I have a star named after me!

[Sylandro]

Belive it or not, i have a star named after me!

(Here's a image of me holding the certificate for the star)

If you want to find it, it's in Scorpio, (strangely enough, it's my zodiacal sign), the astronomical position is Right Ascension, 15H57M52.225, Declination, -25D46M31S, Magnitude 14.82.

Not exactly sure if it's visible to the naked eye, but it exists.

[NovaSilisko]

Sorry, but no you don't. You paid a sum of money for a slip of money that says you have a star named after you

http://www.iau.org/public/themes/buying_star_names/

[Flymetothemun]

Sorry, but no you don't. You paid a sum of money for a slip of money that says you have a star named after you

http://www.iau.org/public/themes/buying_star_names/

Nice one. I was loading up the IAU to do the exact same thing but you beat me to it. Also, Sylandro, sorry bud, but you don't have a star named after you. Either trash the certificate or use it for gift wrapping.

[Rainbowtrout]

Keep the certificate, name yourself Overlord, then go fool some people. Always fun.

[Aghanim]

Behold, one of the star naming company: http://www.starregistry.com/

And its wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Star_Registry

Its useless though as IAU has explained, and this FAQ: http://web.archive.org/web/20031008085352/home.columbus.rr.com/starfaq/

And please don't get angry if your local planetarium/observatory/astronomer couldn't find your star: http://web.archive.org/web/20030901132711/http://home.carolina.rr.com/nirgal/buyastar.html

It will end up like this:

So what did you tell the guy who'd bought a star?

First, he called asking if I could show him the star he'd bought. I told him most of what you read above but he insisted on coming to the planetarium so he could see the star.

When he arrived, he told me that he'd received a certificate with coordinates for his star, a star map with his star circled, a letter from the company congratulating him on his place in the heavens and an order form for the book with his name in it. Unfortunately, he brought none of this with him. He'd written down the coordinates on the back of a supermarket receipt.

First I went to my computer and checked the coordinates using an astronomy program. Then I used a second program. Finally I pulled up a third program which showed stars to 15th magnitude*.

I explained to him that astronomers use fairly high precision numbers for stellar coordinates. The coordinates he had were only accurate to minutes of arc rather than seconds of arc.** Within a one arc minute circle, there were half a dozen stars. I told him he could take his pick.

We went into the planetarium where I pointed out the region of the sky where his star resided. Naturally, because our planetarium only shows stars down to about 6th magnitude, there was nothing for us to see.

I'm not exactly sure how the next turn of events took place but he demanded to see my supervisor. When the boss came down, my visitor complained about my inability to show him the star he'd bought. From his perspective, if I couldn't find his star, I must not know much about astronomy. My boss, who just retired after 33 years in the planetarium field, told him that he couldn't find it either; it was just too dim.

The guy was pretty hot under the collar when he left and I haven't seen him since.

And if you wonder why all of that comes from web.archive:

The ISR threatened Perkins Observatory at Ohio Wesleyan University with legal action when assistant director Robert Martino put up a website criticizing star-naming companies, despite it being factually correct.[6] Even after Martino removed any direct reference to ISR, he was warned that he should not talk about star-naming at all.[citation needed] Eventually Martino was forced to host his criticisms privately and on newsgroups.[7]

Edited May 25, 2014 by Aghanim

[Javster]

Well hopefully you're not too disappointed at the news of your certificate being worthless. I guess you can still use it for bragging rights with friends.

[vger]

My wife bought us a pair of stars from the International Star Registry a few years back (yes, I knew then that the names were never going to be seriously honored by the scientific community).

I was able to find both of them with Google Sky.

Seems ISR worked a bit harder on the details, and used a real star catalog.

They even apparently have a little partnership going on with an observatory, so if you want a photo, you can get it. http://www.starregistry.com.au/star-photography.html

Edited May 25, 2014 by vger

[Sylandro]

Perhaps when i'm older, i can "buy" a star and name it Kerbol.

[Skyler4856]

Sell it to a gullible bum!

[The Jedi Master]

Try to find an asteroid instead, according to Scott Manley the IAU lets you name those!

[Skyler4856]

Try to find an asteroid instead, according to Scott Manley the IAU lets you name those!

They let you name whatever you find

[Brethern]

I'm not sure what's worse, that he fell for the scam or that he posted his real name to a public forum full of strangers.