I'm in the research phase of writing a pilot for a sci-fi TV show and I'm trying to make it somewhat based in reality.<BR><BR>Could someone briefly describe how stars are named, and some of the different classifications for stars and other celestial objects?<BR><BR>Is there a good graphical representation of the milky way with discovered stars/planets/asteroids in it? I looked a little but didn't really find anything that was of interest.
how are stars named and classified? Is there a google maps for the mily way?
- Thread starter daishi
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<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by daishi:<br>Is there a good graphical representation of the milky way with discovered stars/planets/asteroids in it? I looked a little but didn't really find anything that was of interest. </div>
</blockquote>How about Celestia if you want to fly around the universe? Or Stellarium if you wish to remain earthbound?<br><br>I would actually like to see Google and Celestia team up and make GoogleUniverse. Imagine being able to cruise the universe with Celestia using up to the moment data! -- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif --<br><br>[EDIT]<br>Celestia does have stars with planets in its data, so you can go to those stars and see the planet. They are generic representations, but a cool thing to do is get about 1km above the surface, widen the angle of view, and see what the night sky looks like in those systems.
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<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by daishi:<br>Is there a good graphical representation of the milky way with discovered stars/planets/asteroids in it? I looked a little but didn't really find anything that was of interest. </div>
</blockquote>How about Celestia if you want to fly around the universe? Or Stellarium if you wish to remain earthbound?<br><br>I would actually like to see Google and Celestia team up and make GoogleUniverse. Imagine being able to cruise the universe with Celestia using up to the moment data! -- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif --<br><br>[EDIT]<br>Celestia does have stars with planets in its data, so you can go to those stars and see the planet. They are generic representations, but a cool thing to do is get about 1km above the surface, widen the angle of view, and see what the night sky looks like in those systems.
Google added 'Google Sky' to the last release of Google Earth:<BR><BR>http://earth.google.com/sky/index.html
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<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by daishi:<br>Celestia is what I was looking for, thanks! </div>
</blockquote>Make sure you download any/all of the extras that your computer can handle. They really make it a more beautiful experience.<br><br>For example, there is a really nice 3D model of the Ring Nebula which is always interesting to fly through. -- View image here: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/forum/smilies/biggrin.gif --
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<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by daishi:<br>Celestia is what I was looking for, thanks! </div>
</blockquote>Make sure you download any/all of the extras that your computer can handle. They really make it a more beautiful experience.<br><br>For example, there is a really nice 3D model of the Ring Nebula which is always interesting to fly through. -- View image here: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/forum/smilies/biggrin.gif --
When graphed for color and luminosity, most stars fall inside a set of well-defined bands, the largest of which is called the main sequence. Main sequence stars, from hottest/largest to coolest/smallest, are class O, B, A, F, G, K, M, which can be remembered with the mnemonic "Oh, be a fine girl, kiss me!" There are other classes of stars, but they are less common than the main sequence stars. For reference, our sun is a main sequence G2 star.<BR><BR>Info on methods by which stars are named.
If you have a Windows machine and have a spare $40, you should look into Astrosynthesis.<BR>http://www.nbos.com/products/astro/astro.htm<BR><BR>They have data files of the local area around the Sun.<BR>http://www.nbos.com/download/download-astro.htm<BR><BR>There is some more information at my web site here:<BR>http://www.projectrho.com/starmap.html
There are several excellent resources for looking up stuff in space, and it isn't limited to just the milky way. Celestia has been mentioned and is an excellent program for aesthetic views that are more or less astrometrically correct (which is about as correct as we can get from our point of view). There are other programs, such as Starry Night (in its various incarnations), The Sky, Megastar, Cartes du Ciel, etc. <BR><BR>Most are more mapping or atlas programs and don't necessarily have the 3 dimensional perspectives (Starry Night does as does Celestia). Even 3D approaches are somewhat limited since we really have very limited distance information available to stars, galaxies, et al, compared to the discrete measured distances we have across our planet's surface or in our local solar system.<BR><BR>Pokrface gave a very succinct and excellent summary of how we classify stars.<BR><BR>Names of stars is a very, very ambiguous and broad topic. A good answer is, "It depends", which really isn't much of an answer. A better answer is a bit longer.<BR><BR>Stars have been named over and over again for, probably about as long as humans have had it in their mind to name them. We have some names of stars that have evolved over time from such sources in antiquity as the Sumerians, Chaldeans, Persians, and much later, the Arabs. Those describe only the brightest stars that we can see with our unaided eyes. This is where we get the proper names for many bright stars such as Rigel.<BR><BR>Later, through and towards the end of the middle ages, other star naming conventions emerged. One popular one in western culture (the Chinese had their own conventions that were very good, by the way) was to associate the stars with their constellation (which were more or less generally accepted for the northern hemisphere constellations, at least). Bayer named them in descending brightness order (sort of, his subjective view was not always correct) with Greek letter names. So Regulus (the brightest star in Leo) was named Alpha Leonis, Denebola (the second brightest) is Beta Leonis, and so on. Again, this only resolves the naming of stars that we can see with our unaided eyes.<BR><BR>As star surveys through telescopes became common (partly driven by commerce for navigation purposes), other names more resembling catalogues emerged. There are now several different stellar databases out there. Some are more general purpose in nature (such as the USNO databases), while some are more specific (such as the Hubble Guide Star Catalog or the Washington Double Star Catalog). The more specific ones focus on special types of stars or star groups, or in the case of the Hubble Guide Star Catalog (GSC), the catalog is for a specific purpose, and so it has only a limited amount of stellar information available other than relative sky position.<BR><BR>On a side note, since there are many multiple star systems out there (binary, etc), the general convention is to assign English alphabetic characters according to descending brightness that are attached to the primary star name. Thus, Sirius, aka Alpha Canis Majoris, which has a small white dwarf companion, is more properly named Sirius A and its companion, Sirius B, using the Bayer system.<BR><BR>I hope this helps. You have received some excellent answers collectively from what I have seen.<BR><BR>Bic
I was always disappointed that star trek never visited really interesting star systems, like a Wof-Rayet star
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