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V* RY Sex How this particular red dwarf came to obtain such a name, gives me an inkling that whoever did it must have known the effect it would have on search

V* RY Sex How this particular red dwarf came to obtain such a name, gives me an inkling that whoever did it must have known the effect it would have on search engines. http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=V*+RY+Sex http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=V*+RY+Sex

wolfgang42 9y ago
This seems to be a perfectly ordinary name for a variable star: V* - Variable star RY - 16th discovered [^] Sex - in the constellation Sextans [^]: The numbering is a bit strange, it starts at R and goes R, S, T, ..., X, Y, Z, RR, RS, RT and so on. [Edit: I originally did the math completely wrong and said that this was the 50th.] For more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star_designation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star_designation
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Starting a numbering system with "R" may seem weird, but it's perfectly in character for the discipline that declared "metal" to mean "everything in the universe except hydrogen and helium."
  - Factory 9y ago
    "the 2% of the universe that isn't hydrogen and helium", surely.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      "The interesting 2% of the universe." (Though I thought it was rather less than 1%? Enh, apparently I'm too lazy to check Wikipedia right now.)
- peterburkimsher 9y ago
  It has 144 siblings. I wonder how that happened. http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=V*+RY+Sex&NbIdent=1&Radius=2&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+id http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=V*+RY+Sex&NbI...
- pavement 9y ago
  Weird. A base 9 counting system? At first, I counted it off as octal (thinking z for zero), which seemed pretty reasonable, but then I realized my mistake. Now I read the wiki article, and it's not even nonary.
  - wolfgang42 9y ago
    It doesn't actually have a standard base at all; they seem to have discovered several times that there were more variable stars than they expected and had to extend the system in increasingly convoluted ways.

wolfgang42 9y ago

This seems to be a perfectly ordinary name for a variable star: V* - Variable star RY - 16th discovered [^] Sex - in the constellation Sextans [^]: The numbering is a bit strange, it starts at R and goes R, S, T, ..., X, Y, Z, RR, RS, RT and so on. [Edit: I originally did the math completely wrong and said that this was the 50th.] For more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star_designation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star_designation

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
Starting a numbering system with "R" may seem weird, but it's perfectly in character for the discipline that declared "metal" to mean "everything in the universe except hydrogen and helium."
- Factory 9y ago
  "the 2% of the universe that isn't hydrogen and helium", surely.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    "The interesting 2% of the universe." (Though I thought it was rather less than 1%? Enh, apparently I'm too lazy to check Wikipedia right now.)
peterburkimsher 9y ago
It has 144 siblings. I wonder how that happened. http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=V*+RY+Sex&NbIdent=1&Radius=2&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+id http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=V*+RY+Sex&NbI...
pavement 9y ago
Weird. A base 9 counting system? At first, I counted it off as octal (thinking z for zero), which seemed pretty reasonable, but then I realized my mistake. Now I read the wiki article, and it's not even nonary.
- wolfgang42 9y ago
  It doesn't actually have a standard base at all; they seem to have discovered several times that there were more variable stars than they expected and had to extend the system in increasingly convoluted ways.