Confession time....
About 25 years ago, my wife registered me, and herself, with them as a surprise sweet gift. We received fairly artistic certificates(?) registering our stars located in Sagitarious, IIRC. [Hmmmm, maybe there is hope for Georgecentricity.
] I did tell her, in a nice way, it was bogus.
As charming as it was, it is misleading at best.
Another is
Star Foundation . Here you can
buy a star, as opposed to just naming a star.
You have to really look close to find the disclaimer stating only the IAU has the authority to name stars.
Has there been any discussion to allow an offical IAU star naming fund raiser, say for Hubble? Reserving the brighter stars for honoring scientists, naming all the 9th to 15th magnitude stars would produce stellar revenues of....$6.5 billion (at $50 a pop). Throw in whole galaxies with z > 1 and you can
green shift into an additional $13 trillion (at $100 a pop). [HST, with life anew, will have to help, of course, as full color will be required, probably.]
"You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?""...George B.S. [Bernard Shaw]
