Sources of the constellation names

in the Revised Harvard Photometry

This is how the Revised Harvard Photometry catalogue (Annals of the Harvard College Observatory, vol. 50, 1908) explained the choice of constellation names used in the catalogue. The Harvard catalogue’s selection formed the basis for the official list of 88 constellations adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, and now used by astronomers everywhere.

The Harvard Observatory did not say so, but their list of constellations was virtually the same as that in Francis Baily’s British Association Catalogue of 1845 – the main difference was their inclusion of Hevelius’s Scutum, which Baily had omitted as being too political. Baily’s catalogue did much to rationalize the selection and naming of the constellations in pre-IAU days, but is little known today.