Skip to content

Name that Star! (Auckland) Mystery Cache

This cache has been archived.

Nedd: Retiring this as it's passed 12 months without a find

More
Hidden : 12/1/2006
Difficulty:
2.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

Join now to view geocache location details. It's free!

Watch

How Geocaching Works

Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions in our disclaimer.

Geocache Description:


Stars have many ways of being identified - ancient peoples had descriptive names for many brighter ones. Later, as the sky was divided up into formal constellations, Johann Bayer (1572-1625) applied a letter in the Greek alphabet according to magnitude or brightness to the more prominent stars, combined with the Latin name of the constellation. More recently, as more and more stars needed to be identified, successive cataloguing systems were developed, essential for professional astronomers but lacking the poetry of the early nomenclature.

An example of Bayer's system would be Beta Tauri, the 2nd brightest star in the constellation Taurus, and written in abbreviated form as ßTau. This star was already known to the Arabs as El Nath (the butting one) and that is its 'common' name to this day.

In this puzzle, the decimal minutes of the cache location are coded as a series of standard Bayer abbreviations identifying particular stars. The listed coordinates are only for the general area - do not go there.



Your task is to ascertain the 'common' name for each star. The first letter of that name is then converted into a number according to it's position in our alphabet (A=1, B=2 etc). Finally, string the numbers together to get the true coordinates, from where all the stars 'above' can be seen, although at different times of the year. Assuming of course that the nearby resting place of previous citizens does not bother you!

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

kznf gerr qrpbengvba

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)