I recently joined a HP demo about integrity virtual machines, where I noticed that all demo machines had stellar names. One system being named Sulaphat, and being an astronomer myself, I wondered which star this would be. Apparently it's Gamma Lyrae, a blue giant star, which I found in The Electronic Sky, an astronomers wikipedia. Another place of interest is the Fixed Stars, where you can find more historical and astrological (ergo pseudo-scientific) information about several stars. Why do stars have such weird names ? Because the Arabs where the first to give them names.


Are you interested in learning the names of constellations and stars ? Head over to the Space Place, which offers you some printouts of sky views during several times of the year.