About the Deneban Software Name and Logo
Our logo illustrates an interesting area of the night sky which includes
the star Deneb, the North America Nebula and an outline of the constellation
Cygnus
Deneb
The brightest star featured in the logo is "Deneb" 
the brightest star known to humanity.
Of all the stars we know, Deneb has the greatest absolute magnitude. This
means if all known stars were viewed from the same distance, Deneb would
give off the most light. Because it is one of the most distant of the known
stars (about 1,600 light years), most of Deneb's light is lost on its way
to Earth, and therefore appears to us as only the 19th brightest star in
our sky. Astronomers estimate that only one star in one thousand million
stars is as bright as Deneb, which is 60,000 times more luminous than the
Sun.
Therein lies the basis of our name. As Deneb is brilliant and distinct
against an infinite backdrop of peer stars -- we aspire to be brilliant and
distinct in a vast continuum of software developers -- a characteristic we
describe as "Deneban".
More facts about the star Deneb:
Deneb is also the brightest star in its native constellation, Cygnus,
thereby giving it the scientific name "Alpha Cygni". The common
name "Deneb" itself is a derivative of the Arabic word for "tail",
a namesake that descibes its position in the constellation Cygnus, the swan.
The original ancient Arabic name was "Al Dhanab al Dajajah": "the
hen's tail". On summer evenings, Deneb passes directly overhead of observers
in the northern hemisphere around the +40 to +50 degree latitude, but is
nevertheless visible to them at some time every night. Situated in an extensive
system of gaseous nebulosity, many astronomers hold Deneb responsible for
providing most of the illumination of the North America Nebula (described
below) and other star clouds within Cygnus.
Deneb is also a marker in the sky representing the direction that the
Solar System is headed in the course of its galactic rotation about the center
of the Milky Way. The distance between the Sun and Deneb is closing at the
rate of 5 to 36 miles per second. In several hundred thousand years, Deneb
will become apparent as the brightest star in the sky, as well as one of
the closest. Considering its projected course and brilliance, there is a
chance that it will outshine our own Sun someday in the distant future.
The North America Nebula
The North America Nebula is featured in the left side of our
logo. And yes -- it is a very strange coincidence that this distant nebula
looks like our very own continent of North America. Things get really bizarre
when you learn that Deneban Software is coincidentally also based in North
America. If you feel uncomfortable with these coincidences, you can take
solace in the fact that if you viewed this nebula from a few hundred light-years
this way or that way, it probably would not look like North America, and
that no one one hundred light-years away has ever heard of Deneban Software.
The Constellation Cygnus
The logo has blue lines connecting several stars. This represents the
basic outline of the constellation "Cygnus", a swan, flying southward.
Cygnus is sometimes referred to as the "Northern Cross".
When looking at Cygnus's components, we are looking down the next spiral
arm of the Milky Way galaxy that the Solar System will enter. This area of
space is rich in star clouds and interesting objects, including supernovae
in both Augusts 1920 and August 1975, and two suspected black holes.
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