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OpenExoplanetCatalogue / open_exoplanet_catalogue

The main data repository for the Open Exoplanet Catalogue
http://openexoplanetcatalogue.com
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Naming convention for planets around "named" stars. #227

Open hannorein opened 10 years ago

hannorein commented 10 years ago

For example, for "omi UMa" We should choose one of the following conventions:

This applies to all planets around "named" stars.

ajtribick commented 10 years ago

For Bayer designations, my personal preference is to follow SIMBAD here, i.e. use the "omi UMa" form, use the spellings "mu.", "nu.", "ksi", "pi." for μ, ν, ξ and π (bear in mind that MU and NU are valid as variable star designations), and use two digits for numeric superscripts. E.g. "nu.02 Lup".

In any case, having multiple spellings of the same designation is not helpful for machine readability.

hannorein commented 10 years ago

We should have as many spellings as possible to allow people to search for the system by whatever name they use.

ajtribick commented 10 years ago

Any application that provides user search facilities on the database should be able to canonicalise the designation before searching. This is a problem that is better solved by use of string parsing rather than storing multiple spelling variations, which makes it more difficult to use the database in applications that do not need such complexity.