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Loading contentEvery object in the sky has a name — usually many. A path through the professional catalogue layer: the great reference lists from the Bonner Durchmusterung to Gaia, the families they fall into, and the designation systems, from Bayer letters to variable-star names, that let astronomers point unambiguously at any star, cluster, or galaxy.
A catalogue of 110 deep-sky objects compiled by Charles Messier.
A catalogue of nearly 8,000 deep-sky objects.
The positional catalogues that pin down where the stars are — from Argelander's pre-photographic Bonner Durchmusterung and the Smithsonian's SAO catalogue to the space-based precision of Hipparcos, Tycho-2, and Gaia.
The system introduced by Johann Bayer in his 1603 atlas Uranometria, labelling the bright stars of each constellation with a Greek letter followed by the Latin genitive of the constellation's name — so α Orionis is Betelgeuse, even though Rigel (β Orionis) is usually the brighter of the two, a reminder that the ordering is only approximate. Roughly in order of brightness, Bayer letters remain the most familiar designations for naked-eye stars.