Week of November 21-27, 2021

With the holiday gift-giving season barreling toward us like an out-of-control sleigh, we will soon be hearing and seeing ads to have a star named after someone special.

Now I have nothing against the free enterprise system. But I, like P.T. Barnum, have come to learn that no matter how ridiculous a product people will line up to buy it if it's marketed properly. Remember the pet rock?

So, if rocks, why not stars? Why not take a person's hard-earned money, write their name in a book and hand them a star chart and certificate? Well, that's just what a handful of companies are doing, and at least one has been investigated by a state attorney general's office.

Quite frankly, I think that having a star named after me would be a pretty cool novelty gift, but that's really all it is. Where I take issue is that people often believe that this will buy them immortality — that future astronomers will utter their name while studying "their" star. ("My, isn't Otis scintillating tonight!)

Sorry, folks, it just ain't so. Let me explain why.

On a clear, dark night, only a couple thousand stars are visible to the unaided eye. Of those, only a few hundred are endowed with proper names, most of which come from ancient stargazers of the Mediterranean: the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and others. The rest — visible only to large telescopes — are designated by numbers or celestial coordinates that astronomers list in thick star catalogues.

Take, for example, the brightest star twinkling low in the northeastern sky a few hours after dark. Various catalogues list it as HD34029, HR1708 and Alpha Aurigae, but since it's the sixth brightest star in the sky, it also carries a proper name: Capella. The name means "she-goat," a perfectly legitimate name for the brightest star in the constellation of Auriga, a charioteer who carries a goat. Names of other bright stars have similarly interesting origins and histories.

Now if you'd still like to "buy" a star for someone this holiday season, you certainly won't hurt my feelings. You should have little trouble finding companies on any Internet search engine, but please be aware that most of the stars they're "selling" are much too faint to see with the unaided eye.

In fact, some may not even exist at all. Nearly three decades ago, I failed to find a friend's "star" with both a 21-inch telescope and a camera. It just wasn't there. And then I discovered upon closer examination that the "star" for which the person spent $50 was actually a dot of ink laid down on the star chart by some unscrupulous salesperson!

Star names are fascinating, and they tell us much about the cultures who created them. To learn more about the stars' actual names, you might check out the book of Richard Hinckley Allen titled "Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning." And for an even more in-depth and fascinating look at the subject, look into the classic three-volume tome known as "Burnham's Celestial Handbook."

When it comes right down to it, books like that would make a more useful gift for the stargazer in your family!

Stars names in Auriga after dark this week.

Visit Dennis Mammana at dennismammana.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Stars names in Auriga after dark this week.