Disputatio:Index stellarum splendidissimarum

Titulus

It should be "clarissimarum" ... but I'm not quite sure how a star gets to be famous ("Proxima Centauri" is fairly famous but not in the list).

Ah, I see now, isn't Latin ambiguous? :) This is no doubt the list of "brightest" stars, and that's exactly why Proxima Centauri isn't listed.

There are several possible words, and I'm not sure that "clarus" is the best. Noting that these are not brightest absolutely, but brightest to a terrestrial observer, my initial suggestion is "lucidissimarum". I don't know if the superlative occurs in classical texts, but the comparative certainly does. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:06, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps Bayer himself can provide the answer: his Uranologia, where he introduced his classification, was written in Latin. I have not yet found a freely accessible copy on the internet. --Fabullus 09:38, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

If that's the same as Uranometria I did find a copy (see that page for a link) but I haven't time to look right now. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:28, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

Uranometria, of course! --Fabullus 11:03, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

And now that I have looked ([[1]), it seems a terrible interface. I can't get it to where I can read the preface as connected text: I have to see either the left side of the page or the right side, never a whole line. Perhaps it works better on someone else's browser. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:38, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

Since the brightness of stars is graded according to magnitudo, we shouldn't be surprised if the brightest ones turn out to be simply the stellae maximae. IacobusAmor 11:34, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

It would be better to avoid that term, however, because (from what we know now) it is inaccurate: one might equally make a list of the biggest stars, but they are not necessarily the brightest. Well, I have managed to read some text through that interface, and in table 38 (Canis Major) Bayerus refers to Sirius as "[stella] splendidissima". That was one of the words that occurred to me, though I didn't propose it. Use the link above, select "Oo recto, Canis Major, table 38", enlarge to 100%, and pan right. If nothing is visible, keep clicking on "Oo recto, Canis Major, table 38" until it appears.

So "Index stellarum splendidissimarum" is a possibility. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:44, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

Great job. Per me licet mutare. --Fabullus 11:50, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

Nemine contradicente, iam moveo. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 16:39, 15 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

Bayer number

I changed the column header "Numerus Bayeri" to "Bayeri Character" because (a) they aren't numbers, after all (b) when I wrote the page Uranometria I used this term. However, that's a while ago and I don't now know whether I had any justification for choosing it. So if anyone knows the correct Latin term for these sigla, please insert it. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:12, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)

I see now, from the page Ioannes Bayerus, that I did have sources, but they gave two alternative names: "Bayeri Character" and "Littera Bayeri". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:45, 14 Septembris 2010 (UTC)