observations of
"new cataclysmic variable in Peg" by other consortia.

Regards,
Taichi Kato

VSNET Home Page

Return to Daisaku Nogami

---

vsnet-adm@kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp