> > The folks in our astronomy club who do public observing events
>absolutely
> > *detest* the star renaming services. And it's easy to see why - they are
>the
> > ones who end up telling people that it's not for real, and that they
>can't
> > even identify the star in question given the typical, sketchy coords
>that
> > are provided. People often don't react well to this.

There's another reason, too. I remember years ago there were groups selling
stuff like this, maybe "deeds" to land on Venus, but they were clearly
marked as for novelty purposes only. IIRC, they were sold by groups like
Carl Sagan's Planetary Society, to raise funds.
Selling star names would be a convenient way for a club to raise funds for a
public observatory, but it's hard to do that when a for-profit company is
grabbing money from naive folks, and giving the idea a bad reputation for
those who aren't so naive.
-John

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