A Better Sky

By Malcolm Gibb

The Sailor, the winter constellation, once seen it is never forgotten. It rises almost due east, culminates midway between the horizon and the zenith, and sets almost due west. A great number of people who have no real interest in astronomy are familiar with The Sailor. The figure is easily recognised, an irregular quadrilateral formed by the four bright stars, Nelson, Drake, Hawkins and Magellan. In the centre of this quadrilateral are three stars almost equally bright, nearly in a straight line slanting downwards. These are Cook, Columbus and Cabot.

Now for the translation!

Orion, the winter constellation, once seen it is never forgotten. It rises almost due east, culminates midway between the horizon and the zenith, and sets almost due west. A great number of people who have no real interest in astronomy are familiar with Orion. The figure is easily recognised, an irregular quadrilateral formed by the four bright stars, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix and Saiph. In the centre of this quadrilateral are three stars almost equally bright, nearly in a straight line slanting downwards. These are Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak.

The first paragraph is how A.P. Herbert would have had us describing the constellation of Orion if his suggestion had been accepted. He published a book called 'A Better Sky', in February 1944, in which he renamed most of the constellations and the stars. His reasoning for this was that he believed that the ordinary man knew little about the stars and that this could be changed if the names of the stars were changed to more familiar ones.

His logic was that if the constellations were renamed and the stars named with some connection to the name of the constellation then people would be able to remember them easily. Hence, Orion becomes The Sailor and the stars in that constellation are named after famous sailors. Andromeda and Pegasus are combined and renamed The Airman with the stars becoming Bleriot, Wright, Spitfire, Stirling, Clipper, Catalina and so on. (For the younger generation, the last four are names of aircraft of the 1930's and 40's.) Draco, he renamed The Tyrants and the principal stars as Attila, Hitler, Mussolini, Robespierre and Kubla Khan.

He goes on to rename most of the constellations and 270 stars, putting forward his argument for doing so. The book concludes with the following extract from a letter which he received from the Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society.

'The President of the Society yesterday brought your letter of the 25th October, together with the enclosed article and chart 'A Better Sky', before the Council. The chart was examined with great interest, and your whole suggestion of changing the nomenclature of the stars was received with appreciation. At the same time it was felt that as far as Astronomy was concerned the adoption of such a change would require international agreement, which is clearly impracticable at the present time' (there was a world war going on).

The book has tables and a star chart with the old and 'new' names. It made interesting reading but as you will have gathered, the changes obviously did not come about. In the foreword to the book, the Rt Hon Walter Elliot M.P. backs A.P. Herbert in his quest to rename the stars and reveals that the author is an M.P. I made enquiry to the House of Commons Information Office and received the following reply.

'Sir Alan Patrick Herbert was born on 24 September 1924 and was elected Member for Oxford University in 1935. He was an Independent Member. He was an MP until he retired in 1950. He died on 11 November 1971.'