Most named object in the night sky

[S.A.M]

Hi SGL, Just for fun, I have been thinking recently (my head does hurt!), what has the most names for one object in the night sky? I have found five names for the same object, namely Beehive Cluster, M44, Praesepe, NGC2632 and Cr189. Does anyone know if another object has the same or more names?

Would make an interesting list?

Happy thinking.

Peter:)

[damnut]

I can't see past the cumulus, nimbus, cirrus, cumulo nimbus, stratocumulus, cirrostratus... :-)

Cheers

[syd_malicious]

From the title I was expecting you to mean "names" rather than catalogue numbers.

Being pedantic for your example most Messier objects would have multiple titles - eg Orion Nebula, M42 etc etc - could even argue that Orion has more (Orion nebula, M42 NGC 1976, M43 NGC 1982, Sword of Orion) etc etc.

How about the object with the most proper names as there are multiple catalogues which seems a bit of a cop-out?

(And then do we mean deep sky or any object at all ).

Paul

[kniclander]

but surely M42 and M43 and the "sword" are different objects?

I would think that some of the brighter constellations and the planets plus things like the pleiades (and the beehive itself...) will have very many historic names from earlier cultures - I'd bet that everyone in the "ancient world" had a name for orion and cass and ursa major and the major planets at least?

[S.A.M]

Good point Paul! I would keep the list of objects that are natural. Yes I know some are in different catologues it was just an idea I had. If it is just named objects then three is the best I could do, namely Usra Major, Big Dipper or the Plough. Could anybody do better?

Peter

[Pavel]

Most names for one object we can to found thinking about M 45 but I took northern hemisphere into consideration; never I saw objects of southern hemispher that never I conversed with people of that place.

[James]

I'd guess it's Ursa Major aka the Plough, King Charles' Wain, the Big Dipper, the Great Bear and so on. It even gets mentioned in the Bible and even Lord of the Rings (the Sickle?). It's also called the Saucepan, the Ladle and the Scoop but the latter three are more "slang" than anything else...

James

[John]

The Veil Nebula is also known as the Cirrus Nebula, and Filamentary Nebula and is made up of number of components which have names like the Western Veil or Witches Broom, The Eastern Veil or Bridal Veil and the wonderfully named Pickerings Triangular Wisp sometimes shortened to Pickerings Wisp.

Officially it's known as NGC 6960, NGC 6992, NGC 6995 and IC 1340. The object also has 2 Caldwell numbers, 33 and 34. Fainter knots of nebulosity within the area of Pickerings Wisp are also named as NGC 6974 and NGC 6979.

To cap it all, the whole lot is part of the Cygnus Loop.

It's a fabulous object with a decent aperture, a dark night, a wide angle eyepiece and an O-III filter