My mother had a 'star named for me' with the International Star Registry (henceforth ISR) as a gift for this Christmas. From past internet postings, I had known that the ISR has no legal claim or right to actually name stars, but hey, this was a present from Mom, and you do get this fuzzy, warm feeling seeing a red-circled star on a chart which for all perpetuity is 'yours'.

On the back of the chart, a sticker described the precise location and visual magnitude of the star, taken from the Hubble Guide Star Catalog. The first thing I noticed, was the chart was Epoch 1950. I determined to locate the star on Epoch 2000 charts. Time for a trip to my library.

The star could not be located in Wil Tirion's Uranometria 2000.0 . The dimmest star plotted in his atlas is "greater than 9.5", and 'my' star was about mag 10.8. Something should have popped in my mind then, but my mind was on a single track. Does the star exist at all, and what are its epoch 2000 coordinates? How could something plainly visible on the ISR chart be invisible elsewhere??

Onto the Internet! http://www-gsss.stsci.edu/forms/rcat_request.html allows anyone to search a variety of star catalogs. It sort of works backwards; you give them the coordinates and an aperture, and they return the Hubble numbers. I gave them the information on the sticker, and a wide-ish aperture to allow for precession.

Two mysteries were solved. The star (10 4565 821) does indeed exist, and the coordinates were epoch 1983.340. The coordinates were also exactly those on the ISR sticker, so I now knew that even though the ISR chart was epoch 1950, the coordinates on the sticker were epoch 1983.

Time to step back (actually, time to brush my teeth). This 'break in the chase' was the necessary element. Upon re-examination of the ISR chart, I could find no index of star magnitude, but it was clear that stars to mag 10 were not plotted. But there was 'my' star, with a red circle around it!

A quick look through my lupe, and the mystery was solved. Every other star was a perfect printed circle. 'My' star had the ink-bleed from a felt-tip pen! The plotted star's size wrongly suggested that it was a few magnitudes brighter than reality. Worse, it was plotted on a epoch 1950 chart using epoch 1983 coordinates. A close reading of the supplied booklet (which answers such questions as: What are the constellations?) gave no hint suggesting this practice.

At least the mystery was solved. Using the coordinates, I 'located' my star (likewise drawing it) in my observing atlas for an upcoming session. It's a 'good' star, fairly circumpolar (close to 83 degrees), so I can 'claim' it just about any night.

This is not an attempt to discredit the International Star Registry. Instead, I wanted to tell the story of a mystery, and to save other such 'gifted' astronomers some time with their own 'mysteries'.

Thanks Mom, it was fun.

- adm -

Last updated: 28-Dec-95