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| Hello, I am, say, a rather unusual amateur astronomer in Ghent-Belgium (East Flanders) because I collect names and nicknames of astronomical objects beyond the solar system (mostly nicknames related to pareidolia seen in deepsky objects, for example: the Horsehead nebula, aka Barnard 33 in Orion). This hobby started somewhere during the early eighties while reading the magazine ASTRONOMY (U.S.). However, about 7 years before 1980 (1973, age 9) the very first name of a deepsky object which ignited my quest must have been the Trifid nebula in Sagittarius, although it could have been the above mentioned Horsehead nebula because certain photographs of that dark nebula don't show a horse's head, they show the open mouth of a funny looking face with bright star as nose and little dark spot as eye! (it's that sort of photographs which show north toward the top). I am a frequent visitor of ASTROBIN because I see it as the bonanza (or cornucopia) of names and nicknames of astronomical objects! Note: years ago I was also an avid collectioneur of unofficial nomenclature of surface formations on the moon (Earth's moon), such as the nomenclature of Percy Wilkins and Patrick Moore (non-I.A.U. nomenclature). Nowadays my moon-related hobby is, say, in the refrigerator (deep freeze) because of the recent discoveries by certain astrophotographers such as Bray Falls (planetary nebulae and supernova remnants). My interested eyes are always aimed at the new names and nicknames of these objects! (and the photographs too of course, they are like candy for the multicolor loving eyes!). Believe it or not, up here I write the names and nicknames in, what I call, a not-too-small cahier (alphabetically arranged). I'm one of those people who still like it to write with a good old fashioned ballpoint pen on paper. These names are also written on small square shaped cards of 10 by 10 centimeters, with lots of additional info, all in several broad ring-maps, four large U-shaped rings in one map: two piles of cards in one map!). I am not sure, but... it could be that I have the world's most complete overview of astronomical names and nicknames! I hope to create an alphabetically arranged Wikipedia article for that sort of names (read: the transfer from paper to the digital screen). Another topic which I am looking for is the sort of astronomical catalogs which have only one object in them, such as the group of stars known as Upgren 1 in Canes Venatici. I (myself) discovered the object Caes 1 in Cygnus (an asterism in the shape of a chain at 19:45 / +42°35' (2000.0), aka Catena Caes). I wonder if it received other names than Caes 1 / Catena Caes. I also want to know how many people on our planet are dedicated collectioneurs of that sort of astronomical names. Not many, I guess. Well, now you know there's one of them in Ghent-Belgium: Danny Caes (°28 February 1964). |
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| By the way, for those who want to start their own hobby of searching for astronomical nomenclature, there is a very interesting source in the SKY CATALOGUE 2000.0, VOLUME 2: DOUBLE STARS, VARIABLE STARS, AND NONSTELLAR OBJECTS (edited by Alan Hirshfeld and Roger W. Sinnott, 1985). There's a chapter in it known as: GLOSSARY OF SELECTED ASTRONOMICAL NAMES (6 pages). If this book was published today, this chapter would contain about 20 pages! Anyway, that book of 1985 is still a good source to start the exploration! Another interesting source is the small booklet DEEP-SKY NAME INDEX 2000.0 by Hugh C. Maddocks (Foxon-Maddocks Associates, 1991). Most of the names in that booklet are from the SKY CATALOGUE 2000.0, VOLUME 2, but... still a great source to start the search! Danny Caes, Ghent-Belgium. |
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Note: my alphabetically arranged list of names and nicknames of astronomical objects beyond the solar system start from Proxima Centauri onward. All objects between our own star (SOL, the sun) and Proxima Centauri are not included, such as those distant mysterious objects just outside the solar system and in the Oort cloud (asteroids? comet nuclei? rogue planets?). Also not included are the classic starnames such as Betelgeuze, Sirius, etcetera... The names of stars related to the age of the optical telescope (such as, for example: Barnard's star / Velox Barnardi) are in the list, and also the non-visual astronomical objects investigated by radio telescopes. The largest known objects in the universe, the so-called supervoids and superclusters of galaxies / filaments, are also in the list. Danny Caes, on the planet known as Terra, aka SOL III. Questions, questions, questions... Somewhere, I can't remember the source, I detected the nickname "Eggs for breakfast". Nothing known about it (no coordinates, no constellation, just nothing), the same with the nicknames "Offramp" (a telescopic asterism I think), "G cloud complex" (??), "Ana's object" (??), "Apple" (a planetary nebula, aka "Manzana nebula" / "Brand 100", no coordinates, constellation unknown), "Carpenter 1" (an open cluster?), "Swoosh" (a telescopic asterism I think), "Saucepan" (also a telescopic asterism), "Sail" (another one), "Skip loader" (good heavens...), "Frankenstein galaxy" (seems to be somewhere in Cetus), "Faith group" (an asterism in andromeda?), "Eight note nebula" / "Quaver" (seems to be somewhere in Dorado), "Inch worm" (an asterism in Lynx?), "Lamont's star" (in Messier 31, the Andromeda galaxy, but... who was Lamont ??), "El Kanbi 7" (an asterism somewhere in Pisces), "Exclamation point galaxy" (somewhere in Bootes?), "Espin's centre of dark space" (seems to be somewhere in Perseus), "BIDZ 1" (or "B.I.D.Z. 1" ?, a planetary nebula in Centaurus?), "3" (aka "Parker 1", somewhere in Leo), "Little blue fox" (a planetary nebula, somewhere in Vulpecula), etcetera... etcetera... |
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While my thoughts are still in the universe... Another kind of astronomical objects which scream to get their own name are certain extragalactic systems (and other deepsky objects) in the New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue, discovered by rather unknown astronomers who have, each one of them, only one object in their list of discoveries. One such example is, according to Wolfgang Steinicke's and Courtney Seligman's research, the astronomer William Hautenville Rambaut who discovered NGC 4110 in Coma Berenices. NGC 4110 is the only one of the NGC objects he discovered. Could we call it Rambaut's galaxy? (many more examples of these "loners" exist in the NGC and IC catalogs). An alphabetic list of those "loners" would be a very interesting source! Danny Caes (explorer of the New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue). And... there's also the sort of extragalactic systems (galaxies) which show distinct (and sometimes bright) foreground stars "very near" them. Those galaxies have lots of catalog numbers, but... we could call them, for example, RV Cassiopeiae galaxy (NGC 278 and the "nearby" variable star RV Cassiopeiae, also known as the Neon sign galaxy, and Ninja star galaxy). What I also want to know; are there examples of galaxies which show bright foreground stars with large proper motion, about to "cross" such a galaxy, almost looking like a "moving" pseudo-supernova. Are there series of photographs of those made with intervals of several years? Oh yes, while I'm thinking about it, several photographs in Courtney Seligman's NGC and IC pages show curious three-colored "short streaks" of something which I believe are the tracks of moving asteroids, crossing the field of view "par accidence", or are they just photographic blemishes created by color filters blue-green-red? Danny. |
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| By the way, perhaps you know Charles Ives's The Unanswered Question. If not, please listen to it, because in it one can hear the most asked and most difficult one of all questions. There is just no available answer! |
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| you caught me, what's the unanswered question? |
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| Oh nothing actually, it's one of those crazy books that are to confuse you. |
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According to American composer Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question deals with the question which is always wriggling somewhere very deep inside every one of us. We can't find the words to ask it, and we don't know to who we could ask it. We know that, when we were youngsters, the teacher would have look'd rather flabbergasted because of such a difficult philosophical question. Ask everything about mathematics, not about the meaning of our existence on this planet in the midst of the mysterious universe. That's what Charles Ives wanted to tell the people. Also Gustav Holst in his Opus 32: The Planets (especially in Neptune, the mystic: one of the most mysterious pieces of music ever created!) (search the version from conductor Sir Adrian Boult; the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Geoffrey Mitchell Choir). Danny. I wonder why Holst's Neptune was not included in the music album of Carl Sagan's COSMOS. It (Neptune) was heard in Cosmos and is the most ideal music to "feel" the enigma and the unfathomed depth of the universe! What I also want to know... I see many astrophotographs of regions of space which show lots of previously unknown gaseous (or dusty) nebulae. These photographs were made via exposure times of several days. I wonder... if such long duration exposures could be used to make digital photographs of the most dark places in, for example, an unlit humid cellar, then certain bioluminescent bacteria could be captured and become visible to our (not so sensitive) eyes. Mmmm... perhaps this is already old news? |
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Danny, I have also enjoyed collected DSO nicknames over the years. In the latest version of my Deep Sky Compendium, I list 600 nicknames. I collected most of these from public sources but I stopped keeping track of references, since I found too many errors and inconsistencies in the source information over the years. The Compendium is a free resource for astrophotographers to use to find targets in the sky. 3100 objects are included in both the northern and southern hemispheres. I don't include recent discoveries of the past decade, included those of Bray Falls and others, simply because those are typically too dim to be imaged by the typical amateur astrophotographer. |
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Thanks Gary! I have to explore the Deep Sky Compendium as soon as possible. Who knows, many names are about to be discovered and included in my (not too small) good old fashioned cahier! By the way, my goal is to get every possible name and nickname of all named astronomical objects and structures in the universe (note: all named objects in our solar system and in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud are not included) (imagine: once I decided to create my own alphabetic list of all the named asteroids in our solar system... my goodness!) (the same with the huge amount of astronomical catalogs, one can't see the end of it, there seems to be an infinite number of them! No wonder... the universe is not a tiny thing!). Anyway, it is a great pastime to write those names and additional info on square shaped cards and also in a good old fashioned cahier! One could do the same via the quick digital way, without paper and ballpoint pen, but... you know... (I'm from another century I guess). By the way, I seem to remember something more-or-less related, from television. British film director Peter Greenaway once decided to create a list of all the telephone-boxes in the whole of the U.K. (United Kingdom). One could compare my hobby (list making) with mr. Greenaway's "urge" to "get each and every one of those boxes" (well... that is: on paper, as a list). |
