Flamsteed designation

Information about Flamsteed designation

Flamsteed designations for stars are similar to Bayer designations, except that they use numbers instead of Greek letters. Each star is assigned a number and the Latin genitive of the constellation it lies in (see List of constellations for a list of constellations and the genitive forms of their names).

The numbers were originally assigned in order of increasing right ascension within each constellation, but due to the effects of precession they are now slightly out of order in some places. This method of designating stars first appeared in a preliminary version of John Flamsteed's Historia coelestis Britannica which was published by Edmond Halley and Isaac Newton in 1712 without Flamsteed's approval. The final version of Flamsteed's catalogue published in 1725 after his death omitted any number designations altogether.

The designations gained popularity throughout the eighteenth century, and are now commonly used when no Bayer designation exists; however, where a Bayer designation does exist for a star it is used almost exclusively and the Flamsteed designation is almost never used. Examples of well-known stars which are usually referred to by their Flamsteed numbers include 51 Pegasi (see Extrasolar planet), and 61 Cygni (see Parallax).

There are examples of stars bearing Flamsteed designations for constellations in which they do not lie, just as there are for Bayer designations, because of the compromises that had to be made when the modern constellation boundaries were drawn up. It should also be noted that Flamsteed's catalogue covered only the stars visible from Great Britain, and therefore stars of the far southern constellations have no Flamsteed numbers. (Two exceptions are the globular cluster 47 Tucanae and the nearby star 82 Eridani, named in a little-used Southern Hemisphere catalog called "Uranometria Argentina" by Benjamin Gould.)

Some entries in Flamsteed's catalog are errors: for instance, Flamsteed observed Uranus in 1690 but did not recognize it as a planet and entered it into his catalog as "34 Tauri".

See also

STAR is an acronym for:

Organizations:
  • Society for Telescopy, Astronomy, and Radio, a non-profit astronomy club in New Jersey
  • Special Tasks and Rescue or Special Tactics and Response, synonyms for SWAT

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A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek letter, followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name.
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In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun.
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constellation of Orion is the area outlined in the dashed yellow line. Orion contains a striking and well-known star pattern that has the form of a hunter.]] A constellation is any one of the 88 areas into which the sky — or the celestial sphere — is divided.
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constellation is an area of the sky or the celestial sphere. The term is more widely used to denote a particular star pattern that is contained within that area.


The 88 modern Constellations


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Right ascension (abbrev. RA; symbol α) is the astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. The other coordinate is the declination.
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constellation of Orion is the area outlined in the dashed yellow line. Orion contains a striking and well-known star pattern that has the form of a hunter.]] A constellation is any one of the 88 areas into which the sky — or the celestial sphere — is divided.
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Precession refers to a change in the direction of the axis of a rotating object. In physics, there are two types of precession, torque-free and torque-induced, the latter being discussed here in more detail.
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John Flamsteed (19 August,1646 - 31 December,1719) was an English astronomer.

Flamsteed was born in Denby, Derbyshire, England, and was educated at Derby School and Jesus College, Cambridge.
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Edmond Halley FRS (sometimes "Edmund"; IPA: /ˈɛdmənd ˈhɔːlɪ/) (November 8, 1656 – January 14, 1742) was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist.
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Sir Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton at 46 in
Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait
Born 4 January 1643(1643--) [OS: 25 December 1642]
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8th century - 9th century - 10th century
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51 Pegasi is a Sun-like star (although somewhat older than the Sun) located 15.4 parsecs (50.1 light-years) from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. It was the first Sun-like star to be found to have a planet orbiting it, a discovery that was announced in 1995.
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extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet beyond the Solar System. As of October 2007, the count of known exoplanet candidates stands at 257.[1] The vast majority have been detected through various indirect methods rather than actual imaging.
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61 Cygni, sometimes called Bessel's Star,[10] is a binary star system in the constellation Cygnus. It consists of a pair of orange dwarf stars—called a visual binary—that orbit (or revolve around) each other with a period of about
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Parallax, or more accurately motion parallax (Greek: παραλλαγή (parallagé) = alteration) is the change of angular position of two stationary points relative to each other as seen by an observer, caused by the motion of an
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47 Tucanae
47 Tucanae- Image mosaic by E. Kopan (IPAC).
(Field size 19.2´ × 23.3´.)
Observation data: J2000 epoch
Class: III
Constellation: Tucana
Right ascension: 00h 24m 05.
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82 Eridani is a star about 20 light years away from Earth. It is in constellation Eridanus. It is a main sequence star of spectral type G5.

Observation

82 G.
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Uranus  

Uranus, as seen by Voyager 2
Discovery
Discovered by: William Herschel
Discovery date: March 13, 1781
Orbital characteristics[1][2]
Epoch J2000
Aphelion distance: 3,004,419,704 km
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planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion in its core, and has cleared its neighbouring region of
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34 Tauri (or 34 Tau) is a hypothetical star catalogued by English astronomer John Flamsteed in 1690. This star doesn't exist : it is the planet Uranus whose motion in the sky was too slow to be properly identified by Flamsteed.
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Designations of stars (and other celestial bodies) are done by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Many of the star names in use today were inherited from the time before the IAU existed.
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constellation is an area of the sky or the celestial sphere. The term is more widely used to denote a particular star pattern that is contained within that area.


The 88 modern Constellations


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