These (unrelated) companies provides a very wonderful service - for a small fee (50 to 80 dollars, or about 60 pounds) they will name a star for you. The star, selected by the star registry company (not by you), will be given the name of your choice; a loved one, maybe. An ideal gift for a Wedding, Christening, or even to remember someone who has passed away.
Name a star? Sounds too good to be true? Yes, it is too good to be true.
Nice idea though it is, the registry company has absolutely no authority to name a star.
For your money, you will recieve
These companies do not claim to alter the names of well-known stars, such as Sirius or Altair - they name stars that are as-yet unnamed. The stars are extremely faint and only known by index numbers or coordinates. I feel this is somewhat misleading (not necessarily intentionally), as when people think of the stars, they think of the ones that can be seen, not the countless numbers that are too faint to be seen.
Just imagine:
It just doesn't really work, does it?
Another problem is that the star you are allocated is too faint to be seen with the naked eye, or even a decent pair of binoculars. A friend of mine used one of these companies to name a star as a gift for his niece, as a Christening present. As the mother was rather delighted with it, I thought it best to keep quiet, but had a look at the package supplied. I have a 4.5 inch reflector telescope, which is not terribly powerful, but cost a fair amount of money and is quite adequate for amatuer astronomy. I honestly do not think I could have seen the renamed star on even the clearest night using my telescope. It would certainly never be seen with the naked eye.
> 1) Which international astronomical organisations and official bodies > recognise the new designations of the stars? > 2) How are the new names of the stars made known to these organisations? > I look forward to your reply. I will check on more perfect sources for you, but the stars that are released for naming are stars that will not be studied by major organizations in the astronomical organizations so these stars that can be named are documented with the US Copyright Office and recognised worldwide. The star coordinates are registered and through The Official Star Registry, once a star and it's coordinates are registered they cannot be legally named by anyone else. There will be an annual book printed at the end of each year lsiting all the stars registered to individuals. I thank you for your interest and hope i've sufficiently answered your queries. If not, come back and yell and I will ask higher authorities! :-) Best regards, Lisa Singer The Official Star Registry http://members.gnn.com/ppnet/stargifts.htm
So, the OSR uses copyright laws to "name" a star (and, from reading their web page, it looks like the ISR does a similar thing), and the stars it does use are of no interest to official organisations (because they are too faint to be seen, possibly?). One problem with using copyright laws is that the copyright on something expires after a certain period (in the UK it is 25 years, I think), so the renamed stars are not even renamed permanently, and will come up for grabs again in a couple of decades. In other words, your loved one will not be immortalised in the heavens for all eternity (the companies make no such claim, but the very act of naming a star implies that it will be forever).
Here is someone's actual
experience of the ISR.
More information available here.
How are
stars named? Can I name/buy one? - from the sci.astronomy
newsgroup
NAMING AND BUYING STARS - WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Contact me at adrian