List of Arabic star names

This is a list of traditional Arabic names for stars. In Western astronomy, most of the accepted star names are Arabic, a few are Greek and some are of unknown origin. Typically only bright stars have names. [ [http://www.stargazing.net/david/constel/starnames.html Stargazing Network] ]

History of Arabic star names

A few very old star names originated among people who lived in the Arabian Peninsula more than a thousand years ago, before the rise of Islam. However, many Arabic language star names sprang up later in history, as translations of ancient Greek language descriptions. The astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who lived almost two thousand years ago in Alexandria, Egypt, collected ancient descriptions of 1,025 stars in a book called "The Great System of Astronomy", published around the year 150 A.D. Ptolemy's book was translated into Arabic in the 8th and 9th centuries and became famous under its shortened Arabic title, the "Almagest". Many of the Arabic-language star descriptions in the "Almagest" came to be used widely as names for stars.

Later Muslim astronomers introduced the use of observatories in the observation of the stars, and discovered many more stars, which they recorded in various Zij treatises. The most notable of these is the "Book of Fixed Stars" written by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (known as Azophi in the West), who thoroughly illustrated all the stars known to him along with their observations, descriptions, positions, magnitudes, brightness, and color.

In Europe, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, many ancient star names were copied or translated incorrectly by various writers, some of whom did not know the Arabic language very well. As a result, the history of a star's name can be complicated. [ [http://www.rmsc.org/planetarium/qandi/snames.htm] , rmsc.org]

N.B.
*The following list does not contain all documented Arabic Star Names !!
*Some stars may have more than one Arabic name,
*Some star names may be composites of Arabic and Latin words

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A

D

G

J

M

P

T

W

References

* [http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/starname.html]
* [http://astro.isi.edu/reference/starnames.txt The Astronomy Corner: Reference – Star Names v1.1.2 (2006-05-28)]
* [http://www.rmsc.org/planetarium/qandi/snames.htm RMSC Strasenburgh Planetarium Information Bulletin #19 December 1996: Star Names: Where Do They Come From? And Can You Buy One?]
* [http://www.icoproject.org/star.html ICOP: Arabic Star Names]

ee also

*Islamic astronomy
*List of traditional star names