APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
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Ann
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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Ann » Sun Dec 04, 2016 7:28 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Ann wrote:There are even more stars in Orion that have proper names.
Yes, but those names are not official. There are many stars in the sky that have traditional names (which may vary between cultures) but which do not have official recognition. You could refer to Beta Orion as Rigel in any publication and have an expectation that you would be understood. You could not refer to it as Algebar, or to Iota Orion as Na'ir al Saif, and have that same expectation.
Names, names, names, how do I call the stars by their names?
By whatever name seems appropriate for the context. In a scientific discussion, that would either be a recognized catalog designation, or one of the IAU recognized proper names.
Gandalf? Oh yes. That's what they used to call me. Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.

One Ring, I mean, Name, to Rule Them All... No, I mean, Greyhame. Stormcrow. Olórin. Incánus. Tharkûn. Gandalf the Grey. Gandalf the White. Mithrandir. The Grey Pilgrim. The White Rider. Láthspell.

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Last edited by Ann on Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by geckzilla » Sun Dec 04, 2016 8:56 pm

Re: The dong, moderation, etc.

We do have rules about this site being family friendly. That said, we also have a very wide audience from all over the world and I would guess that most of the world would not take horrible offense to that comic, even if their young child happened to get a gander. So yes, this is a family friendly site, but it's by no means a pristine, ultra sanitized version of family friendliness. The xkcd comic was not graphically intense, disgusting, or violent. A little crass, sure, but well within acceptable limits. I have no intention of cracking down on expressions like this. Thanks for understanding. Sorry if someone's kid is now blocked from our discussions. This is officially how it is going to be.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by neufer » Sun Dec 04, 2016 9:47 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Ann wrote:
There are even more stars in Orion that have proper names.
Yes, but those names are not official. There are many stars in the sky that have traditional names (which may vary between cultures) but which do not have official recognition. You could refer to Beta Orion as Rigel in any publication and have an expectation that you would be understood. You could not refer to it as Algebar..., and have that same expectation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigel wrote: <<The traditional name Rigel is first recorded in the Alfonsine Tables of 1252. It is derived from the Arabic name Rijl Jauzah al Yusrā, "the left leg (foot) of Jauzah" (i.e. rijl meaning "leg, foot"), which can be traced to the 10th century. "Jauzah" was a proper name of the Orion figure, an alternative Arabic name was riǧl al-ǧabbār, "the foot of the great one", which is the source of the rarely used variant names Algebar or Elgebar.>>
-----------------------------------------
Algebra (from Arabic "al-jabr" : "reunion of broken parts") is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for their manipulation.
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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Guest » Sun Dec 04, 2016 9:52 pm

geckzilla wrote:Re: The dong, moderation, etc.

We do have rules about this site being family friendly. That said, we also have a very wide audience from all over the world and I would guess that most of the world would not take horrible offense to that comic, even if their young child happened to get a gander. So yes, this is a family friendly site, but it's by no means a pristine, ultra sanitized version of family friendliness. The xkcd comic was not graphically intense, disgusting, or violent. A little crass, sure, but well within acceptable limits. I have no intention of cracking down on expressions like this. Thanks for understanding. Sorry if someone's kid is now blocked from our discussions. This is officially how it is going to be.
Yeah, well when you actually have kids of you own and have to explain this kind of stuff (substitute any other word starting with 'S') to your kids who only want knowledge and to learn, or you just become a responsible adult and grow a set of real values, maybe then you will understand. But I see now that, in the admin side of things on this site, the dipstick just does not reach the oil...

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by geckzilla » Sun Dec 04, 2016 9:58 pm

Guest wrote:
geckzilla wrote:Re: The dong, moderation, etc.

We do have rules about this site being family friendly. That said, we also have a very wide audience from all over the world and I would guess that most of the world would not take horrible offense to that comic, even if their young child happened to get a gander. So yes, this is a family friendly site, but it's by no means a pristine, ultra sanitized version of family friendliness. The xkcd comic was not graphically intense, disgusting, or violent. A little crass, sure, but well within acceptable limits. I have no intention of cracking down on expressions like this. Thanks for understanding. Sorry if someone's kid is now blocked from our discussions. This is officially how it is going to be.
Yeah, well when you actually have kids of you own and have to explain this kind of stuff (substitute any other word starting with 'S') to your kids who only want knowledge and to learn, or you just become a responsible adult and grow a set of real values, maybe then you will understand. But I see now that, in the admin side of things on this site, the dipstick just does not reach the oil...
I don't think you give kids enough credit. Your kid or kids are smart. They probably already understand it just fine without your intervention.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Guest » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:05 pm

geckzilla wrote:
Guest wrote:
geckzilla wrote:Re: The dong, moderation, etc.

We do have rules about this site being family friendly. That said, we also have a very wide audience from all over the world and I would guess that most of the world would not take horrible offense to that comic, even if their young child happened to get a gander. So yes, this is a family friendly site, but it's by no means a pristine, ultra sanitized version of family friendliness. The xkcd comic was not graphically intense, disgusting, or violent. A little crass, sure, but well within acceptable limits. I have no intention of cracking down on expressions like this. Thanks for understanding. Sorry if someone's kid is now blocked from our discussions. This is officially how it is going to be.
Yeah, well when you actually have kids of you own and have to explain this kind of stuff (substitute any other word starting with 'S') to your kids who only want knowledge and to learn, or you just become a responsible adult and grow a set of real values, maybe then you will understand. But I see now that, in the admin side of things on this site, the dipstick just does not reach the oil...
I don't think you give kids enough credit. Your kid or kids are smart. They probably already understand it just fine without your intervention.

When the first question is 'Daddy, what is a dong?' and before you can answer, the next question is 'Daddy, why does Orion have one?' followed by "Do all stars have dongs?" Figure it out yourself....

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by neufer » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:13 pm

When the first question is 'Daddy, what is a troll?' and before you can answer, the next question is 'Daddy, why does the Starship Asterisk* have one?' followed by "Do all astronomy blogs have trolls?"
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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by geckzilla » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:20 pm

Indeed.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Guest » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:21 pm

neufer wrote:When the first question is 'Daddy, what is a troll?' and before you can answer, the next question is 'Daddy, why does the Starship Asterisk* have one?' followed by "Do all astronomy blogs have trolls?"
Juvenile and not funny... Obviously you are not a parent. Doe everyone in this sandbox have the same set of values? Really???

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by geckzilla » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:27 pm

A dong is a penis. Orion doesn't really have one, because that was just a silly joke. No stars have actual penises. It's really not that hard.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Guest » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:32 pm

geckzilla wrote:A dong is a penis. Orion doesn't really have one, because that was just a silly joke. No stars have actual penises. It's really not that hard.
To a 7 year old girl, How do I explain this kind of stuff to her... Dongs? You just really don't get it. Given the questions she asked, I thought she was on a porn site, and then to find it was APOD, and she was asking this stuff??? You just don't get it!!!

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Chris Peterson » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:39 pm

Guest wrote:When the first question is 'Daddy, what is a dong?' and before you can answer, the next question is 'Daddy, why does Orion have one?' followed by "Do all stars have dongs?" Figure it out yourself....
Well, I teach in an elementary school, and I show my class APODs, and we often look at the Asterisk commentary. I'd have no problem here. If someone asks about the cartoon, I'll say "A dong is another word for penis; Orion has one because he was a mythical man. The cartoon is funny because those stars are usually said to either be a sword or his knee, but given the location, they might be seen as a penis, too." How hard is that?
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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Guest » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:45 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Guest wrote:When the first question is 'Daddy, what is a dong?' and before you can answer, the next question is 'Daddy, why does Orion have one?' followed by "Do all stars have dongs?" Figure it out yourself....
Well, I teach in an elementary school, and I show my class APODs, and we often look at the Asterisk commentary. I'd have no problem here. If someone asks about the cartoon, I'll say "A dong is another word for penis; Orion has one because he was a mythical man. The cartoon is funny because those stars are usually said to either be a sword or his knee, but given the location, they might be seen as a penis, too." How hard is that?
Clearly, morally bankrupt. Science should be about science. I get the humor aspect, but questionable content should have been deleted when discovered. You guys are just weird. - the kids are banned from this site. Not because of the comic, but the attitude towards the content herein... Sorry for playing in your sandbox. Now, I need a shower...

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by geckzilla » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:49 pm

Guest wrote:
geckzilla wrote:A dong is a penis. Orion doesn't really have one, because that was just a silly joke. No stars have actual penises. It's really not that hard.
To a 7 year old girl, How do I explain this kind of stuff to her... Dongs? You just really don't get it. Given the questions she asked, I thought she was on a porn site, and then to find it was APOD, and she was asking this stuff??? You just don't get it!!!
I think I do get it. It embarrassed you. She was confused and had some honest questions and this is a relatively benign introduction to those questions. I think that both of you will be ok.
Guest wrote:Clearly, morally bankrupt. Science should be about science.
Science is done by people, and people have all sorts of opinions and ways of expressing themselves. We are not morally bankrupt simply because we do not share the same attitude or fears about anatomy that you do.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Guest » Sun Dec 04, 2016 11:08 pm

geckzilla wrote:
Guest wrote:
geckzilla wrote:A dong is a penis. Orion doesn't really have one, because that was just a silly joke. No stars have actual penises. It's really not that hard.
To a 7 year old girl, How do I explain this kind of stuff to her... Dongs? You just really don't get it. Given the questions she asked, I thought she was on a porn site, and then to find it was APOD, and she was asking this stuff??? You just don't get it!!!
I think I do get it. It embarrassed you. She was confused and had some honest questions and this is a relatively benign introduction to those questions. I think that both of you will be ok.
Guest wrote:Clearly, morally bankrupt. Science should be about science.
Science is done by people, and people have all sorts of opinions and ways of expressing themselves. We are not morally bankrupt simply because we do not share the same attitude or fears about anatomy that you do.
See? You just don't get it... This is not a family site. It should have an adult content warning. The kids are blocked. You could have had a laugh over the cartoon, but then removed it. It is time for you to look into yourself for morals, ethics and values...

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by geckzilla » Sun Dec 04, 2016 11:36 pm

Guest wrote:See? You just don't get it... This is not a family site. It should have an adult content warning. The kids are blocked. You could have had a laugh over the cartoon, but then removed it. It is time for you to look into yourself for morals, ethics and values...
Well, it's not for your family. Others are still just as welcome.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Guest » Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:05 am

geckzilla wrote:
Guest wrote:See? You just don't get it... This is not a family site. It should have an adult content warning. The kids are blocked. You could have had a laugh over the cartoon, but then removed it. It is time for you to look into yourself for morals, ethics and values...
Well, it's not for your family. Others are still just as welcome.
If some stranger walked up to your daughter or granddaughter in the local park and started talking about Orion's Dong, I think you would have a different attitude. You would turn the guy over to the police after beating him to a pulp. And I would help you do it. But for some reason, when it comes to the internet, you don't object to it. In fact you even defend it. Is this really your moral standard? Is this the example you want to set? What kind of a person are you? You should have removed the cartoon as soon as you became aware of it.

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by geckzilla » Mon Dec 05, 2016 1:09 am

Guest wrote:
geckzilla wrote:
Guest wrote:See? You just don't get it... This is not a family site. It should have an adult content warning. The kids are blocked. You could have had a laugh over the cartoon, but then removed it. It is time for you to look into yourself for morals, ethics and values...
Well, it's not for your family. Others are still just as welcome.
If some stranger walked up to your daughter or granddaughter in the local park and started talking about Orion's Dong, I think you would have a different attitude. You would turn the guy over to the police after beating him to a pulp. And I would help you do it. But for some reason, when it comes to the internet, you don't object to it. In fact you even defend it. Is this really your moral standard? Is this the example you want to set? What kind of a person are you? You should have removed the cartoon as soon as you became aware of it.
What you've done here is created a false equivocation between this comic, shared in jest, contextually appropriate for the discussion at hand, and a hypothetical and completely unrealistic version of a sexual predator. They're not the same. It's not even remotely similar. We're done here. You don't have to worry anymore about our disagreeing morals harming your family. Goodbye.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Ann » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:07 am

I have been both amused and bemused by the "dong" discussion. Obviously neither constellations nor asterisms have corporeal bodies, therefore they don't have body parts, therefore they don't have dongs.

I certainly agree that that thing that looks like an appendage would be more aptly described as a dong than as a sword. I mean, what knight carries his sword over his crotch?

But here on Earth stars and star patterns have accepted designations that we humans have given them, and many of them have been in use for a long time, some for a few thousand years. "Orion's Dong" in not an accepted designation. I googled "Na'ir al Saif" and got 65,000 hits, and most of the hits on the first two pages actually refer to the star. The name means "The Bright One of the Sword", not "The Bright One of the Dong".

So as long as we are talking about official and well-established names of stars and star patterns on the sky, we should indeed refer to the thing that seems to hang between Orion's two "legs" as his sword! :makes stern teacher's face: :evil:

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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Chris Peterson » Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:49 pm

Ann wrote:So as long as we are talking about official and well-established names of stars and star patterns on the sky, we should indeed refer to the thing that seems to hang between Orion's two "legs" as his sword! :makes stern teacher's face: :evil:
Of course... which is what makes the cartoon funny.
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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by Cousin Ricky » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:33 pm

Guest wrote:Clearly, morally bankrupt. Science should be about science. I get the humor aspect, but questionable content should have been deleted when discovered. You guys are just weird. - the kids are banned from this site. Not because of the comic, but the attitude towards the content herein... Sorry for playing in your sandbox. Now, I need a shower...
Keep this up and your kid is likely to become a statistic. (That is, if you really do have a kid.)

Think about which American states are most prudish about sex education. Then look up which states have the highest teen pregnancy rates.

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A Tip of the Hatysa

Post by neufer » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:45 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iota_Orionis wrote: <<Iota Orionis (ι Ori, ι Orionis) is the brightest star in an asterism known as Orion's sword. It has the traditional names Hatsya or Hatysa and in Arabic, Na’ir al Saif, which means simply "the Bright One of the Sword." The apparent visual magnitude of Iota Orionis is 2.77, making it the eighth-brightest member of Orion. From parallax measurements, it is located at a distance of roughly 1,330 light-years (410 parsecs) from Earth.

Iota Orionis is a quadruple system dominated by a massive spectroscopic binary with an eccentric (e=0.764), 29-day orbit. The two components of ι Ori A are a stellar class O9 III star (blue giant) and a class B0.8 III/IV star about 2 magnitudes fainter. The collision of the stellar winds from this pair makes the system a strong X-ray source. Oddly, the two objects of this system appear to have different ages, with the secondary being about double the age of the primary. In combination with the high eccentricity of their orbit, this suggests that the binary system was created through a capture, rather than by being formed together and undergoing a mass transfer. This capture may have occurred, for example, through an encounter between two binary systems.

ι Ori has a B8 giant companion at 11" (approximately 5,000 AU) which has been shown to be variable, and likely to be a young stellar object. There is also a fainter A0 star at 49" catalogued as ι Ori C.>>
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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by RBANDREO » Tue Dec 06, 2016 2:25 am

hamilton1 wrote:
RedGargoyle wrote:Today's picture is great but appeared already on 16.03.2015.
Lots of APODs get repeated.
Actually, the text on yesterday's APOD is completely different than what was written back in 3/16/2015, and the main image this time is the annotated version, so while the image has been featured before (as pointed out, not unusual), technically these two APODs are quite different compared to other repeated ones :wink:

Cheers!
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Re: APOD: Orion and Official Star Names (2016 Dec 04)

Post by starsurfer » Wed Dec 07, 2016 6:13 pm

RBANDREO wrote:
hamilton1 wrote:
RedGargoyle wrote:Today's picture is great but appeared already on 16.03.2015.
Lots of APODs get repeated.
Actually, the text on yesterday's APOD is completely different than what was written back in 3/16/2015, and the main image this time is the annotated version, so while the image has been featured before (as pointed out, not unusual), technically these two APODs are quite different compared to other repeated ones :wink:

Cheers!
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Orion turns out to be a Huntress, folks

Post by Doug County » Fri Dec 09, 2016 5:25 am

OK, folks; constellations are projections placed onto the visible stars by cultures since time immemorial. The earliest depiction of the stars we call Orion go back some 32,000-38,000 years, carved into mammoth ivory and identified by the 3 central stars of the "modern" constellation. But just because Greek mythology depicting it as a Hunter was carried into present time more effectively by our literature doesn't mean that other cultures at other times and in other places weren't similarly impressed by the bright stars that exist in that part of the sky, inspiring a wide variety of other projections of their psyches including seeing the spine of a bison, a canoe, a scythe, a judge's stick, a deer, a rooster, a sheep and other images, just like a celestial Rorschach blot. Check out the following website for a summary discussion of this profusion of celestial projections: http://www.crystalinks.com/orion.html

Given the active minds of our ancestors, may I humbly suggest that as our telescopes and other imaging technologies have "lifted the loincloth" of our much vaunted Orion the Hunter, it surprises me that nobody has caught on that instead of a progenitor of fatherhood, a close look at the nebulosity has revealed a very fecund birthing zone, a placental paradise for hundreds of proto and natal stellar-planetary systems! Isn't it obvious that our famed Hunter has been a Huntress all along?

One can rule out the sword theory since anyone who has worn a sword knows that the last place you want to hang it is between your legs. As to the phallic theory, well, star forming regions are about as female as you can get in my estimation. The fact that it lies between the legs only enhances this fact, and indeed the trail just shows how the birthing process has been going on for a while, leaving a trail of many newborn stars and planets.

And lest folks be offended by such "realities" and fear that such statements are not for the ears and eyes of young ones, I cannot think of a single girl who would not be delighted to look up at the newborn stars and planets between the Huntress' legs and feel a connection in a very healthy and natural way.

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