Elegast

Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann

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The term "Elegast" was used in press releases on the discovery of the brown dwarf BDR J1750+3809 in 2020 by the Dutch LOFAR radio telescope array. The name originates from Proto-Germanic and refers to a King of the Elves in medieval Dutch folklore.

Concordance, Etymology, History

Variants

• Elbegast
• Alegast
• Elegast

Origin

Elegast (also known as Elbegast or Alegast) is a central figure in medieval Germanic and Dutch folklore, best known from the Middle Dutch chivalric epic Karel ende Elegast (Charles and Elbegast). In the poem, Elegast possibly represents the King of the Elves. He appears as a knight on a black horse, an outcast vassal of Charlemagne living in the forest. The name comes from Proto-Germanic albi-gastiz ("elf guest"), linking him to ancient elf or dwarf king archetypes like Alberich. Unlike most Frankish heroes of the era, Elegast represents an indigenous Low Frankish/Dutch heroic archetype, blending Christian knightly themes with older pagan mythology.

Concordance of the Star Name

• Press Releases
  • ASTRON (Nov 2020)
    • “Our ultimate goal is to understand magnetism in exoplanets and how it impacts their ability to host life. Because magnetic phenomena of cold brown dwarfs like Elegast are so similar to what is seen on solar system planets, we expect our work to provide a vital datapoint to test theoretical models that predict the magnetic fields of extrasolar bodies,” said Dr. Harish Vedantham, ASTRON staff scientist and lead author of the discovery study.
    • “We could not have picked out Elegast in our standard radio images from among the crowd of millions of galaxies, but Elegast immediately stood out when we made circularly polarised images,” said Dr. Tim Shimwell, ASTRON staff and project scientist of the LOFAR survey that led to Elegast’s discovery.
  • UH Manoa,
  • UH News,
  • Univ. of Leiden

• and consequently used by the media; see e.g.
  • Space.com,
  • New York Post, or
  • Ça se passe là haut in France

• Research Papers
  • Vedantham et al. (2023)

IAU Working Group on Star Names

The name was proposed to the IAU WGSN in 2026. As this star is already named ..., the WGSN chose ... (not to apply/ to apply the name to a neighbouring star/ to ...) in the IAU-CSN.

The name was adopted by the IAU WGSN in 2026, as it has been in popular use among astrophysicists and listed in SIMBAD already.

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Reference

• References (general)
• References (early modern)
• Ian Ridpath's website (Star Tales )