Nicola wrote:
Cygnus is a constellation I think, so maybe the Alpha refers to the star the planet orbits.
This is actually the system currently used in astronomy... Alpha refers to the brightest star in the constellation (as seen from Earth), beta to the second-brightest, etc. Cygnus Alpha is, IIRC, the star more commonly known as Deneb. Whether that's the sytem the Federation uses or not, who knows.
Perhaps they use Greek letters for the star within a constellation, and number outwards from the sun.
Something like this seemed to be a pretty common system on _Star Trek_. ("*This* is Ceti Alpha Five!")
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