wasser@viking.DEC (John A. Wasser) (12/23/85)
More on International Star Registry
A friend of mine purchased several "registrations" from the
"International Star Registry" for friends. My girlfriend and
I happened to land in the same constellation and noticed that
our stars did not show up on each others charts. Seems that
they generate a pair of coordinates (somehow) and place a dot
on the appropriate chart. They then circle the dot in red so
you can find it easily.
In the best possible case, they have actually entered a list
of stars that appear on astronomical photographs (but are
too dim to have names). Then they would pick a star at random
from the list and assign it, then remove it from the list.
My guess is that the locations are generated at random (and
without regard for real stars). All you would have to do is
make the coordinate grid large enough that there is likely to
be a star near the specified coordinates and small enough that
there is almost no chance of two people who know each other
from getting the same coordinates.
I don't know if this is what ISR is doing but it is what I would
do if I were running it as a scam...
The documents you get just give the coordinates... No proper motion...
No visual magnitude... No spectral class.... Just a direction.
The charts they plot the position on are standard Epoch 1950 star
charts... a little out of date but O.K. for the purpose. They
don't bother saying whether the coordinates given are for 1950
or for Epoch 2000 (as many new star charts use).
-John A. Wasser
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