An application to help learning star names

[PESKYWAABBIT]

Hello there guys, 

I was wondering if you guys knew of an application or tool that would allow me to learn the names of the stars within the northern constellations? I have been learning the constellations and their patterns in the night sky and it feels wonderful. I have been wanting to learn the names of the stars within these constellations with the help of an app of maybe even a quiz online? I know Stellarium is useful, but I was thinking more of a dedicated piece of software to learning star names.

Does anyone recommend one? If not I reckon I'll just have to program one myself!

Thanks,

Tom

[Demonperformer]

Can't think of one. But programming one will probably do a good job of helping you learn them!

[Mark at Beaufort]

Tom I know this is not an APP or a piece of software but does this help - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dictionary-Modern-Star-Names-Derivations/dp/1931559449

[PESKYWAABBIT]

17 minutes ago, Demonperformer said:

Can't think of one. But programming one will probably do a good job of helping you learn them!

Good thought. I may after all put my Computer Game Design degree in use after all XD 

 

2 minutes ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Tom I know this is not an APP or a piece of software but does this help - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dictionary-Modern-Star-Names-Derivations/dp/1931559449

Hmm I don't have one of these, this definitely will help, thanks mate.

[barkis]

Burnham's Celestial Handbooks. There are three of them covering all the Constellations, but a Mammoth read.  It gives all their coordinates too, but the books were published a long time ago. More Modern means are available  these days. It depends what magnitudes you will set your limit at.  Magnitude 6 is reputed to be the limit for human naked eyes, depending on the sky conditions, and how sharp your eyes are after allowing for dark adaption. You've set yourself a huge task.

Good Luck with it.

[PESKYWAABBIT]

35 minutes ago, barkis said:

Burnham's Celestial Handbooks. There are three of them covering all the Constellations, but a Mammoth read.  It gives all their coordinates too, but the books were published a long time ago. More Modern means are available  these days. It depends what magnitudes you will set your limit at.  Magnitude 6 is reputed to be the limit for human naked eyes, depending on the sky conditions, and how sharp your eyes are after allowing for dark adaption. You've set yourself a huge task.

Good Luck with it.

I didn't mention it in the original post but I mean to only learn the stars included in the constellations, many of the stars around them I'm going to ignore I reckon.

[Stu]

4 minutes ago, PESKYWAABBIT said:

I didn't mention it in the original post but I mean to only learn the stars included in the constellations, many of the stars around them I'm going to ignore I reckon.

Hmm, could be tricky, they are all included within one constellation boundary or other....

[rockystar]

I think they mean only the brighter stars of the asterism that gives the constellation its name. 

There are a lot.  I've just picked an asterism and used stellarium. I started with the plough and I still can't recite them all (and there are only 7). I know the brighter ones I  the sky. 

 

[DeepSkyBagger]

All the IAU approved star names are here - https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming_stars/

You can re-order the columns. You'll probably find it most useful to list them in constellation order.

[Captain Scarlet]

19 hours ago, PESKYWAABBIT said:

Hello there guys, 

I was wondering if you guys knew of an application or tool that would allow me to learn the names of the stars within the northern constellations? I have been learning the constellations and their patterns in the night sky and it feels wonderful. I have been wanting to learn the names of the stars within these constellations with the help of an app of maybe even a quiz online? I know Stellarium is useful, but I was thinking more of a dedicated piece of software to learning star names.

Does anyone recommend one? If not I reckon I'll just have to program one myself!

Thanks,

Tom

I had exactly the same conundrum a few months ago. I took the programming route, starting off by simply listing in a spreadsheet the main "asterism stars" from the best-known constellations: Cassiopeia, Big Dipper, Cygnus, Orion plus Polaris and a few bright others and worked out a way to be able to plot them on my own personal star-map. I just copied their RA & Dec coordinates from Wikipedia and progressed from there. It's been a huge learning experience, both the maths involved and the sky. I've kept adding stars and deep sky objects, and have added features such as adjusting for precession of the Pole since 2000, and the positions of our Planets. It's now become my essential tool for planning an evening's viewing, and it's quite fun telling people where and when they took a particular photo without prior knowledge. My programming basically involves writing C++ functions for use within MS Excel - I'm sure given your qualifications your coding will be much more sophisticated.

Good Luck, Magnus

[PESKYWAABBIT]

2 hours ago, DeepSkyBagger said:

All the IAU approved star names are here - https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming_stars/

You can re-order the columns. You'll probably find it most useful to list them in constellation order.

This is a great list to get started with. I thank you kindly!

[Captain Scarlet]

... and if/when you move on to the planets, this was indispensable: http://astro.if.ufrgs.br/trigesf/position.html

[Geoff Lister]

Your Synscan handset will give you an alphabetical list of the "Named Stars". Stellarium, Wiki, or other sources should give you more details of each of these stars. I used the handset list, together with Stellarium, to produce a shortlist of alignment stars, visible from my garden at dusk, with altitudes between 15 and 75 degrees, for the middle of each month of the year.

My zodiac star sign, Libra, is an uninspiring trapezium of stars, all called "Zuben ...", plus one more to the east, but, at least for the first half of the year, it formed a nice frame for Jupiter.