"Leo Minor has one unusual feature, the fact that the constellation has no star labelled Alpha (α), although its second-brightest star is labelled Beta (β). This is due to an error by the 19th-century English astronomer Francis Baily, who assigned Greek letters to Leo Minor's stars. In doing so, he overlooked 46 LMi, which should be Alpha."
Ian Ridpath, Astronomy (Eyewitness Companions), p. 176
" Curiously, Leo Minor has no star labelled Alpha, although there is a Beta Leonis Minoris. This seems to have resulted from an oversight on the part of the 19th-century English astronomer Francis Baily. Hevelius did not label the stars in any of his newly formed constellations, so 150 years later Baily did it for him. In his British Association Catalogue of 1845, Baily assigned the letter Beta to the second-brightest star in Leo Minor, but left the brightest star (46 Leonis Minoris) unlettered by mistake."
Ian Ridpath's Star Tales
.jpg){kind=small}
