"The earliest-named star we know of is the Sumerians’ Nunki, in Sagittarius’ Teapot."”

TUNGSTEN VALLEY — If constellations are countries in the sky, then named stars are those countries’ towns and cities. This month, we look at how to learn stars’ names.

There are 254 named stars, recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Of those, 57 are used for navigation, spread across 38 constellations. Many people pick up a few stars as they go along; Polaris is always popular, for instance.

Sky maps and star charts show star names, but they tend to be cluttered with extraneous material that makes it hard to focus on only the names themselves. To systematically learn star names, you need to make your own, simplified reference that you can use at night, under the sky, with a red headlamp.

Sky and Telescope’s Pocket Atlas of the Night Sky, available at the library or else for a few dollars on Alibris, has excellent charts. For a given constellation with named stars, transfer-sketch only its key features into a small bound pad, as shown here from my personal notebook. (Use black or blue ink so you can see your drawings under a red headlamp.)

Take your sketches outside on a clear, moonless night. Find the corresponding constellations and their named stars up in the sky, and rehearse the stars’ names from the book as you look up at the sky. Only do this for 30 minutes or less per session. You learn incrementally, night to night. Gradually, over weeks and months, you’ll find yourself scanning the sky and repeating the stars’ names without needing your prompts.

Within a year, after the sky has completed its annual cycle and you’ve gone through all the stars visible at our latitude, you’ll be able to pull out a laser pointer and hop from star to star, naming them in sequence across the entire sky. It’s a terrific party trick.

A Dictionary of Modern Star Names, by Kunitzsch and Smart, is the master name-information source. The earliest-named star we know of is the Sumerians’ Nunki, in Sagittarius’ Teapot. The ancient Greeks gave us some like Arcturus and Sirius. The Romans tossed Spica over the fence. And a few are medieval or early modern-era, like Cor Caroli.

But the bulk of our star names are from Arabic, recalling the centuries when Arab astronomers toiled in full bloom even as Europe wallowed in general ignorance. A giveaway for many Arabic-origin names is a name’s initial ‘al,’ as in Algeniebid and Alpheratz. Other Arabic words come up, as in the tail stars in Cygnus and Leo, called Deneb and Denebola; they derive from the Arabic for ‘tail.’ My personal favorites are Fomalhaut (FOAM-a-lout), ‘mouth of the southern fish,’ and Alphard, ‘one who stands alone.’

Learning star names connects us with our ancient cultural roots, from Sumerian to Greek to Roman to Arab knowledge and culture. It’s a way to feel the past even as we move into the future.

March Fun Astro-Fact: Astronaut Gus Grissom jokingly penciled “Regor” onto a sky chart in 1966, for a star in Vela, after his training partner, Roger Chaffee. Tragically, both died in the Apollo 1 fire not long afterward. Over the years, the name stuck.

In March Skies:

Total Lunar Eclipse March 3: At 4 to 5 a.m., low in the west.

The sun begins the month in Aquarius, entering Pisces March 23. Equinox daytime and nighttime are each 12 hours on March 20. Days lengthen and nights shorten at their fastest rate this month.

Daylight Saving Time (DST), setting our clocks forward an hour, begins 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 8.

The moon’s dates are: Full (Worm Moon) March 3; Last Quarter March 11; New March 18; First Quarter March 25. Ramadan ends with (observation-dependent) first crescent on March 19.

March Meteor Showers: The Gamma Normids, a weak shower, peak on March 14 between 4 a.m. to sunrise.

Best Sky Viewing Nights (Minimal Moon): March 11-25.

Sunset (Mid-Month): Brilliant Capella is overhead. Orion is due south, with Sirius and Canis Major at south-southeast. Leo is rising. Castor and Pollux are very high in the east, with Mars. The Great Square of Pegasus is low in the west.

Midnight (Mid-Month): Vega rises in the northeast with the Big Dipper high in the north. Arc along the Dipper’s arm to Arcturus, then continue until you hit bright-white Spica in Virgo. Twin stars Zubeneschemali and Zubenelgenubi, in Libra, rise in the southeast. Southward are Corvus and Leo with Regulus. Pretty, reddish Alphard (One Who Stands Alone) is indeed alone, in the south.

Sunrise (Mid-Month): Bright red Altair is high in the southeast, forming the Navigator’s Triangle with Deneb leftward and Vega overhead. Scorpius with burning-red Antares is due south.

Mercury, in Aquarius, is very low in the east at sunrise.

Venus, in Pisces, emerges as the Evening Star by month’s end, low in the west at sunset.

Mars, in Aquarius, is next to Mercury on the 15th.

Jupiter, in Gemini, makes a striking pose with Castor and Pollux. It’s high in the southeast at sunset, setting at 4 a.m.

Saturn, in Pisces, is nearly lost in the sunset.

Notable Space Missions: SpaceX might attempt an initial orbital flight of its giant-sized Starship sometime in March. The company has announced that it is giving up on going to Mars any time in the next five to seven years.

Frank Sanders, a spectrum scientist, takes astronomy-related inquiries at backyardastronomy1@gmail.com.