Elite: Dangerous - Where Do Star Names Come From?

[@starstudy8752]

Thank you Scott, I'm an amateur astronomer and got confused with a lot of the weird names that I didn't know meant something. I knew that lots of them they ran out of letters for but never knew what catalog they were from and what they meant. I know of NGC but never realized what LTT and the like meant or what it was from. I thought it was from a satellite I never heard of. Very appreciated video.

[@Arkalius80]

+Christopher Glomski NGC = Not Generally Conspicuous. IC = Inconspicuous. Amirite? hehehe

[@PTNLemay]

Simple solution, you give each star a double pokemon name. So the first one is bulbasaur-bulbasaur, then bulbasaur-ivysaur, and you keep counting up. There's over 700 pokemon at the moment, so even with just 2 "digits" we would have enough names for 500,000 stars. Then, a couple of year after this has been adopted as a universal standard, a new wave of pokemon is introduced, bringing the total up to 860. This creates a huge rift in the astronomical community, with half wanting to rewrite the catalog to include the new pokemon (so the naming would go 860 x 860) while the other half wants to just tack on the new pokemon at the end, because they are not considered legitimate enough to be used in star-naming.

[@ZexMaxwell]

+PTNLemay become a Scientist and you will be able to do it. after paying royalties to gamefreak.

[@coolbeams6885]

No.

[@PTNLemay]

Cool Beans Okay. :(

[@IstasPumaNevada]

+PTNLemay JOEBIDENJOEBIDENJOEBIDEN ( what-if.xkcd.com/23/ )

[@trisymphony]

wolf 359, resistance is futile!

[@Foxiol]

Great job Scott, I knew up to some point where all those names came from but I had no idea of why those names were used in that way. So there is always a meaning for each one of them which makes it more interesting. (also for explorers that are looking for something in particular this can be more helpful than you may think) Thank you very much for this video. ;)

[@grantwallace1882]

Going to lie down now and stare at the ceiling. My brain hurts.

[@ominous7271]

This video just shows the devotion for Space from this epic man(ley). 3 hours just talking about the history of Galactic Stars in our Galaxy. Brilliant video Scott.

[@ArfurFaulkesHake]

Who else went to Wolf 359 hoping to find Ship debris.

[@ArfurFaulkesHake]

+Leo122188 edited

[@Lucuskane]

+Leo122188 Borg

[@TheAcydbuzz]

I personally kinda hoped against hope to find a transwarp core to get around the galaxy a little easier with. :-)

[@jana31415]

😀😁

[@FRPlayerOne]

So where is Kerbin ?

[@austinherrington7049]

Hey Scott, love the video! Just to log my opinion: Easily my favorite videos of yours are educational! You're the best, and I'd love to see some more stuff like this! I've been with the channel forever and love your work! Keep it up, buddy!

[@gordslater]

Great vid. One small point - Achernar (Achenar ingame) when pronounced "traditionally" (emulating the Arabic name) is Ak-an-nar, not Ash-an-nar. It's the Arabic letter ـخـ (khah, here shown in the medial form of cursive script), IPA pronunciation /x/, effectively a "hard (kicking) K" Pronouncing it as "Akenar" with the initial A as in "cat" in Scots or English is close enough ;)

[@goobydntfear]

Elite: Dangerous - Where Did All The Content Go?

[@jacka.4254]

+ascendence Into the game...?

[@goobydntfear]

sure anime poster

[@jacka.4254]

ascendence I have a feeling you're the guy who played the game for an hour in a sidewinder and complained the game was contentless. If not, the new content is in the Horizons DLC, I don't like what they're doing with their "Seasons" releases, so I'm waiting until the final game is out, as you should too

[@LesbianVelociraptor]

+Jack A. So you plan to wait 9 more years or so? I mean that's their plan. The game will just keep evolving with yearly paid releases.

[@tube71000]

ascendence Spread so thin that it can cover the whole milky way galaxy?

[@Malfunct1onM1ke]

Finally I got some sense out of the designations. Thanks Scott :)

[@VulpineDemon]

As I watched this video I was roving around Achenar 3 (for the 6.75g gravity) and glad you mentioned Achenar. I'd love to learn all of this and memorize so much of it, but I just couldn't! So much information!

[@Ryagful]

fun fact, the newest discovered star named after an astronomer is Scholz's Star, discovered and named earlier this very year. also, i already knew much of the star naming catalogs, but this was still very informative. thanks.

[@misakstefl]

I tried finding KIC 8462852, and couldnt find it. It would make great easter egg.

[@stiqula]

+misakstefl YAS! Also, did he say what KIC stands for?

[@yokowan]

+misakstefl The WTF Star? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852

[@misakstefl]

Timgor Its said, there could be aliens there :-).

[@TCBYEAHCUZ]

+misakstefl perfect candidate system for a ringworld.

[@stiqula]

Okeanos86 Thanks!

[@redexe7106]

love how he pronounces "Durchmusterung" :D Dorschmustcherung ^^ :)

[@TheFanat23may]

+PhilfreezeCH Zashizhayshiesya

[@FrankAtanassow]

+PhilfreezeCH My American friends used to have great fun trying to pronounce "Kühlschrank".

[@Xanthanarium]

+Frank Atanassow why's that hard to pronounce?

[@Xanthanarium]

+Frank Atanassow have them pronounce speed limit

[@kendokaaa]

+Frank Atanassow as long as they know how to pronounce the ü, it's not very hard

[@simonfitch1120]

The guys at Frontier did their homework. This kind of attention to reality and detail makes it easy for me to forgive and even admire all the decisions they make. I don't think anything in this game was just guessed.

[@Mooneygy25]

I have been playing a lot of Elite Dangerous lately, I have been trying to promote in the Federation so that I could get to Sol, but can't seem to find any promotion missions. And you have been playing for a few days, and it looks like your already at Sol. Anyways, this video was awesome! I don't think I could memories all of the catalogs, but now I can know a little bit about some of the stars before I fly to them! Thanks for making this! Maybe I will see you around in the universe.

[@scottmanley]

+Mooneygy I've been playing for over a year.....

[@SodaPopin5ki]

+Scott Manley Also, beta players get a Sol permit. I need to land on Mercury or some of those moons around the gas giants. Just not Europa. Attempt no landings.

[@Mooneygy25]

+Scott Manley haha I thought you were on the "Elite Dangerous from scratch" account. That explains a lot.

[@Sentarius101]

My science teacher linked this video for us to watch on naming stars :P

[@WinnyJ1]

i wonder if David Braben has put in a easter egg for scott. I found a city named Scott Beacon on a moon in system close to hip 40140, the name is hard to spell out. but its starts with something like karriado, i always miss spell the name

[@scottmanley]

+WinnyJ1 Nah that'll be for the explorer Robert Falcon Scott, which is another entry in the Awesome McCoolname

[@WinnyJ1]

Totally forgot about Robert Scott. Wonder if there is a place named after Roald Amundsen.

[@scottmanley]

+WinnyJ1 Oh yes, he's in there too.

[@Baleur]

+WinnyJ1 To be fair Scott is such a common name it wouldnt have to have anything to do with Scott Manley (no offence, love your vids, but lets be fair its just a youtube personality). I'd say it is more likely it would be in reference to Ridley Scott or some other sci-fi related names. Heck, isnt there actually a Ridley Scott station? Maybe im mistaken.

[@scottmanley]

+Baleur There is a Ridley Scott station, and it sells a unique rare good 'Leathery Eggs'. Last time I met David Braben he was talking about how much he loved Alien Isolation.

[@cmdrteldja62]

Thank you for the vid. It shows how accurate Frontier wanted our Milkyway to be in game. Feels good to learn new things. So again, thank you !

[@RudexAwakening1]

I feel like a lot of work went into making this video, good work!

[@pavlicheg]

It's really nice video that explains quite a lot from a person who obviously knows what he's talking about. Also, the amount of work FD've done on this is amazing and we can only applause them for that. The only thing that's quite strange to me for example to have planet names like LHS 256 C-1. Just imagine a system with few billion people living on it and there's a habitable planet named like that. Seems strange isn't it? :) Hopefully Frontier will come up with solution for playerbase, for example, to rename a bunch of planets in human space based on a common sense, not on a catalog names. It might be problematic for systems with a lot of planets in it, however I really doubt the people of the future wouldn't care that much about the planets in the system they live in.

[@SpacialKatana]

Informative, most I knew, some I did not. Cheers Scott Happy Xmas 'n' all that jazz :)

[@simplybb604]

If you watch this video on full screen for awhile, it creates a slight spinning effect on any pages you view right after.

[@Ploskkky]

Thank you for this video Scott Manley. Very enlightening.

[@warialinth]

+Scott Manley one thing ...why is NGC 6357 always highlighted? Any strange reason or just oddity of ED galaxy map programming?

[@mikedrones537]

1 to 1 scale of the milky way. A huge reason I LOVE this game. It would be great if they added an "educational layer" with factual info on known stars, nebula, galaxies and science involved. Either way, flying by a pulsar at 300c in VR is amazing!

[@nickludlam]

Do you know what the single 'G' designation is from? Is it fictional? I'm just passing by G 95-22 as I listen to your voiceover. Thanks for all the hours of effort you put into this video, its particularly awesome.

[@scottmanley]

+Nick Ludlam I think that's the Henry Giclas catalogue which concentrated on proper motions.

[@imemutch123456789]

+Scott Manley at 0:39 you say 'Sol' is not a real star name, it is in fact the correct name for our sun as any star chart would show. Its not the commonly known name as most people only know it as 'Sun'.

[@Squink666]

Excellent work Scott - great summary! Can you tell us if you're aware of any move to unify the naming convention and rename old catalogue references? (IRL not in-game). Also, are the current names used by other nations consistently or does China and Russia prefer different conventions? (For example)

[@VengeanceMkII]

Calling for Colonists bound for Huh!

[@LesbianVelociraptor]

This is a ridiculously awesome video. So much interesting information.

[@MrLanceDBrown]

So many thanks for making this for us.

[@MojoTunc]

Ha great Iain M. Banks Culture reference! Kudos.

[@Xeknos]

This is a really cool video. So, the stars that have "actual" names are generally named if humans settled around them - so I'm assuming Frontier just took pre-existing stars, dropped the proper names, and added the "new" name? (Which makes sense if we get to the point where humanity starts colonizing stars, we'd probably want to rename the ones we were orbiting.)

[@Quester91]

Awesome video scott

[@PTNLemay]

On a more serious note, I remember reading that the IAU recently accepted a bunch of new exo-planet names, and with them came some new star names. Here's one of the articles mentioning it. www.cbc.ca/news/technology/exoplanet-iau-1.3366561 I'm curious to hear your opinion on it, since the IAU is usually quite strict in terms of not accepting star names from the public (or at least that's the impression I've always had on the matter).

[@ledgeri]

10:10 The first static picture in 9 minutes..... and the vertigo kicks in.... on a video, from a game. THX EVOLUTION

[@Tuku]

This was some great learning Scott, thanks for sharing your knowledge :) Im also glad that the guys at FD used all of these names and just then invented the rest of the names. I wonder if you could talk about the nebulas since theyre also present in E:D, I traveled to a few in E:D (Barnards Loop and California Nebula) and they look gorgeous from the inside.

[@EduEnYT]

Hey Scott, do you have any idea on why the galactic core is surrounded by thousands upon thousands of neutron stars and black holes? I always thought those would be near the core, not above and below it...

[@piranha031091]

So, anybody else still completely exhilarated by yesterday's SpaceX landing?

[@iluvDNA100]

+piranha031091 I am!

[@GnanaPrakash86AP]

+piranha031091 Did they actually land the second stage back from Orbit or is it the first stage? I know first stage landing is a big deal since it is where most of the rocket is wasted normally but if they had landed the second stage, that's insane!

[@kendokaaa]

+piranha031091 I still tear up a bit just thinking about it :'D

[@Sander_Datema]

Weren't they supposed to land on a barge?

[@piranha031091]

Sander Datema No, they finally got FAA authorization to land it on the ground. (which is what was originally planned. The barges were just here while they waited to get those authorizations.)

[@reganheath]

@11:30 voice over "LP 1-85" but star selected "LP 1-52" :)

[@semibiotic]

You forgot to mention star names from original 1984 Elite procedure generated galaxy, like Lave, Diso, Reorte, Zaonce, Tionisla, Riedquat, Leesti etc. Those were randomly generated from set of two-letter syllables. There are, also, stars named/renamed after new lore, like Colonia, and, probably, well-known Shinrarta Dezhra.

[@TheDool]

I have no interest in the game, I just typed "stars naming system" on youtube and this is the first video coming up. Thanks for the educational content.

[@djsmeguk]

One thing you missed: the original systems from Elite. I wonder what their real star counterparts are called.. (Lave, Zaonce, Leesti, Diso etc)

[@scottmanley]

+djsmeguk Oh wow, yes I should have totally added a mention of those because they had an old naming algorithm.

[@semibiotic]

Yeah, original algorithm generated whole flat "galaxy map" from 6 or 8 bytes long seed. Including star names, coordinates, levels and description. Star names were constructed from set of two-character syllables.

[@bigglessy]

I just listened to a scottish man talk for 20 minutes about catalogues. Life is good.

[@SamuelCish]

Speaking of Alpha Centauri, making the trip from the primary star to the secondary star takes like 2 hours. There has to be a faster way.

[@chickenman297]

I was surprised to find out that the Solar system is one of the out layers in terms of planetary arrangements. Apparently, Jupiter is not where it _should_ be according to the normal layout of planetary systems.

[@Nerdule]

+chickenman297 We don't really know that. Sure, hot, close-in Jupiters seem to be really common - but we also know that our detection techniques are strongly biased towards finding hot, close-in Jupiters. (Large, close planets both block more light during transits and have a stronger gravitational pull on their star so the Doppler wobble is stronger, and close planets have a shorter period so they're easier to find.) It's extremely difficult to separate this bias from the actual distribution of solar systems, so we really aren't sure how rare systems like our own actually are. We actually cannot detect planets like our Jupiter with current methods - since it takes Jupiter 11 years to go around the Sun once, and we need to observe three transits to be certain it's not a fluke, we'd have to watch the Sun for more than 33 years to identify that Jupiter existed, and we simply haven't been looking that long!

[@Ultriix]

I do hope they add the ability to control systems and build outposts or similar, sort of like eve but theres a lot of space here to play with so it needn't be so strict, so many possibilities to do with this game, kinda wish they had the development force akin to star citizen.

[@CTCVisuals]

Really informative video, great work!

[@LuckyLuigi]

This was both educational and fascinating. I learned so much !

[@Manabender]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Lave and it's collection of neighbors, ported right out of the original Elite. More specifically, how the original Elite generated (all of) its star names.

[@ZavorotKostey]

Is there some full and exhaustive catalog of the stars in form of relational database?

[@andrewmasonwerdna]

Alpha Centauri, alpha reticuli, and zeta 4, are where aliens are from. Grey blue an green. Yaaa science lol.

[@Baleur]

LAWD thats really useful! So if you wanna find a white dwarf, just type in LAWD and hit enter, presumably it will select the closest one (in that catalogue, limited, but still useful). And XTE PSR if you wanna find pulsars. Hella useful!

[@kendokaaa]

+Baleur Oh my lawd

[@OfflineOffie]

i'm sorry if you mentioned it in the video but how do they know where exactly are these stars/planets ?

[@bier00t]

This video is not enough ;) I want more about this!

[@TrikeSquadron]

how does the placement of stars accurately in E:D compare to Space Engine? Is Space Engine just better at more distant objects like other Galaxies or does Space Engine do a comparable job of representing the Milky Way ?

[@janusprime5693]

I think they are pretty compareable , yet SE should have the Sol System covered pretty much as accurate as it gets

[@nicosmind3]

I bet James Webb detects a bunch of new stars and planets. Brown dwarfs and large planets which werent massive/bright enough to be seen by other telescopes. Will probably detect a few rouge planets too.

[@private_obvious]

I have a challenge series for u scott- what if you make (on ksp career) a space ring around the smallest celestial or moon body (u May mod it) must have room for 20 kerbals must have shuttles that can be sent to other planets ship launches should be a week in game time you may use shuttles but no rocket shuttles you can assemble the space station how ever you want and get it there how ever you want, but you must return all space planes wth no crew loss you may lose crew on rockets

[@MrAvenger711]

Was looking for Achenar on wikipedia and landed on that page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achernar AcheRnar, what's up with that, did Fdev took liberties in stars name or is Achernar a complete different star ? Also, it sound like aKenar and not "hash" enar

[@claysmith3018]

Very nice and informative. Thanks.

[@loopysausage]

I know Alpha Centauri, not from Orbital Truckers, but through a mission that I did ages ago, that I dare not to do again :S

[@failandia]

we've all does this Mission followed by 50 minutes of travel ahah X)

[@mdamon06]

Great video!

[@nickpittman1713]

Someone should set up a gigantic battle at Wolf 359 (star trek reference)

[@TheWizardGandy]

Everytime I see the starmap in Elite: Dangerous it freaks me out. So many stars...

[@LeethLee1]

Play at 2x speed. Wait for 10:10 and feel the optical illusion :D Great video btw!!

[@nopenoperson8964]

12:15 Acokwang-- some astronomer goofing off

[@Draginea]

Never properly realized how much of a mess star names are... Why do we not solely use some logical naming system based on the position in relation to the galactic center which accounts for the different velocities of varying orbits (which lead to relative drift over time)?

[@jana31415]

It would be nice if some unexplored stars would lose their name and the 1. Explorer could name it.

[@aidenallweiss2201]

That spinning is giving me motion sickness.

[@elijahwilson7427]

Is elite dangerous worth it? The feature I would love most is combat and capital ships but it seems like wlite doesnt offer that so much based on what so many players say. saying its just a simulator with no actual or serious action except for capital ships and thats it. is that true?

[@spartan963300]

Action is there if you want it. For example, I decided to go bounty hunting for money in my only ship, so duels with valuable bounties with good ships were super intense and rewarding once you beat them, as you have to repay for all of your modules ect if you die.

[@primarysecondaryxd]

+Elijah Wilson Yes. For around 60 dollars (Especially with the price of the Horizons expansion heavily favoring people who haven't bought the game yet) you should get at least 120 hours of playtime, which is way more than many other games.

[@primarysecondaryxd]

***** At least, and my point is it's more worth it than many other games you could buy with 60$, but if you don't want to get it, don't get it.

[@koenlefever]

Elite: Dangerous has currently about 160 thousand of stars from catalogs. IPHAS has recently published a catalog with 219 million stars in the galaxy (youtube video: /watch?v=P1eIptEsmS4 ) and ESA's GAIA mission is expected to observe some billions of stars during the next few years (youtube video: /watch?v=oGri4YNggoc ).

[@DailyFrankPeter]

Hmm, that might of the things I don't share with sir David Braben - a soft spot for catalogues.

[@philipadastra]

Scott your intro's are so...Classical ;p

[@tirbelain]

As Scott mentioned that Sol is not a star's name I was wondering whether our sun actually has an official name or if it is just "Sun". Apparently it has not. It seems that "Sol" used to be official in the past (I couldn't find out when exactly), but no longer is. I wonder why that is... .oO(Maybe no one wants to be the one being blamed for giving a bad name to something that important? And probably everyone have their own definition of "bad", so there can't be a good name...)

[@8bitkefka]

Yes... but it is 3301 as I said to my friend if you lived in G 180-18 for instance you would figure people who live there would want to give it a name that fits it... I mean can you imagine going well "I live in G 180-18 just around LHS 6309 on X planet or colony."

[@98GREEKSNIPER]

are there any easter egg stars in ED?

[@OlliWilkman]

The galaxy swings round like a wheel of shimmering smoke which is the light of stars, or sun haze. For lack of other words, you know, we call it sun haze. I mean just that languages do not suffice to express everything contained in that spectacle. The richest of the languages we know, Xinombric, has some three million words, but the galaxy you are watching now contains far more than ninety billion suns. Has any human brain ever mastered all the words in the language of Xinombra? Not a single one! Now you understand? And yet-do you? - Harry Martinson, Aniara, poem 85

[@Baleur]

8:00 does this mean that there IS a star for every number Lalande 1 to 50000? Must do some searches in ED with respect to these categorisations, see if they exist or not xD Because you always hear of "Name 5292" but you never hear "Ross 1" or "Wolf 3".

[@scottmanley]

Many of the Stars have multiple names from different catalogues. On top of this only stars with good distances are included in the game.

[@scottmanley]

Many of the Stars have multiple names from different catalogues. On top of this only stars with good distances are included in the game.

[@Funnygalsproductions]

How much to get a star named , and if so will it pop up in ED

[@rankavik2651]

Who named Jita as solar system?

[@MrRelojero]

Scott! we want a video of you talking about the Falcon 9!

[@philip1201]

Unless I'm mistaken, you forgot to mention the Gliese star list, also from an exoplanet survey.

[@scottmanley]

I did mention at least one Gliese object.... Unless that bit of video never made it into the final video. I spent about 4 hours working on this.

[@NoUserNameLeftAnyway]

+Scott Manley Nice work as always, great video :)

[@EnigmaPenguin]

wolf 359, I understood that reference.

[@ggfghjhddhnkyddfthjkgcdruh]

And here I am, learning more from YT that from college....

[@JuhaKoski]

There is a star named 'Perkele'. How did that get it's name? (See wiki and you'll know why I'm interested :) )

[@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim]

Can you actually explore the Galactic core in Elite: Dangerous?

[@InzuDraRagna]

13:34 I see Bifrost. Asgard is there!

[@sbeey3374]

hay scott.. I'm arabic... following you long time if you remember me I like your videos. keep touch ♥

[@thorbjrnchristensen2545]

0:44 SOL is a real star name, but you pronounce it wrong (it's basicly the danish word for sun)

[@Wyrmlingbait]

+Thorbjørn Christensen Sol is also the Latin name for the Sun which I think is where they get it from.

[@thorbjrnchristensen2545]

Wyrmlingbait might be so, my comment was mostly aimed at him saying "sol" is not the name of the sun, when the word is in use for that exact purpose today (yes i know, he cac't know all the languages)

[@ruthmoreton6975]

General Contact Reconnaissance Vehicle!

[@ArcadyHolistic]

Good bit of work there.

[@mjmabile22]

I've certainly heard of Wolf 359!

[@Endrushmi]

that F-type star cluster in the Eagle Nebula tho

[@gdm413229]

Any talk about Polaris???

[@nicosmind3]

I predict that in the future stars will have the acronyms FaCG and FaM after them. From a Computer Game, From a Movie. With billions of stars out there we'll start naming them from media :)

[@KapnKerfuffle]

hope they add UY Scuti someday, largest known star.

[@vaos3712]

Merry Christmas! :)