Mirach
- HIP
- 5447
- Designation
- 43 Bet And
- Bayer designation
- β And
- Visual magnitude
- 2.07
- Constellation
- Andromeda
- Name approved by the IAU
- 2016-06-30
The IAU catalogue's account
Ultimately from the Arabic word al-mi)zar, "the girdle" or "loin cloth", used in the Arabic Almagest in describing this star. The correct transliteration of the word in the Medieval Latin Almagest was mizar, which was occasionally misspelled as mirac, mirat, etc. These corruptions, taken as proper names for β And, were correctly attributed to al-mi)zar by Early Modern scholars. Subsequently one of the misspellings, "Mirach", gained more popularity over the correct "Mizar", to beome the preferred modern name.
- Source language
- Arabic
- Reference
- 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.
Source: IAU Catalog of Star Names (IAU-CSN), Working Group on Star Names. The account is the IAU's own text and is quoted in full: it is published under CC BY.
From Kunitzsch & Smart
- Layer of tradition
- Arabic
- Ancient-layer signal
- no simple cue found
- Pronounced
- mi' rak
- Literal meanings
- the girdle, or loin cloth; Mizar
- Periods of use
- Medieval, Renaissance, Recent / modern
- Transmission notes
- error/corruption, transliteration
Source: Kunitzsch & Smart, A Dictionary of Modern Star Names, 2nd ed. 2006, p. 15
Layer of tradition and ancient-layer signal are not the dictionary authors' judgement but a keyword reading of the entry's wording. “No simple cue found” means exactly that — the parser found none — not that the name is late.
The fields on this card were read off an OCR layer and are not checked against the printed page. The page number is given so the claim can be verified in your own copy.
This star is not part of any chain in the strict sub-corpus.
Other named stars of this constellation: