Logo of the Division C WG Star Names
(designed by WG member Juan Mejuto)
Scientific Objectives
Description
WGSN was established because of the need in astrophysics to standardize star names for use in international research papers. In the first steps 2015 to 2021, most commonly used spellings were standardized and the public NameExoWorld Campaigns (NEWC) were maintained. It turned out that the naming strategies as regarded in the public and as approvable by research need to follow divergent paths:
1) The stars beyond the limits of human vision (fainter than 6.5 mag) will be used in public naming campaigns. These NEWCs are carried out in collaboration of WGSN with the Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO).
2) The visible stars (brighter than 6.5 mag) are named by the WGSN with names of historical and indigenous asterisms of all types (proper names of stars, single star-asterisms, constellations, super-constellations etc.), if appropriate and allowed by the culture of origin. For this purpose, WGSN recruits members and associated from the necessary research fields, including but not limited to studies of anthropology, ethnology, culture(s), history.
Scientific Outcome
The standardization strategy in WGSN follows the general IAU-policy of appreciation of all cultures, diversification in official nomenclatures, preservation of (here: intangible) cultural heritage, and conscious withdrawal from political affairs.
Therefore, in the process of collation of names, all cultural names are preserved in a global encyclopaedia-project, that shall be linked to a free web-based planetarium software in order to map all cultural names to the correct positions. This repository will serve both research in cultural astronomies and educational/ public interest to look up knowledge, and it is used to pull names for the standardization.
The anticipated output of the WGSN, thus, is multifold:
- WGSN maintains the IAU-Catalog of Star Names (CSN). This name catalog contains brief etymology statements for all names standardized by the IAU.
- The additions to this IAU-CSN are generated after consensus within WGSN is achieved on the political and scientific justifiability of a name. This is based on the information collected in the “All Skies Encyclopaedia”-project which contains only curated data and is kept up to date to the best of our knowledge.
Ongoing Mission
● to collate Name Suggestions from historical and indigenous sources and ask for the permissions to use these names internationally. This name bank is culturally and geographically diverse
● to provide relevant expertise to support other IAU efforts related to celestial nomenclature, including public naming campaigns (e.g. NameExoWorlds).
● to refine WGSN guidelines for the proposal and adoption of names for stars.
Past Press Releases
● iau2304 — Press Release
● iau2209 — Press Release
● iau1912 — Press Release
● iau1908 — Press Release
● iau1707 — Press Release
● iau1603 — Organisational Release
● iau1505 — Press Release
● iau1501 — Press Release
● iau1406 — Press Release
● iau1404 — Press Release
● iau1301 — Press Release
● Bulletin of the IAU Working Group on Star Names, No. 1 (July 2016)
● Bulletin of the IAU Working Group on Star Names, No. 2 (October 2016)
Past Meetings
The Artificial Sky Jena 2023 - WGSN meets Stellarium
Documents
Please find the 'Group Reports' here.