Newbie Question about Star Catalogs

"William Hamblen" wrote in message
...
On 2005-10-26, Greg Crinklaw wrote:
Rhino wrote:
The star mentioned in the book is identified as "NGS 549672"; if I'm
not
mistaken, "NGS" refers to a particular star catalog (National Galactic
Survey?) and "549672" uniquely identifies a specific star.

I work with astronomical catalogs a lot and I'm sorry to say that there
doesn't seem to be any NGS catalog. The number is also way too big for
a catalog from the 50's (remember that's the pre-computer era), so I
think it's safe to say that it was simply made up. You are right about
how it would work though.

NGS 549672 appears to be an imaginary reference, but it isn't a
completely far-fetched idea. The big star catalogs (BD, SBD and CD)
of the 19th century totaled over a million stars and were done by
hand and visually, so a big catalog number is not impossible for 1953.
The National Geographic Society had the National Geographic Society -
Palomar Observatory Sky Survey going by 1953; therefore, the NGS could
be inspired by National Geographic Society. As far as I know a catalog
wasn't produced from the plates until the Hubble Guide Star Catalog
came out. I don't know whether there was any earlier idea to produce
a star catalog from the NGS-POSS plates. The Carte du Ciel project of
the early 20th century was planned to produce an all-sky photographic
atlas and catalog with millions of stars but that as far as I know the
project was never completed.

By a curious coincidence, my Google search on "star catalog" yesterday
turned up a freeware computer program that would give you pictures of the
sky using any of several different catalogs. The programmer is apparently
French and calls the program Cartes du Ciel. Could this program be some
offshoot of the project you are describing? The URL for the English version
of the program is http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/index.html.

I downloaded the program and installed it but I don't know nearly enough
about astronomy to get much out of it. It would probably be pretty useful
for those who know astronomy better.

Rhino

Rhino wrote:
The programmer is apparently
French and calls the program Cartes du Ciel.

That just means "Star Charts" in French; a natural generic term as well
as a name for the software. It has nothing to do with the project
mentioned other than the name.


--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools: http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html
Observing: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html
Comets: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html

To reply have a physician remove your spleen

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 11:12:06 -0400, Rhino wrote:

I wouldn't fault Clarke for that, though. Since he was writing about the
future he could just as easily use a star catalog that had yet to be
developed. His use of it seems to be in line with common usage and the
high number that Greg points out is consistent with future, advanced
technologies. Besides, Clarke undoubtedly was familiar with the problems
associated with naming a real star. He'd probably encountered plenty of
people who take such things literally, assuming that the government is
hiding something that has to do with that star. Many of the rest of us
have encountered such people.

I wasn't born until a few years after Childhood's End came out so I can't
speak from experience on that. I wonder if as many people believed in
conspiracy theories then as do now? I'm amazed by all of the really bizarre
theories I see in various newsgroups in Usenet! Then again, maybe I
shouldn't be surprised for the political newsgroups; they tend to bring out
the whackos!

I'm not saying that there have never been any real conspiracies but I
seriously doubt that there have been nearly as many as some people seem to
believe. I can remember anxieties and concerns from when I was a kid -
people worried about nuclear war with the Soviets and some people speculated
that Hitler or Bormann might still be alive somewhere, plotting to resurrect
the Third Reich - but even these weren't full scale conspiracy theories
involving sneaky plots and coverups by national governments.

Oh well, it takes all kinds of people to make up a world.....

Rhino

When Clarke wrote Childhood's End in 1953 the US was in the grip of the
biggest conspiracy-theory period ever -- The Red Scare. Consider Sen. Joe
McCarthy and how he could terrorize citizens, the FBI's anti-Communist
actions, etc. There were UFO's as well and one movie after another playing
on people's fears by showing us being invaded.

The only difference I'm aware of is that now Usenet has given the
conspiracy-minded places to congregate and compare notes more easily.

Mike Simmons

On 2005-10-27, Rhino wrote:

By a curious coincidence, my Google search on "star catalog" yesterday
turned up a freeware computer program that would give you pictures of the
sky using any of several different catalogs. The programmer is apparently
French and calls the program Cartes du Ciel. Could this program be some
offshoot of the project you are describing? The URL for the English version
of the program is http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/index.html.

Carte du Ciel = Sky Chart / Cartes du Ciel = Sky Charts.

The Carte du Ciel project of 100 years ago was a scheme to make an
all-sky photographic atlas and catalog using standardized astrographs
at observatories all over the world. It never was 100% completed,
but they did catalog millions of stars in the days when computers
took coffee breaks.

--
The night is just the shadow of the Earth.

I think that this has been pretty well answered, but if you wanted to
really finish the subjec once and for all, I'll point you to the
reference that Sam Wormley gave you:
http://www.solstation.com/stars.htm

This will give you a list of nearby stars. Now Unless I'm mistaken
(More accurately, unless my quick web search is inaccurate) NGS 549672
was located 40 light years away. That is a pretty short list of stars,
even if you give pretty big error bars to the measurement.

Oh, and I have to applaud Chuck Taylor's satire. Perhaps we should put
a rider on the bill to require the use of "full star names". I would
suggest that other terms be included, with fines associated with them.
For example the term "Kleenex" must be used, Not "tissue" or "nose
wipe". Another example is the term "Coke" must be used instead of
"Cola". Poor Pepsi is going to feel the cost of that one. Well that's
my rant on "Good-Speak."

JD

Greg Crinklaw wrote:

Rhino wrote:

The programmer is apparently
French and calls the program Cartes du Ciel.


That just means "Star Charts" in French; a natural generic term as well
as a name for the software. It has nothing to do with the project
mentioned other than the name.

I misspoke of course; I meant "Sky Charts." Star Charts would be
something more like "Cartes d'Etoiles."

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools: http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html
Observing: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html
Comets: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html

To reply have a physician remove your spleen

William Hamblen wrote:
Carte du Ciel = Sky Chart / Cartes du Ciel = Sky Charts.

The Carte du Ciel project of 100 years ago was a scheme to make an
all-sky photographic atlas and catalog using standardized astrographs
at observatories all over the world. It never was 100% completed,
but they did catalog millions of stars in the days when computers
took coffee breaks.

The Carte du Ciel project was farmed out to several dozen observatories
worldwide, at different latitudes. Each observatory was responsible for
imaging an agreed-upon zone of declination and publishing the results.
The photographic plates -- or reproductions of them -- were to form the
Carte du Ciel (kinda like the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey and its
southern extension). That part of it was indeed never published.

The catalog resulting from this mammoth project was the Astrographic
Catalogue. Each observatory published their section of it in their own
proceedings, so a complete collection is a rather haphazard-looking lot.
The last volumes didn't appear until the 1950s, if memory serves. Most
of the observatories published only their (x,y) plate measurements, with
a set of plate constants for each plate, so it was up to the user to
transform (x,y) into (RA,Dec) for stars of interest. This turns out to
have been a wonderful decision, for we can use modern techniques and
come out with a catalog far better than what they could have done.

And that has indeed been done. The US Naval Observatory published
"AC 2000" in 1997 and the updated "AC 2000.2" several years later.
The latter includes 4.6 million stars -- twice as many as Tycho-2 --
covering the whole sky. And if I'm not mistaken, the makers of Tycho-2
used the Astrographic Catalogue as one of their sources for proper
motion.

So all that work 100 years ago was not in vain.

-- Bill Owen
wmo@jpl-dot-nasa-dot-gov

Sigh...I hope that the original poster of this message somehow finds this.

Anyway. NGS 549672 is not the important part. To find the answer you have to look into the history of the constellation it is a part of. Once you determine this, you are able to discover the meaning behind the location of the Overlord's planet.

The star is located in the constellation Carina. Carina is a part of the constellation Argo, named after the myth with Jason and his argonauts. Carina is a part of the keel of the ship, which I believe (sorry, my ship terminology is a little rusty) is where the ship is steered. This is where the Overlord's planet is, and this symbolizes a great deal. It shows both how dangerous Jan's journey is (as Jason's journey was incredibly dangerous). The constellation, I believe, is between the Southern Cross and the False Cross, depicting that the influence of the Overlords may or may not be beneficial to mankind.