Talk:Indus (constellation)

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[edit] Which "Indian"?

The article currently says that the constellation represents an American Indian (a.k.a. Native American). Presumably this comes from the cited source. But one of the external-link pages says it isn't known whether that's true or whether it's a person from India. I have no idea which source is more reliable on this, but in cases where one source says "not known" and another asserts a plausible claim as truth, it seems depressingly common that "not known" is correct.

Since Indus is "the Indian", I was about to link to this article from the Indian disambiguation page, but now I don't know whether to put it in the "American Indian" section or in a new section about things where it is not clear what the referent is!

--207.176.159.90 (talk) 02:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I've made the description more general, to accord with what's said in the references. Whoever wrote the original did not give a reference but presumably took the word of R. H. Allen's Star Names. That book is also presumably the source of the name 'The Persian' for the star Alpha Indi, which has never been widely used by astronomers. Skeptic2 (talk) 11:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I was concerned that it might mean Indians from India, as I indicated above. But if you look carefully at the original page from Uranometria, you can see where it mentions "Americo Vesputio", i.e. Amerigo Vespucci, so that covers that. I've made that change to the Indian page now. --207.176.159.90 (talk) 00:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)