Whats In A Star Name?
Billie Chandler, January 29, 2004 As you read articles on astronomy such as this, you will notice–maybe to some degree of irritation–that there are terms we toss around as a matter of course. We need to explain some fundamental terms like for instance, how are stars named? Constellations are nothing but groups of stars that have been determined to be a standard way to address certain parts of the sky. Those three bright stars in a row with distinctive bright stars above and below we call that area Orion. There is an ancient linage of constellation names together with some more modern names that have been accepted as 88 internationally recognized standard constellations. In describing stars within a particular group ancient astronomers have handed down the practice of naming the brightest star in that pattern the Alpha star. It followed that the second brightest star in that group would be the Beta star, and so on. So when one hears a reference to Alpha Orionis, the star being named i
