Bayer designation
Sign in to savestar naming system in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name
AI overview
The Bayer designation is a system for naming stars that uses a Greek or Latin letter combined with the Latin name of the star's constellation, making it easy to identify and locate specific stars in the night sky. This naming method matters because it provides astronomers and stargazers with a standardized, organized way to refer to stars rather than relying on inconsistent or region-specific names.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
Detail of Bayer's chart for Orion showing the belt stars and Orion Nebula region, with both Greek and Latin letter labels visible A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1564 stars. The brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, in his star atlas Uranometria. Bayer catalogued only a few stars too far south to be seen from Germany, but later astronomers (including Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille and Benjamin Apthorp Gould) supplemented Bayer's catalog with entries for southern constellations.
Scheme