Various 'net links concerned with Eta Carinae

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For many years this old German star map appeared on the cover of the American Astronomical Society directory, without any explanation of who made it or when. Here Eta's constellation is Karlseiche , Charles' Oak or Robur Carolinum, invented by Halley about 1677. (For his motivation, see Antonia Fraser's biography of King Charles II. The battleship sunk in Scapa Flow in 1939 was named after the same tree.) But Lacaille, the next surveyor of the southern sky, disapproved and placed our star firmly -- so he thought -- in Argo Navis. Note that Eta Roburis is shown as a second-magnitude star.

Standard caution

Information at these sites is mostly good, but don't trust everything you read there, even from major research institutions. This topic has always been well supplied with misunderstandings.
Another tip: One or two of these sites don't look very serious at first glance, but in fact they are.

Institution and/or group sites

• SIMBAD information on Eta, includes a list of alternative names and ID numbers for this object.
• AAVSO special page on Eta Car; current information. (Also an older AAVSO page).
• The Space Telescope Science Institute website is rather complicated and often seems to focus on activities of staff members there. A big STScI archive called MAST, however, contains data from other instruments too, not just HST.
• VSNET: Kyoto variable star information (warning: they exceed their quota of exclamation points).
• Four "SEDS" pages:
• • Objects in the constellation Carina
  • Eta Carinae
  • The first known variable stars (Eta is number 23)
  • Christine Kronberg's information about images
• Constellations from a professional point of view: a cautionary note
• Optical observations of Eta Car at La Plata Observatory

Individual astronomers' sites

Some of these are highly personalized, but they all contain serious material. The usual caveat applies: Though most information is correct, don't automatically trust everything you read at any www site.
In alphabetical order --

• Mike Corcoran (GSFC; X-ray astronomy).
• Corcoran's X-ray flux curve, frequently updated.
• Augusto Damineli (Sã Paulo).
• John Martin (member of the Treasury Project)
• R. Duncan (Australia; radio astronomy).
• S. White (Maryland; radio astronomy).
• A July 2002 meetingon the topic.

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