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As I only mentioned "glasspaper" in my comment 18, you must have read that one too. I was merely trying to be vaguely amusing rather than gratuitously insulting...

Meursault, I don't think there is actually any contradiction between the first word of the instruction and the 'modern' alphabetic representation. In the field of chemistry, I might say that Al is the X for Aluminium.

Having said that, I shall stick to the alternative. Whatever is the intended choice, it would be very unfair to mark the other one wrong.

I also agree that there are at least three cells where choices have to be made. The Wikipedia unicode set does not match another set given by a source that I take to be pretty authoritative.

Barretter, if humour was your intention then you'll have to excuse me, as it was also my intention. Though you were a little touchy with Gem94. There's a maxim, I think from one of the Stoics : "When you've made one mistake, don't let that be a reason to make others."

So if one goes the IAU route, what is the view on the X for the object at the extreme SW? Is it the medieval representation?

Greengage,
That is one of the reasons I am not following the IAU recommendations. An inconsistent pattern of cells would not be elegant.

Can someone please help me out with the coding - I've read the Wiki page on Unicode but I'm afraid I haven't a clue what it's all about and wonder if there is a simple way to access the information required ?

Crosswhit, there are several related wiki pages, if you search for 'astronomical symbols', you'll find a page which lists both IAU abbreviations and unicode symbols. As Dryden pointed out, the abbreviations might themselves be termed symbols, as in Mendeléev's table.

Two of the symbols have alternatives. Which are the correct ones or doesn't it matter? What a shame this puzzle was spoiled by ambiguities.

........and there seems to be a third one with two possible symbols.

Unclued, I would ignore Wikipedia and go by what's displayed on the NASA site. The images there match other sites that have some scientific authenticity, thus avoiding ambiguities shown in Wikipedia.