Adhafera

Adhafera is a modern star name adopted by the International Astronomical Union in the IAU-Catalog of Star Names (IAU-CSN). Its origin is Arabic. It is the name of HIP 50335 (ζ Leo, HR 4031) in constellation Leo.

Etymology and History

Kunitzsch & Smart (2006): "From the sci-A name al-dafira, "the Lock of Hair", for the Coma Berenices star cluster. Wrongly applied to ζ Leo in recent times (due in part to the fact that Ptolemy's "Hair" is discussed under the Lion constellation in the Almagest."

In the Almagest, Ptolemy discussed three stars in the "unformed" vicinity of Leo - the 33rd, 34th, and 35th stars listed under Leo, or the 6th, 7th, and 8th of the "unformed" stars associated with Leo, and refers to the group as πλόκαμος ('the lock [of hair]' - in reference to Berenice). In Toomer's translation of the Almagest, he cross-identifies these stars as 15, 7, and 23 Coma Berenices (but he acknowledges that "it is dubious whether one should identify the points named by Ptolemy with individual stars, as I have done following Manitius and P-K." Al-Sufi referenced Abu Hanifa, and called this group of three stars above the tail of Leo as al-Dafira (Hafez 2010 PhD thesis, Folio 12, p.91; Folio 24, p.103; Folio 26, p.105).

IAU Working Group on Star Names

The name was adopted by the IAU WGSN on 2016/07/20.

Weblinks

• Website of the IAU WGSN: https://exopla.net/

Reference

• References (general)
• Kunitzsch, Paul; Smart, Tim (2006). A Dictionary of Modern star Names: A Short Guide to 254 Star Names and Their Derivations (2nd rev. ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Sky Pub.