Talk:Sterope (star)

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Designation[edit]

The "Other designations" fields appear to be saying that Asterope is just 21 Tauri, and Sterope is the shared name (Sterope I = 21, Sterope II = 22), contradicting the lede... Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Star-names and Their Meanings by Richard Hinckley Allen (1899) states (p.407): "Sterope I and Sterope II, less correctly Asterope, are a widely double star [is there a word missing here?]...", implying that at that time at least Asterope meant both stars and the I and II disambiguators were used with the name Sterope instead.
It's confusing! SIMBAD gives Asterope as 21 Tauri and no name at all for 22 Tauri. But according to this talk page post, The Bright Star Catalogue (Hoffleit 1991) agrees with the article: Asterope is there 21 Tauri (also Sterope I), and Sterope II is 22 Tauri. I guess the potential of disambiguating ten stars instead of nine wasn't really tapped, at least not unambiguously! (Also, if 22 Tauri gets a name, why didn't the brighter 18 Tauri (magnitude 5.64)? 24 Tauri I can understand, as it is so close to Alcyone in the sky and would most probably get drowned out to the naked eye even if you could see it at magnitude 6.29, but not 18...) Double sharp (talk) 12:24, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
...and Wikipedia's List of proper names of stars disagrees with both, giving Asterope as 21 Tauri and Sterope as 22 Tauri (uncited though, so maybe this is a mistake or someone's overenthusiastically pushed idea?) Double sharp (talk) 12:33, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Star Names has now recognised the name Asterope for 21 Tauri (HR 1151): http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~emamajek/WGSN/IAU-CSN.txt
The IAU has not recognised a proper name for 22 Tauri (HR 1152). TowardsTheLight (talk) 20:27, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]