Episode 343 Learn Greek Show Notes

Posted byShanePosted inUncategorized

Why would people learn Greek?

  • charts use it
  • the early astronomers used it
  • ancient astronomers wanted a way to identify the stars in a constellation

This was before telescopes, right?

  • with their eyes they could see perhaps a dozen stars in a constellation so they though using the Greek alphabet, with 24 letters, would be plenty and it worked, it did work until we started magnifying the view of the sky

I’ve seen more than Greek letters on charts, what else is on their?

  • today, we have many designation systems for stars
  • the Greek letter method is called the Bayer system
  • we have Flamsteed system that uses numbers, so handles more than 24 stars per constellation
  • then we have systems based on catalogues like Henry Draper
  • and telescope surveys like Hipparchos and Gaia.

e.g. take Albireo – attractive double star in Cygnus

can be referred to by

  • beta Cygni
  • 6 Cygni
  • HIP 95947
  • SAO 87301 (Smithsonian Astrophysical Obs)
  • GSC 02133-02964 (Guide Star Catalog – Hubble)
  • STF 4043 (Fred. Struve)
  • WDS J19307+2758 (Washington Double Star database)
  • Gaia DR2 2026 1162 6030 2988 160

Resources

http://www.theiling.de/henrik.html

https://www.thoughtco.com/learn-the-greek-alphabet-1525969

https://computer-ease.com/darkskies/allgreek.htm

https://www.sporcle.com/games/g/greekalphabet

The most popular double stars catalogue with a large number of entries was created by Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (pronounced STROOV – EH… I kept saying it wrong!).

Double stars are tagged with the upper-case Sigma Σ character (familiar to Excel users, “auto-sum”) so the Greek Sigma letter followed by a NUMBER is double star.

Even now modern computer systems have a hard time showing Greek characters (we could have a whole separate convo on that!).

We have three-letter codes as well – for all the doubles
STF is used for Friedrich. STF 999 or Σ 999 is an example double from Friedrich’s list.

Otto Wilhelm von Struve, another family member, another double star fan! We need a different designation, right?
It looks like upper-case O and upper-case E in English
but these are Greek letters Omicron and Sigma (presumably Omicron for Otto and Sigma for Struve) and the three-letter code is STT. STT 888 or ΟΣ 999 is an example double from Friedrich’s list.


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