That Mongol invasion was truly devastating. Many parts of modern day Iraq never recovered or were damaged beyond repair.

Nope, they're right. Rigel is a transliteration of 'rijl' which means foot of Orion. Similarly, Betelguese comes from 'yad al-jawza', meaning hand of Orion, but got transliterated a few times incorrectly resulting in Betelguese :)

Yep, the “al” got me interested in the name and started digging into it!

This is Aldebaran, the iconic and brightest star in the constellation Taurus. Aldebaran is a transliteration of the Arabic name الدبران, meaning "The Follower", which the nomads of Arabia called because it seemed to follow the Pleiades star cluster across the sky.

Did you know that there are over 200 stars in the sky that have a similar Arabic origin to their name?

In the golden age of the Islamic empire, rulers emphasized and rewarded the pursuit of knowledge. There was an concentrated effort to search far and wide for books and to translate them back to Arabic (Translation Movement). This accomplished two critical things -- it preserved knowledge from previous civilizations that would have otherwise been lost forever, and it enabled Muslim scholars to build upon previous works. In the case of the famous Muslim astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, he reviewed, revised, and expanded on Ptolemy's work. In his famous "Book of Fixed Stars" (كتاب صور الكواكب الثَّابِتَةِ), we see Al-Sufi use the Greek constellation drawings while using Arabic star names for the first time. Al-Sufi's book became a critical record of stars and constellation observations that was later translated for other astronomers to continue their work.

This scholarly effort to seek knowledge, preserve it, expand on it, can be traced back to the first word, verse, and principle revealed in the Quran:

"ٱقْرَأْ بِٱسْمِ رَبِّكَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ"

"Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists)."

(Quran:Al-Alaq 96:1)

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I'm a beginner amateur astrophotographer sharing my own faith-inspired reflections on my acquisitions. I'm on instagram here for anyone wishing to follow me on my journey.

Equipment:

- TS-Optics Photoline 80mm + flattener

- Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro

- Canon 850D

- Optolong L-Pro

Acquisition:

- 20 x 30" lights @ ISO 800

- 10 darks

- 20 bias

- 50 flats

- Unguided from Bortle 8/9 zone