Btw one minor nit :

There would be a double planet orbiting the A component of 70 Ophiuchi (known as Ophiuchus Alpha and Beta, respective to size),

I’m not sure that works because Alpha and Beta are the Bayer nmae designations for stars as you may already know – Alpha Ophiuchi is the white giant (A5 III) type star also known as Rasalhague with Beta Ophiuchi being a pulsating orange giant (K2 III) star.

As Kaler notes (article linked to my name here) the component stars get tagged A & B (upper case) and presumably by current convention the hypothetical planet(s) would get lower case letters b, c, d, e, etc .. Which, of course, would change once Humans live on them as worlds but I doubt that they’d use ‘Alpha’ and Beta’ for them.

For Whatever little Its Worth, My suggestion for planet names – & naturally its ultimately entirely up to you – would be to use some of the astronomers who once suspected third planets (presently unconfirmed at best, refuted outright at worst) existed in the 70 Ophiuchi system. To quote from an article I wrote years ago :

The controversy began in 1842 with J.H. Madler the first to note deviation from Keplerian motion. (Robert Burnham Jnr., 1978.) One of the earliest report on these suspected dark companions caused a kerfuffle leading the collapse of the career of one of the participants. Excitement reached a peak in 1899, when American astronomer T.J.J. See proclaimed that; ” .. certain apparent irregularities in the orbital motion of .. 70 Ophiuchi were explained by the companion having a massive dark satellite moving about it in a 36-year period.” (Ashbrook,1984.) This report was attacked by a mathematical astronomer named Moulton in a paper which showed that such a system would be highly unstable and could not exist. Consequently See ” .. wrote an ill-considered letter to the Astronomical Journal that led to his life-long disbarment as a contributor.” (Ashbrook,1984.) This affair was a major factor in the destruction of See’s life, he later suffered a nervous breakdown, and his eventual fate was to remain trapped until his death in the ruins of his career. (Ashbrook, 1984.)
This episode was not the end of the speculation over a third component to Seventy Ophiuchi for since Madler’s initial finding many others – including W.S. Jacob in 1855 and T. Lewis in 1906 have reported anomalies in the orbit. Despite attempts to cast doubt on the measurements by Dr Strand in 1937 this puzzle refuses to die. A study of astrometric plates carried out in 1943 revealed “.. indications of a 17-year perturbation with an amplitude of about 0.015″; the mass of the assumed third body would be about 1% of the solar mass. At present it can only be said that more observations are needed to settle the question …” (Burnham, 1978.) My most recent information on this debate is that as of 1991 it was observed that “the presence of a third body in the system is suspected, possibly a planet about ten times Jupiter’s mass, but the unseen planet’s existence has not yet been confirmed.” (Motz & Nathanson, 1991.) Perhaps this is one mystery we may see resolved soon given the new revelations on extrasolar planets discovered around 51 Pegasi et al.

Thus I’d like to suggest using the names See and Madler for the binary components although See and Strand (with Madler an outer gas giant or gas dwarf perhaps?) has a certain poetic appeal to it too!

Sources : (as cited in brackets in non-italicised quote.)

Motz, Lloyd & Nathanson, Carol, ‘Constellations’, Aurum Press, 1991.
Dole, Stephen, ‘Habitable Planets for Man’, Rand Corporation, 1964.
Burnham, Robert Jnr., ‘Burnham’s Celestial Handbook’, Dover publications,1978.
Ashbrook, Joseph, ‘The Astronomical Scrapbook’</i., Sky Publishing & Cambridge University Press, 1984.

@44. Sam H : Cool idea – I’ll definitely buy your novel when it comes out!

@41. Joseph G : Aw shucks. Thanks. If I had a newsletter I’d certainly love to have you as a subscriber to it.