Gould designation

Last updated

Gould designations for stars are similar to Flamsteed designations in the way that they number stars within a constellation in increasing order of right ascension. Each star is assigned an integer (starting at 1), followed by " G. " (or occasionally followed directly by a "G" without a space), and then the Latin genitive of the constellation it lies in. See 88 modern constellations for a list of constellations and the genitive forms of their names.

Contents

They were assigned according to the stars' positions in epoch 1875.0, and over time are affected by Precession of the Equinoxes. [1] Due to the star's proper motions or cpm., some stars may now occur out of order.

Gould designations first appeared in Uranometria Argentina, [2] [3] a catalogue published in 1879 by Benjamin Apthorp Gould. [4] Many of these designations have fallen out of use, though for many relatively bright southern stars (which are too far south to bear Flamsteed designations), Gould numbers remain the only simple designations available without referring to cumbersome catalogue numbers.

List of constellations with Gould star designations

Gould's catalogue includes 66 constellations (some of which are also covered partially or fully by Flamsteed numbers):

33 constellations that contain both Flamsteed and Gould numbers

33 constellations that contain only Gould numbers

† 30 Doradus and 47 Tucanae are Bode numbers, not Gould designations.

Stars known primarily by Gould designations

Many of these were listed in the cross-index by Kostjuk, [5] with their Gould numbers supplied as their supposed Flamsteed number. From this cross-index, the designations found their way into other sources, including SIMBAD. Many stars commonly known by their Gould designations are nearby stars.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bayer designation</span> Star naming system

A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars. The brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, in his star atlas Uranometria. Bayer catalogued only a few stars too far south to be seen from Germany, but later astronomers supplemented Bayer's catalog with entries for southern constellations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flamsteed designation</span> Star identification system

A Flamsteed designation is a combination of a number and constellation name that uniquely identifies most naked eye stars in the modern constellations visible from southern England. They are named for John Flamsteed who first used them while compiling his Historia Coelestis Britannica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HD 66141</span> Star in the constellation Canis Minor

HD 66141 is a single star in the equatorial constellation of Canis Minor. It has the Bayer designation G Canis Minoris, the Gould designation 50 G. Canis Minoris, and has the HR 3145 identifier from the Bright Star Catalogue. When first catalogued it was in the Puppis constellation and was designated "13 Puppis", but it subsequently migrated to Canis Minor. Bode gave it the Bayer designation of Lambda Canis Minoris.

k Puppis Star in the constellation Puppis

k Puppis is a Bayer designation given to an optical double star in the constellation Puppis, the two components being k1 Puppis and k2 Puppis.

References

  1. ↑ "Astronomical Epoch". Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  2. ↑ "URANOMETRIA ARGENTINA". Archived from the original on 2012-02-27. Retrieved 2012-05-08.
  3. ↑ Gould, Benjamin Apthorp (1879). "Uranometria Argentina catalog of bright southern stars". Resultados del Observatorio Nacional Argentino en Cordoba. Buenos Aires. 1. Bibcode:1879RNAO....1.....G . Retrieved 2012-05-08.
  4. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gould, Benjamin Apthorp"  . Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  5. ↑ Kostjuk, N.D. HD-DM-GC-HR-HIP-Bayer-Flamsteed Cross Index, 2002, http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?IV/27A (accessed 2006/12/26)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.