Since starlight could continue to travel to earth long after the star has died, isn’t it possible that when you purchase a star, it might not be there and could have died out millions of years ago? :dubious:
You can buy a star? how do you contact the owner of a star?
ONOES! What is someone bought OUR star? We could wind up with a star tax.
Can you pay $35 and get a star named after you? is probably the relevant column.
Taking your question seriously, I’d say that, since the International Star Registry scam concerns stars only within our own galaxy, and already on an actual star chart, your “named” star will be no more than a few thousand light years away, not millions. Even if it’s a star that happened to go nova during that period, it would still be there, at the center of a nebula. Whether your imaginary naming right would extend to the nebula is another matter.
Also, given the speed of light as the speed limit for the observable universe, we might as well consider that we’re looking at a star in its present state.
Welcome! It is customary to provide a link to the column in question, like this. But I believe the column discusses naming stars, not actually buying them outright.
Was anyone else surprised, as I somehow managed to be, that there were Google ads popping up for just such services?
I get the impression, contrary to what Cecil has recently written, (“The original version of this column appeared in the late 80s and by now…”), that
the “International Star Registry” is still going strong. Either that, or it went dim, and someone else appropriated the name, because one of the ad links says just that. (Since starting to write this I have noticed that the column itself had those ads attached like barnacles as well. I was talking about this thread.)
One of the ads offers the service for only 24-something. After all, why pay more-- for absolutely nothing?! :mad:
- TBJ
OH, Naming a Star.
Sure with a little photoshop expertise you can print out any certificate you like and name stars to your hearts content.
Or you can pay someone to do it for you.
The so-called “International Star Registry” will continue to exist until the authorities have the balls to send them to prison. What I’d like to know is: who’s protecting them?
I thought that copyright was automatic, you don’t need to fill out any form or pay any fee for anything. What is this copyright office of which the ISR speak? Does any such entity even exist, and if so what is its function?
What law are they breaking?
I have as much contempt for them as you do, I think, but I have unsuccessfully racked my brain for anything resembling a crime in their activities.
Fraud? How? They’re not saying the star’s name will be “official for all people,” it’s just a registry in their own database.
Anything else?
Registering a copyright is not the same thing as possessing a copyright. The latter is indeed automatic. The former gives you the rights and protections you need to win a court case.
http://www.copyright.gov/register/
Every once in a while, the ISR binds all the suckers’ names in a book and sends two copies along with the proper paperwork to the Library of Congress and fulfills the obligations of its claim.
I don’t see how it’s fraud. They tell people they will put their name in a book. They do. They tell them it will be in association with a star. It is. People may think think they’re getting something other than that, but that makes them saps and fools, not defrauded. If they wanted something more than a certificate to hang on their wall, they should have read the fine print. It’s highly unethical but not illegal and I’m sure they’ve lasted this long because their lawyers aren’t stupid.
And here are the books. You have to look closely to realize that this is a series and that not all the volumes are referenced but it’s the only entry under International Star Registry.
Fraud. They are selling what they do not own. They are professional criminals and belong in prison, just like other professional criminals.
They are indeed committing fraud, with their intentionally misleading name and other misuse of language.
(Frankly, in my opinion, they’re outright sociopaths.)
shrug. My brother and I bought one of those packages for our grandmother for Christmas a couple of years ago, and had the star named after my deceased grandfather. It was a pretty good gift in that context, if I do say so myself, because there’s only so many picture frames an 85-year-old woman needs. Yeah, we got a certificate, and a map, and went out one evening with a telescope to look at Grandpa’s star.
OK, maybe someone will think well of it as a gift, but you could have gotten exactly the same thing for no price at all. Better, even, because you’d have done it yourself: Grandmothers tend to appreciate things like that.
If you really want to give someone a gift along these lines, then make a donation in someone’s name to an astronomically-themed charity of your choice. Some of them will even associate your name (or your recipient’s name) with a star, in some way, though they’re honest about it that it doesn’t mean anything to anyone outside of the charity. I myself am proud “owner” of a particular spot of light on the dome of one of the planetaria at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Unfortunately, no. All they claim to do is to enter the name onto their own books. And that is exactly what they do. They don’t specifically claim that any real astronomer will recognize the names they give. And they are not legally responsible for the false assumptions that anyone else might make.
Despicable, yes. Sociopathic, no.
Glad to know it is a hoax. Have to say though that it did please my husband when I did it for him. He said that I made him a star. Oh what the heck.
:smack:
If it made your husband happy and that was your goal, it sounds like money well spent. Even if it’s just something between you and the world of astronomy doesn’t care.
I think this was intended to be a comment about Cecil’s column:
Even better, just keep the money and tell your spouse that you bought a star in their name and then make your own certificate in Microsoft Word.
In fact, why stop at the $35 level. Spend $60,000 and get your spouse a whole galaxy.
*Happy birthday, honey. I love you so much I had a whole galaxy named after you!
Oh, that new BMW convertible in our driveway? Uh… my mother bought it, drove it, decided she didn’t like it and gave it to me. No, you can’t drive it.*
No radiation without representation!
In fact, they specifically state that the scientifically community will *not *recognize the name, and that they just provide gift packages. I think it’s pretty silly but I’d be hard-pressed to call it sociopathic. Maybe in the past they were less upfront; I couldn’t say.