Alsephina
"Al Safinah" (or "al-safinah" or "al-Safina") is Arabic for "the ship", the Arabic name for the constellation Argo Navis in Al Sufi's Book of the Fixed Stars (ca. 964 AD; see Hafez 2010 PhD thesis translation). The transliteration "Alsephina" appeared in many works in recent centuries (e.g. Christmanno's 1590 translation of Alfragani's Arabis Chronologica et Astronomica; Hues 1592 "Tractatus de Globis", Delambre 1819, Allen 1899, etc.).
Etymology and History
von Gent's (2006) book on the "Harmonia Macrocosmica" by Andreas Cellarius (1660) shows "Alsephina" with Delta Velorum (HR 3485) - "Derived from the Arabic al-safina, "the ship", which actually refers to the entire constellation", where on plate 28 of Harmonia Macrocosmica the name appears next to the bright star (i.e. not written as an alias for the constellation, which appears elsewhere on the chart).
IAU Working Group Star Names
The name was discussed and approved by the IAU WGSN in 2017.
Weblinks
- Wikipedia page for Delta Velorum (Alsephina): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Velorum
- SIMBAD page for Delta Velorum A (Alsephina): https://simbad.cds.unistra.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=Alsephina
