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Ken you wrote:
"The bright star in the Harp, Lyra"

Ptolemy would be pleased.  :-)

And you wrote:
" It [the Tables Requisite] gives 60 navigational stars  but only 41 are the
same as the current 57 navigational stars."

Thanks  for compiling that list. Yeah, there seems to have been a great deal
of variety  in lists of stars for navigation up through the middle of the 20th
century.  Different authors, different tables. Then it all settles down to
the modern list  of 57.

I've pinned things down a bit today. In the American Nautical  Almanac for
1950, there is a list of 57 stars which is clearly the predecessor  of the
modern list. According to 'Bowditch', the list was refined to the modern  set in
1953 (but I haven't checked this). By 1958 when the American and British
almanacs were combined, the modern list was fixed and hasn't changed since. For
what it's worth:

SUMMARY of changes in the "57 stars" from 1950-1958:
<< Caph,  Ruchbah, Polaris, Beta Crucis, Mizar, Dschubba  dropped.
>> Schedar, Ankaa, Menkar, Gienah, Hadar, Zubenelgenubi  added.
Spelling changes for Mirfak, Betelgeuse, Suhail
(formerly  Marfak, Betelgeux, Al Suhail)
Name changes for Eltanin,  Diphda
(formerly Etamin, Deneb Kaitos)
Names added for Avior,  Gacrux, Menkent, Atria.
(formerly known by Bayer names, e.g.  Epsilon Argus)
Large blocks are the same stars before and after (with some name  changes):
stars 9-28 and stars 42-57.

Also, I'm convinced now that the almanac editors did not intend for
Zubenelgenubi to be known as "Zuben'ubi" but some students of navigation have  ended
up calling it that  anyway.

-FER
http://www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars

   

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