Talk:Bayer designation

Tone
The flier says "the tone of this article may not be appropriate", but it looks OK to me.

The tone doesn't seem inappropriate to me, either.
 * Rogermw (talk) 01:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

a relative clause and a parenthetical comma

 * Constellations with no alpha include Vela and Puppis, formerly part of Argo Navis, whose alpha is Canopus in Carina.

I like it better without the new comma after "Navis"; paired commata look like a parenthesis, so the reader could see it as


 * Constellations with no alpha include Vela and Puppis (formerly part of Argo Navis) whose alpha is Canopus in Carina.

... and be at least briefly puzzled. —Tamfang (talk) 06:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Right. I've changed it. Rothorpe (talk) 14:56, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

RfC : Placement of Alternative Names

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Which of these versions should be used and/or adopted across similar star articles? 00:56, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

"Option 1 : Betelgeuse is generally the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion (after Rigel). It is a distinctly reddish, semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between +0.0 and +1.3, the widest range of any first-magnitude star. At near-infrared wavelengths, Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation α Orionis, which is Latinised to Alpha Orionis and abbreviated Alpha Ori or α Ori."

"Option 2 : Betelgeuse, designated α Orionis (Latinised to Alpha Orionis, abbreviated Alpha Ori, α Ori), is generally the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion (after Rigel). It is a distinctly reddish, semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between +0.0 and +1.3, the widest range of any first-magnitude star. At near-infrared wavelengths, Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the night sky."

REASONING : This recent Betelgeuse edit here stating "Uncluttering the lead sentence for better flow" and this Deneb follow up edit here stating "follow Betelgeuse article for presenting Bayer designation in lead" appear to contradict the adopted style of most other star article. e.g. Rigel, Acrux, Regulus, Antares, Achernar, Delta Velorum, etc. Yet Sirius & Canopus articles don't adopt this at all. These two new article edits set a new precedent that requires a better consensus and if this should be universally adopted (hence RfC.) (Note:  ) Broadly:


 * FOR: Bayer designations / Flamsteed numbers should trump the star names because they apply to more stars, mostly as the roughly descending ordered brightness of the stars within each of the 88 constellations.


 * AGAINST: Star names are more popular and the other Bayer designations / Flamsteed numbers are not as relevant nor as applicable.
 * 00:56, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Since stars with Greek-letter Bayer designations are often identified that way (even in scientific papers), I would prefer to have those designations near the top, as in Option 2. The extra verbiage in Option 2 ("Latinised to ..., abbreviated ... etc.") is overkill in my opinion. It suffices to have the abbreviation in the star box. -- Elphion (talk) 17:34, 23 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Option 2 - It's sometimes frustrating when you check an article for a quick reference and have to scroll past two rows of alternative names, pronunciation guides and transliterations, but at the same time, it's very useful to have that information in the same place in all articles. If you're searching for that particular information you don't have to look through the entire lead (which sometimes can be quite sizable) and can look directly in the first row of the lead for the needed information. In addition, if most other articles of this sort have a certain structure then all of them have to follow it. Few things make wikipedia look messy more than articles that don't follow the template of similar articles and seem to have their own thing going on. PraiseVivec (talk) 16:17, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Option 2 I was going to go with option 1, but after reading the above reasoning, I'll go with option 2. I'm all for consistency across articles. I dream of horses If you reply here, please ping me by adding to your message  (talk to me) (My edits) @  18:32, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Option 2 is much better. Arianewiki1 (talk) 23:32, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Option 2 is best. Thank you. Attic Salt (talk) 22:26, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Option 2 in the sense that α Orionis is about as much name as Betelgeuse, so, as usual, we lead with the name. Per u:Elphion I would try some format with less explanations on the first line. - Nabla (talk) 21:23, 12 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Various arrangements
I find most of this text dubious or not relevant and reads like original research e,g. Saying "The "First to Rise in the East" order is used in a number of instances." (Who says this?) The rest of this text appears to be based on this premise. I cannot find any source for this material, so I added a template. Should this whole section be removed?

Problems

 * A general explanation is: "The Manual of Scientific Style: A Guide for Authors, Editors, and Researchers" Edited by Harold Rabinowitz, Suzanne Vogelpg.369
 * Most of the text hinges on one source: Ridpath (1989)
 * There is no mention of precession (nor why it is relevant to Thuban).
 * Proper motions changing order is not stated. Even Table of stars with Bayer designations has no cites at all!
 * Bayer likely didn't observe these stars but used other sources and tabulated them arbitrarily himself by deduction and assumption. (The JHA article "A Star Catalogue Used by Johannes Bayer" by N. M. Swerdlow (1986) explains this. This source "roughly following the outline of the figure or by increasing [ecliptical] longitude" pg. 189.) Yet the article under section Bayer designation doesn't allude to this. Arianewiki1 (talk) 03:33, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

In general, there is far too much hand-wringing here about the order Bayer followed within magnitudes. Several sources say that for the brighter magnitudes he generally followed the classical figures or (ecliptic) longitude, but that there are variations. We don't know why he didn't follow a consistent order, so it makes sense to say simply that with many variations he typically followed the figures or the longitude. The rest is just speculation (even by reliable sources). The whole bit about Sagittarius is a red herring, for (as pointed out in the article) the order there does conform to Bayer's understanding of the magnitudes at the time. The important points to get across are (1) the alphabetic order usually follows magnitude classes, not precise magnitude, and (2) even the magnitude classes are not always correct because (a) Bayer's magnitude values were often faulty, and (b) stars added by later astronomers try to avoid clashing with existing Bayer assignments even when in brighter classes.

The whole article could use reorganization: bits have been added piecemeal over time, with the result that the various sections frequently overlap.

Other problems listed above are not critical. Precession and its effect on the charted positions is not really relevant to the designations (with the possible exception of Thuban), and we don't know whether Bayer actually observed the stars himself. We know he relied on previous catalogs. But since the order within magnitude classes is so variable, and our knowledge of his method so dim, that doesn't really speak much to the designations themselves.

-- Elphion (talk) 17:22, 23 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Well, I did a bit of tweaking and a lot of rearranging. Still needs tidying and more citations, but I think it is improved.  Lithopsian (talk) 14:45, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Definitely improved. Eta, theta, and iota Ori are sort of a puzzle -- clearly not in the same magnitude class as kappa, though apparently Bayer (and Ptolemy) considered them all to be 3rd class, along with several of the pi's. On Bayer's chart, kappa appears the same size as these others and noticeably smaller than Bellatrix and the belt stars. -- Elphion (talk) 18:26, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The reverse of Bayer's chart lists the stars, grouped by class. There are clearly only four of the third class: η, θ, ι, and κ.  λ through υ are grouped as fourth class.  No point complaining, Uranometria contains quite a few dodgy things.  I'll see about making the article match without too much speculation and hand-waving.  Maybe put all four third-class stars in the table.  Lithopsian (talk) 19:33, 9 July 2019 (UTC)