In article , eric gisse
writes:

Keeping in mind that I am aware that stuff in the sky moves, is there
finally a set way of cataloging things?

The standard appears to change wildly every 20 years or so and personally I
think it'd be nice if there we changed things in a set method in a specific
period of time rather than how haphazard it looks right now.

The difference between B1950 and J2000 is not due just to the precession
of the equinoxes.

On that note, as a tech guy, I think it'd be more advantageous to have a
cataloging system that was static in coordinates but could also include
proper motion so that we could have coordinates and an area to look at
using (if available) previously measured drift.

The standard methods mean that even without proper motion the position
of the object moves away from the position it was named after. I don't
know if there are better systems around now. The old systems, of
course, were designed to be practical and back then were accurate
enough.

OTOH this is all theory crafting and there's probably a way to do this now.

There is an iPad app where you just hold the iPad and it shows you a map
of the sky with names of objects etc, including ones which move, getting
its orientation from GPS or whatever. :-)