Arjun Ray wrote in message . ..

Sorry for the intrusion. I have the identical problem, including the
egyptian, mayan and chinese constellations. The sources seem lacking.
I don't even need a program, I need the (possibly authoritative) set
of corelations. Here and there one finds a reference, but all in all,
one seems lost...

Claudio

http://puck.dhs.org


I'm having trouble finding a suitable program, from the huge selection
of "planetarium" software out there, which will help me identify stars
that could correspond to a set of rather ancient names found in Vedic
texts. There is a strong tradition about these names, but no reliable
evidence that what these names signify today are the same as what they
did long ago.

What is known is the following:

1. An initial set of 27 asterisms were named for a lunar calendar based
on the 27+ day sidereal period. (Later a vestigial 28th name was added.)
That is, the moon "moved" from one asterism to the next roughly on every
solar day, so somewhat equal spacing is implied.

2. These asterisms lie close to or on the ecliptic: basically, the band
that can be occluded by the moon. Of course, exceptions are allowed if
there's no suitable star within the band but a nice bright star nearby.
(I'm no astronomer, but I believe Betelgeuse could be an example of
this.)

3. The names are invariably listed in a specific order, i.e. always
starting with the same name, and where the lists vary, the new names are
unique and not transpositions. There is a tradition as to the direction
in which these names circle the ecliptic, but as this is an exercise in
letting the texts "speak for themselves", there is no prejudice against
the "wrong way around the sky".

4. There is some internal evidence from the names themselves.
(a) Some names are singular, some are plural, and some specifically
mean a pair. The indefinite plural probably means a relatively
tight group of fainter stars where there isn't a suitably
bright star in the vicinity.
(b) Three pairs of sequential names are prefixed with adjectives
meaning "earlier" and "later" (or "prior" and "posterior"),
suggesting proximity.

Can anyone suggest software with suitable features to analyse the
problem of finding suitable sets of stars (with their modern names)?

For completeness, the list looks like this, in terms of the information
in (4) above, with 'P' standing for the indefinite (ie. 3+) plural:

1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, P, P, Early 2,
Later 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, Early P,
Later P, [28th here], 1, 1, 1, Early P, Later P, 1, 2, P

The insertion point of the 28th could correspond to a relatively largish
gap.


Thanks!