Sualocin (α Delphini) and Rotanev (β Delphini) are names of stars, the result of an enduring practical joke played by the Italian astronomer Nicolò Cacciatore, assistant to Giuseppe Piazzi, who reversed the letters in the Latin version of his own name ("Nicolaus Venator").
The two mysterious names Sualocin and Rotanev simply appeared without explanation in the Palermo star catalogue of 1814. It took some time before other astronomers caught on to their origin; the names have stuck.
The Alpha star, which is slightly the fainter of the two (magnitude 3.77), is called Sualocin, the Beta star (at magnitude 3.63 the constellation's luminary) Rotanev, which represent the honoree's names spelled backwards.
Unlike its hotter constellation-mate, however, Rotanev's components are very similar, both the same class (F5 subgiants) and temperature (6500 Kelvin).
The rotation speed of one or both is modest, around 40 kilometers per second (20 times that of the slowly rotating Sun), and like so many stars of the mid-temperature classes, Rotanev shows peculiar abundances (particularly for strontium) as a result of settling and lofting of various kinds of atoms.
The strange names alpha (Sualocin) and beta (Rotanev) first appeared for these stars in the Palermo Catalogue of 1814, and long were a mystery to all.
Alpha is Sualocin = Nicolaus; beta is Rotanev = Venator.
But Miss Rolleston, in her singular book Mazzaroth, considered in some quarters [bibical] as of authority, wrote that they are derived, alpha (Sualocin) from the Arabic Scalooin, swift (as the flow of water) and beta from the Syriac and Chaldee Rotaneb, or Rotaneu, swiftly running (as water in the trough).
Feeds |
Contact