Adhafera

Adhafera profile card (CC BY Sadegh Faghanpour for IAU WGSN).

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

Adhafera stickfigure (CC BY Sadegh Faghanpour for IAU WGSN).

Kunitzsch & Smart (2006): "From the sci-A name al-dafira, "the Lock of Hair", for the Coma Berenices (πλόκαμος) 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).

While Kunitzsch & Smart (2006) say the error occurred in "recent times" (implying after 1800) -- the earliest reference we found so far that mistakenly applies a variation of that name (which was supposed to be applied to stars in Coma Berenices, in the ἀμόρφωτοι of Leo), is Vitali 1668 (early modern period):

"ALDHAFERA Arab. Latine Iuba Leonis, stellar fixa tertiae magnitudinis de natura Saturni, & Mercurij; tunc temporis existens in gradu fere 23. Leonis"

The name has a different transliteration, with the latin translation specifically referring to the lion's mane, and ascribing the name specifically to a star of 3rd magnitude. The attribution of the name to a 3rd mag star in Leo's mane propagated after this to German and English works (von Wolf 1716, Zedler 1732, Chambers 1786, Hall 1788).

While Kunitzsch (1959, Arabische Sternnamen in Europa, p.112) appears to ascribe the mistaken appropriation of the name to zeta Leo by Elijah Burritt (~1830s), following Allen (1899), and considering the error "recent" (since 1800s; Kunitzsch & Smart 2006), one sees that there are examples of ascribing variations of the name to a 3rd magnitude star in the mane of Leo back to at least 1668 ("Renaissance").

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.