Operators Standing By
Operators Standing By
Do you have a STAR named after you? How 'bout after your darling offspring? Or the eternal immortalization of a great-grandparent? Perhaps you've heard the radio ad and immediately plunked down the fifty bucks to slap your name on a faraway sun. Take my money!!! Some 20+ years ago, a few of my co-workers presented me with this gift. My "AstroGeek" nickname should have been their first clue that I would actually put my eyeball to the eyepiece and locate this star among the billions up there.
The certificate is nice, I will say. Suitable for framing, which they will do for you for another $60. Also enclosed is a star chart with your special one circled in red Sharpie. This is where my blood boils. It is a DIFFERENT star than the one designated on the back of the chart. In fact, the star you now own is *only* visible though a decent telescope that has been aimed with extreme precision. Oh, and outside of your office or living room, no one will ever know that your name is attached to a shiny star. It is not officially recognized. Anywhere.
Before I go further, let me stop before I say something I might regret in the morning. My goal is to PROMOTE the starry sky. I want folks to appreciate and enjoy what's up there. If you, too, are lucky enough to lay claim to a massive ball of million degree hydrogen gas, then I'm happy for you. What are your plans for it? You might want a pool and some Ray-Bans. In fact, I will even take an image of your actual star and send it to you so you can boost your status on social media. I would need a photo of the ID tag on the back of the chart. I have found several such stars for people in the past. A few years ago, I had a line of 7th grade students take a peek at the star named for their local junior high. For that moment, these kids felt connected to the cosmos. And I'm here to encourage that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwDQEvaaffs
The certificate is nice, I will say. Suitable for framing, which they will do for you for another $60. Also enclosed is a star chart with your special one circled in red Sharpie. This is where my blood boils. It is a DIFFERENT star than the one designated on the back of the chart. In fact, the star you now own is *only* visible though a decent telescope that has been aimed with extreme precision. Oh, and outside of your office or living room, no one will ever know that your name is attached to a shiny star. It is not officially recognized. Anywhere.
Before I go further, let me stop before I say something I might regret in the morning. My goal is to PROMOTE the starry sky. I want folks to appreciate and enjoy what's up there. If you, too, are lucky enough to lay claim to a massive ball of million degree hydrogen gas, then I'm happy for you. What are your plans for it? You might want a pool and some Ray-Bans. In fact, I will even take an image of your actual star and send it to you so you can boost your status on social media. I would need a photo of the ID tag on the back of the chart. I have found several such stars for people in the past. A few years ago, I had a line of 7th grade students take a peek at the star named for their local junior high. For that moment, these kids felt connected to the cosmos. And I'm here to encourage that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwDQEvaaffs
Steve L
Re: Operators Standing By
Ah, a very interesting topic indeed. I am an outlier in the astronomy community in that I am not one who's blood boils at the concept of 'selling' stars. In fact I've done a deep dig on the topic, and I've found that the offers from the various entities range from 'selling' only bright stars such as those easily visible (think Big Dipper, etc.) to those like the International Star Registry who boast that they never 'resell' stars. This is why Astrogeek's is mag 11, and that was 20+ years ago. They are now deep in to the Hubble Guide Star catalog. There is no more opportunity for people to see 'their' star from ISR through an eyepiece, and as Steve has said, it now requires precision and deep imaging to show people their new property.
Here's why it doesn't piss me off; like Steve, I've encountered many people over the years of my involvement in the hobby who have come to me with 'their' star information, and I've yet to encounter even one person who has had a star 'bought' for them (or bought one for themselves) that considered it anything more than an interesting novelty. Not one. Every single person fully understood that what they were holding in their hands was nothing more than a piece of paper and that it was nothing more than an interesting curiosity. I've never had anybody espouse about their newly acquired status in the cosmos, scientific community, or official records. No one. Do some of the companies elude to including your name in an 'official registry'? Yes, they do. But I give people credit for having more intelligence than that. I'm confidant that they understand the 'officialness' has nothing to do with the scientific community, and again I've never had anyone hang their head in disappointment after learning that 'their' star is only recognized by them, and no one else. Thus, I don't see the practice of 'selling' stars as an act of preying on idiots. They're marketing novelties, and when I consider the things I've wasted money on in the course of my own life it would be an outrage for me to get outraged at them, and quite frankly when I consider that some of these companies have gotten rich from the practice, I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't think of it myself.
And then there's the connection to the cosmos, as Steve had previously mentioned. I enjoy outreach and sharing the cosmos with people and interacting with them under the stars. The experience is generally a very positive one, far removed from the stress of the daily grind and people are delighted to 'escape' through the telescope, if even just for a moment. Several years ago we had a sub working in my department at the school, and when he learned about my affinity for the stars he mentioned that he and is wife, who had both recently retired from New Bedford HS, were gifted with a star in their name from their fellow staff members. He wanted to see their star, and so brought in an old rinky-dink dept. store refractor for me to show him how to use. We went through the motions, but we both knew that wasn't happening. I offered to take it to another level for him.
Manny and Mary's star was purchased through an entity called Star Deed. This company's claim to uniqueness is that they only sell stars from the SAO catalog, thus the likelyhood of actually being able to to see the star through a scope is actually very high. Manny and Mary's was mag 7 - that's bino territory!
So I made copies of their Star Deed package, took it home, and got down to the business of bringing these people some joy. I put my DSLR on a little barn door tracker and took some exposures. I got enough good ones to work with - 7th mag isn't that deep. From the good exposures I made a personalized image of 'their' star for them (with the added liberty taken of brightening theirs just a little more than the surrounding stars - because that's exactly how their co-workers felt about them), and from that I made a chart that they could use with steadied binos to actually see it live. They're big into the RV scene and camp every summer down at Horseneck Beach, where surely on a clear and moonless night they could succeed on their own in seeing their star.
To say that Manny and Mary were thrilled with the outcome is an understatement. They were ecstatic, and that's what the practice is really all about to me. So what if it cost the buyers fifty or more dollars for the gift? When I see the BS on TV these days like wedding cakes that go for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars I can hardly be moved by such a relatively measly expenditure. Yeah, maybe the companies do hawk their wares like the creep on the corner with the trenchcoat full of watches, but it's them that has to live with that.
Steve, I'm in if you ever need help showing somebody "their" star. We'll promote that sucker like a spruced up only-driven-on-Sundays-by-a-little-old-lady used car!
The image I made for Manny and Mary. Artistic liberty was applied in the form of "Supernova" filter to highlight the specific star.
I'm confident that even a couple who have never plied the skies with anything more than their eyes could use this charts to eventually find their target in binoculars. Maybe.
Here's why it doesn't piss me off; like Steve, I've encountered many people over the years of my involvement in the hobby who have come to me with 'their' star information, and I've yet to encounter even one person who has had a star 'bought' for them (or bought one for themselves) that considered it anything more than an interesting novelty. Not one. Every single person fully understood that what they were holding in their hands was nothing more than a piece of paper and that it was nothing more than an interesting curiosity. I've never had anybody espouse about their newly acquired status in the cosmos, scientific community, or official records. No one. Do some of the companies elude to including your name in an 'official registry'? Yes, they do. But I give people credit for having more intelligence than that. I'm confidant that they understand the 'officialness' has nothing to do with the scientific community, and again I've never had anyone hang their head in disappointment after learning that 'their' star is only recognized by them, and no one else. Thus, I don't see the practice of 'selling' stars as an act of preying on idiots. They're marketing novelties, and when I consider the things I've wasted money on in the course of my own life it would be an outrage for me to get outraged at them, and quite frankly when I consider that some of these companies have gotten rich from the practice, I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't think of it myself.
And then there's the connection to the cosmos, as Steve had previously mentioned. I enjoy outreach and sharing the cosmos with people and interacting with them under the stars. The experience is generally a very positive one, far removed from the stress of the daily grind and people are delighted to 'escape' through the telescope, if even just for a moment. Several years ago we had a sub working in my department at the school, and when he learned about my affinity for the stars he mentioned that he and is wife, who had both recently retired from New Bedford HS, were gifted with a star in their name from their fellow staff members. He wanted to see their star, and so brought in an old rinky-dink dept. store refractor for me to show him how to use. We went through the motions, but we both knew that wasn't happening. I offered to take it to another level for him.
Manny and Mary's star was purchased through an entity called Star Deed. This company's claim to uniqueness is that they only sell stars from the SAO catalog, thus the likelyhood of actually being able to to see the star through a scope is actually very high. Manny and Mary's was mag 7 - that's bino territory!
So I made copies of their Star Deed package, took it home, and got down to the business of bringing these people some joy. I put my DSLR on a little barn door tracker and took some exposures. I got enough good ones to work with - 7th mag isn't that deep. From the good exposures I made a personalized image of 'their' star for them (with the added liberty taken of brightening theirs just a little more than the surrounding stars - because that's exactly how their co-workers felt about them), and from that I made a chart that they could use with steadied binos to actually see it live. They're big into the RV scene and camp every summer down at Horseneck Beach, where surely on a clear and moonless night they could succeed on their own in seeing their star.
To say that Manny and Mary were thrilled with the outcome is an understatement. They were ecstatic, and that's what the practice is really all about to me. So what if it cost the buyers fifty or more dollars for the gift? When I see the BS on TV these days like wedding cakes that go for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars I can hardly be moved by such a relatively measly expenditure. Yeah, maybe the companies do hawk their wares like the creep on the corner with the trenchcoat full of watches, but it's them that has to live with that.
Steve, I'm in if you ever need help showing somebody "their" star. We'll promote that sucker like a spruced up only-driven-on-Sundays-by-a-little-old-lady used car!
The image I made for Manny and Mary. Artistic liberty was applied in the form of "Supernova" filter to highlight the specific star.
I'm confident that even a couple who have never plied the skies with anything more than their eyes could use this charts to eventually find their target in binoculars. Maybe.
"The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens." - Anaxagoras
Re: Operators Standing By
I like Steve have a star named after me. It was giving to me by a former girlfriend who was so happy "smiling from ear to ear" when she presented it to me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't real. It was a Valentines gift and the next day we went out to buy a frame for it. I do have mixed feelings of the "Name a Star" idea.
One hand I know it's a scam in the sense that they tell you it's registered, but we all know the registry that it may exist in is as fake as the certificate. On the other hand, if for even a few moments it got my girlfriend to look up and wonder where the star was and if we could see it in my telescope.
I still have the certificate somewhere in its frame. For me it brings back some nice memories, so even though it's a scam the meaning of that piece of paper is worth the 50 bucks she paid for it.
One hand I know it's a scam in the sense that they tell you it's registered, but we all know the registry that it may exist in is as fake as the certificate. On the other hand, if for even a few moments it got my girlfriend to look up and wonder where the star was and if we could see it in my telescope.
I still have the certificate somewhere in its frame. For me it brings back some nice memories, so even though it's a scam the meaning of that piece of paper is worth the 50 bucks she paid for it.
Paul...
16" f/5 Night Sky Truss (Midnight Mistress)
10" f/5 Home built Dob with Parks mirror.
Pre-Meade PST
Celestron Skymaster Binos 25-125x80
Meade Travelview Binos 10x50
See that 16" in the sleek black dress? She is all mine. :)
16" f/5 Night Sky Truss (Midnight Mistress)
10" f/5 Home built Dob with Parks mirror.
Pre-Meade PST
Celestron Skymaster Binos 25-125x80
Meade Travelview Binos 10x50
See that 16" in the sleek black dress? She is all mine. :)
Re: Operators Standing By
And that's exactly why I'm saying it's not a scam. In scams people get hurt. I've yet to meet anyone who has been hurt in a star naming deal, except for perhaps some astronomers who getted so p'd off that their blood pressure reaches stroke level. And really, when the earth is scorched and there's nothing left but some deep sea critters that can survive anything, who's registry is more official, the International Astronomical Union, or the International Star Registry?
"The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens." - Anaxagoras
Re: Operators Standing By
Scam? Yes. But key to happiness? Yes again.
A friend on the Cape, upon learning of my astronomy interest, effused about a star that someone had given her named after her deceased daughter. I sent her an image and kept my mouth shut.
A friend on the Cape, upon learning of my astronomy interest, effused about a star that someone had given her named after her deceased daughter. I sent her an image and kept my mouth shut.
Pete P.
Re: Operators Standing By
Great topic,
I'm like Steven, Pete, and Paul, let's not ruin a memory.
Now i like the afore mentioned above applaud the idea of naming a star. I told my wife this over 20 years ago and i was so happy she got us this for our 25th wedding anniversary.
genisis of us by Mark Gibson, on Flickr
If you look carefully you may even see the stars in the sky the night I met my bride.
I'm like Steven, Pete, and Paul, let's not ruin a memory.
Now i like the afore mentioned above applaud the idea of naming a star. I told my wife this over 20 years ago and i was so happy she got us this for our 25th wedding anniversary.
genisis of us by Mark Gibson, on Flickr
If you look carefully you may even see the stars in the sky the night I met my bride.
Clear skies,
Mark
iOptron CEM25P w/ Tri-pier
CGEM DX
LXD750 w/ CDS #1697
LXD75 w/ #497 autostar Hypertuned
Antares 8" f/5 Newt
Antares 4" f/15 "Vixen Spec" long focus refractor
Orion 4" f/7 ED refractor
Astro-Tech 65mm Quad APO
and so much more
Mark
iOptron CEM25P w/ Tri-pier
CGEM DX
LXD750 w/ CDS #1697
LXD75 w/ #497 autostar Hypertuned
Antares 8" f/5 Newt
Antares 4" f/15 "Vixen Spec" long focus refractor
Orion 4" f/7 ED refractor
Astro-Tech 65mm Quad APO
and so much more
Re: Operators Standing By
One year, for our wedding anniversary, I bought a star for my wife from the International Star Registry. Yes, I did absolutely forget our anniversary, and the last minute ISR star (in Cygnus) saved my butt. Even my daughter called me and said "Nice save, Dad".Apollo XX wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 1:06 pmAnd that's exactly why I'm saying it's not a scam. In scams people get hurt. I've yet to meet anyone who has been hurt in a star naming deal, except for perhaps some astronomers who getted so p'd off that their blood pressure reaches stroke level. And really, when the earth is scorched and there's nothing left but some deep sea critters that can survive anything, who's registry is more official, the International Astronomical Union, or the International Star Registry?
Tony T.
Evostar 150mm ED refractor, F1200mm
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke!
---Rudyard Kipling, THE BETROTHED
Evostar 150mm ED refractor, F1200mm
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke!
---Rudyard Kipling, THE BETROTHED