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Some DSO names are dubious #11
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Hello,
I am a bit surprised by some of the names appearing in my favorite planetarium software for some deep sky objects...
I think this tracks back to commit ee300ad
Impacted file : nebulae/default/names.dat (and possibly translations of it ?)
The indicated source for the names is : the list of 'The 500 Best Deep Sky Objects' by Don Pensack; https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/472872-500-best-dso-list/
(later tagged "B500" once comments were allowed, i.e from commit 9192214)
Although the list itself is fine and certainly useful, the "name" column contains mostly nicknames for which I don’t find any primary source. To my opinion they should not appear in Stellarium, which should stick to official identifiers (or more commonly accepted name sources).
I would suggest to remove the lines with B500 source (I can submit a PR if agreed).
Anyway thanks for the good work on Stellarium !
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gzotti commentedon Nov 15, 2017
While the DSO names are still work in progress and I very much insisted that we at least track a reference for some "funnies" and not collect everything from everywhere, I agree that some names require better source reference or more common acceptance. However, common acceptance requires previous publication in widespread journals and software and will likely take 3-20 years, so this is circular argumentation of a tricky kind. E.g. you will likely not find the name "Pillars of Creation" before that Hubble image.
I suggest that you write to Don Pensack and ask whether he can give references in a V2 of his Excel sheet: are the names his own invention, published elsewhere (journal, book, citable sources), learned at a star party from a particular observer group, ...
I am not sure whether we should add more complications like filtering the list by user-selected sources. If you absolutely dislike some names, you can delete them.
fmeynadier commentedon Nov 16, 2017
Thanks for your answer. Sorry if I missed some discussion on the subject (I did try to browse through the mailing list’s archive but did not find any discussion on that. I’d be happy to read any thread you would point me to).
Before writing to Don Pensack I’d prefer to know if anybody informed him already that his list has been incorporated in Stellarium, which may change a lot the content of my message.
But apart from that : I think a good rule of thumb would be to see if image search engines returns any relevant results. For example, "lawnmower cluster" (=NGC 663 according to B500, which is the one that initially raised my eyebrows) returns zero astronomical results, whereas "pillars of creation" returns nearly 100% NGC 6611/M16 - related results. "Eagle nebula" (which is the label I see currently in that region) is also OK according to this criterion.
gzotti commentedon Nov 16, 2017
This was a private discussion between Alexander and myself.
The "Pillars" were just an example of fast adoption of a new name in addition to the age-old (19th century?) name of Eagle Nebula, when it has been introduced in a picture published by a high-impact institution. (Actually it is pars-pro-toto, a small part of the Eagle nebula suddenly taking over the well-known name of M16.) I agree I have never seen the "Lawnmower" elsewhere and would like to see a primary reference on that and certainly a few others.
fmeynadier commentedon Nov 16, 2017
OK. I was also aware that "Pillars" is a particular zone of M16, given its high notoriety I wouldn’t mind seeing its location pinpointed in Stellarium but it should not replace Eagle nebula or M16 (would feel like seeing "Eiffel Tower" instead of "Paris" on google earth !).
Concerning B500, honestly, lots of names look weird. Those are the first 10 occurences in names.dat :
NGC 40 _("Scarab Nebula") <-- is better known as "Bow-Tie nebula", in fact this other name appears first in the names.dat list and is displayed
NGC 188 _("Polarissima Cluster") <-- http://www.messier.seds.org/m/m092.html suggests this name, but in 14000 years
NGC 206 _("Great Star Cloud in Andromeda Galaxy") <-- More of a description than a name
NGC 246 _("Soap Bubble Nebula") <-- First hit directs to a distinct object. Wikipedia for NGC 246 mentions "Skull nebula" citing "Astronomy Now" magazine as a reference. Also cites "Pac Man" nebula as a nickname.
NGC 246 _("Voodoo Mask Nebula") <--- Duplicate of the above within B500 list, no idea where this comes from
NGC 488 _("Whirligig Galaxy") <-- 1 single hit from http://www.cxielo.ch/gallery/f/ngc488, perhaps not independent from B500
NGC 584 _("Little Spindle Galaxy") <-- Lots of hits... on NGC 5866 aka "spindle galaxy". Besides I fail to see any resemblance between both objects, but that’s not the point...
NGC 628 _("Phantom Galaxy") <-- OK
NGC 654 _("Fuzzy Butterfly Cluster") <-- Butterfly cluster is NGC 6405 / M 6
NGC 663 _("Lawnmower Cluster") <-- Already discussed
So it appears to me that in 9 other 10 cases it is more a "remarks" column or mnemonics for the author’s use, but not identifiers that should appear very prominently in Stellarium.
fmeynadier commentedon Nov 17, 2017
Ok, I got an answer from Don Pensack. Quoting his mail, "The common names in my list are from other amateurs, from Sue French and Steve O'Meara and other books I have. Each name is something I have heard or read."
Quite understandably, he doesn’t have time to provide a source for each source.
In the rest of his mail he makes a good point in explaining that giving names makes memorization easier for amateur astronomers wishing to keep track of the objects.
My conclusion is that this list is interesting and is a nice addition to Stellarium, as it highlights DSOs that are reachable by (advanced) amateur astronomers (an equivalent list for southern hemisphere may be found at
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=45678, apparently).
But I think it should be displayed as such (perhaps this is what you mean by "filtering the list by user-selected sources" ?), e.g. "The 500 Best Deep Sky Objects' by Don Pensack", with an identifier like "B500 -#NN : Hairy Eyebrow Galaxy", not displayed by default.
And I strongly feel that, besides of that, any addition to the default "names.dat" should be at least checked against a basic search on google/bing/whatever, because this is exactly what users will do when they stumble on funny names on the sky map… If no results are astronomy-related, this might cast doubts on Stellarium’s accuracy.
Cleaned up some less known DSO names
Cleaned up some less known DSO names
Cleaned up some less known DSO names
alex-w commentedon Dec 2, 2017
I've revisiting the names of DSO from various books and works going is not very fast (no google within books :) ), plus I added new option to the GUI to hide an additional names for DSO.
alex-w commentedon Jan 1, 2018
Please check version 0.17.0 (I'll revisiting the names of DSO for next versions also)
silas1037 commentedon Feb 7, 2022
I am now checking the nickname of DSO and first find:
Deep-sky companions: the Messier objects by Stephen James OMeara p112-113
Here is the nickname "Crackerjack" of M22, which using a trademark. I don't support adding the same things into our sky, which will be mentioned by our later people, just like the Robur Carolinum.
Please don't close this issue, I would like to help checking more.
@alex-w @gzotti
gzotti commentedon Feb 7, 2022
Hmm, yes this family of topics is still open. We still need some way of selection/excluding unwanted sources for star names, DSO names, and probably also asterisms. A new Dialog in the Skyculture tab which loads the reference.fab and let the users select which references to take names from. And names only found in the unselected sources must then be suppressed.
"Crackerjack" may be something US citizens would probably know (if it is as widespread as OMeara seems to tell us) and refer to in everyday language. But it says nothing to me. I mentally translate this into "some US American [probably crispy] cookie", without even bothering whether it's sweet or salty. The connection with some prize is therefore lost, making it indeed a totally useless name. And yes, we should not introduce trademarks or product names into the sky :-)
silas1037 commentedon Feb 8, 2022
M86's name "FAUST V051" should be removed.
As mentioned at simbad annotation, "FAUST V051" is only a catalog number of a unknown survey FAUST Observations of Ultraviolet Sources toward the Virgo Cluster (pub 1997), we should not list it into the important Messier Nicknames.
gzotti commentedon Feb 8, 2022
Right, this is just "yet another catalog number" from a catalog where we don't have all objects. And it does have a memorizable name...
4 remaining items
gzotti commentedon Feb 8, 2022
The point about referencing is that we (should) let users decide which names they want to activate, be it even a "suspicious" list like B500. If you can fill in the gaps (missing references) for some DSO names, this would also be helpful. E.g. why is a whale galaxy at the same time a herring galaxy? Or see the weird entries for IC3568... who (mis-)copied lime and lemon here?
Nebula nicknames: correct some nicknames from DSC (#2268)
Nebula nicknames: correct some assign (#2274)
Nebula nicknames: Add name for some bright objects (#2280)
github-actions commentedon Feb 24, 2025
Hello @fmeynadier!
Please check the fresh version (development snapshot) of Stellarium:
https://github.com/Stellarium/stellarium-data/releases/tag/weekly-snapshot
fmeynadier commentedon Mar 2, 2025
Thank you very much for having kept this in mind and finally fixed it ! I have tested the latest snapshot and think the way out you found is good. Well done !
github-actions commentedon Mar 23, 2025
Hello @fmeynadier!
Please check the latest stable version of Stellarium:
https://github.com/Stellarium/stellarium/releases/latest