Starship Asterisk*

Beyond wrote:

Ann wrote:

Beyond wrote:
Odysseus first met Hercules in the underworld.

He did? Where did you read that?

Ann

http://suite101.com/article/greek-myth- ... ld-a198557

This system had been previously identified as multiple in the Hipparcos Input Catalog

WDS 05552+0724 (that would be the coordinates)
Discoverer's ID: SLE 831AG
Magnitudes 0.9 and 12.8

Ann wrote:I stand corrected, Beyond! It appears that Odysseus did meet Hercules in the underworld. Oh well, Hercules is not as famous a constellation as Orion, and Orion is the one I was looking for!

Ann

Beyond wrote:ha-ha, neither one for me, Margarita.
The consternation is Canes Venatici... The main star is Mira, the first variable star discovered and the prototype of it's class.

COR! More info on this TRUE BLUE STAR from Kaler on Alpha Canum Venaticorum
Cor Caroli, the Alpha star. The telescope quickly reveals a binary, two stars 19 seconds of arc apart. In keeping with tradition, the western of the two is Alpha-1, the eastern Alpha-2.

The system is dominated by Alpha-2, a peculiar white class A (A0) dwarf with a temperature of 10,300 that at magnitude 2.90 far outshines Alpha-1, a sixth magnitude (5.60) class F (F0) dwarf. From a distance of 110 light years, Alpha-2 shines with the light of 83 Suns, which leads to a radius 2.6 times solar and a mass of 2.8 solar. Cooler (estimated at around 6500 Kelvin, anomalously cool for the class) and far fainter, Alpha-1 glows at only 5 solar luminosities, its mass just 1.6 times that of our Sun.

Of greatest interest, Alpha-2 is a "magnetic star," possessing one of the strongest known magnetic fields among otherwise normal hydrogen-fusing dwarf stars.(Margarita note: aka Main Sequence) The Sun has an overall magnetic field that is only a few times stronger than Earth's; Cor Caroli's, on the other hand, has one more than 1500 times stronger than does our planet. The star also has a weird chemical composition in which elements such as silicon, mercury, and rarer elements such as europium are locally enormously enhanced. The strengths vary with time as the star rotates with a period of 5.5 days (which is more or less consistent with the observed rotation velocity), revealing some kind of spottedness. The magnetic field is probably responsible for helping to redistribute the elements in the star's atmosphere, apparently elevating some to the surface, while depleting others. The origins of the fields of such stars are not understood.

Cor Caroli, which means "Charles' Heart" in honor of England's King Charles II,

In the western world the star had no name until the 17th century, when it was named Cor Caroli, which means "Charles's Heart". There has been some uncertainty whether it was named in honour of King Charles I of England, who was executed in 1649 during the English Civil War, or to his son, Charles II, who restored the English monarchy to the throne in 1660.

The name was coined in 1660 by Sir Charles Scarborough, physician to Charles II, who claimed the star seemed to shine exceptionally brightly on the night of Charles II's return to England.

In Star Names, R.H. Allen claimed that Scarborough suggested the name to Edmund Halley and intended it to refer to Charles II. However, Robert Burnham Jr. notes that "the attribution of the name to Halley appears in a report published by J. E. Bode at Berlin in 1801, but seems to have no other verification". In Star Tales, Ian Ridpath points out that the name's first appearance on a star map was in the 1673 chart of Francis Lamb, who labelled it Cor Caroli Regis Martyris ("the heart of Charles the martyred king"), clearly indicating that it was seen as referring to Charles I.

Beyond wrote:Well, you sound like you're flying in a specially modified plane with a big door that opens so you can look out into space, but i don't remember what it is called, or looks for.

bystander wrote:I just knew the name of the airborne observatory you were describing, beyond.