Talk:47 Tucanae

47 Tuc vs NGC 104

I've reverted the copy edit swap between 47 Tuc and NGC 104 to preserve the page history and requested User_talk:Bay_Flam to follow the proceedure at WP:RM if they wish to propose such a change so that if adopted we maintain the page history. WilliamKF 23:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

NGC category

DO NOT, put this in the NGC objects category, the redirect is already in it and it will cause a double link. thanks.Chris H 01:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Article is wrong

47 Tucanae is not a Flamsteed designation; Flamsteed never catalogued objects this far south. It also isn't the Gould designation: 47 Tucanae was Bode's designation for this "star", which of course we now know isn't even a star. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.222.83.194 (talk) 13:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

"extragalactic"

I doubt it very much, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding what the editor is trying to say. --Yaush (talk) 19:38, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I think they are saying it wrong, or I dunno. Anyway, reverted. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:42, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Distance error

The distance of "16.70 ± 0.85 kly" appears to be incorrect.

I found two sources which contradict the distance given on this page.

Source 1: http://messier.seds.org/xtra/ngc/n0104.html
Quote: "The stars of 47 Tucanae are spread over a volume nearly 120 light years across. At their distance of 13,400 light years, [...]"

Source 2: https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0002205.pdf (page 5)
Quote: "NGC 104 [...] Re⊙ (kpc) [...] 4.3" (it's in chart form)

Converting 4.3kpc to light-years gives 14,000: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4.3kpc+to+light-years

13,400 light-years and 14,000 light-years are close enough to just be differences in which source was used for the distance estimation. But 16,700 is quite a bit farther from these other two.

Also, in the source PDF listed, I was personally not able to find the text listing the "47 Tucanae" cluster's distance. It may be there, but it's at least not as clearly designated as in the two sources above.

Can someone with more expertise in reading this papers please confirm Wikipedia's listed distance (16,700 light-years), or update it to match the two sources above (13,400-14,000 light-years)?

EDIT

Found another source confirming the ~13,400 light-years distance.

Source 3: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/340593
Quote: "Using an assumed cluster reddening of E(B-V) = 0.04, our best-fit apparent distance modulus is (m - M)V = 13.37 in both color planes, which implies a cluster age of 11.0 ± 1.4 Gyr and leads to a dereddened distance modulus of (m - M)0 = 13.25"

However, I also found some other sources which list other values...

Such as: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2017/47tuc/
Quote: "About 14,800 light years"

Which one is correct!?

Most of them seem to say ~14,000 light-years, but it's still very confusing, as a difference between 13,400 light-years and 16,700 is the difference between a calculated luminosity of 0.36254 and 0.5631! (see: http://www.1728.org/magntudj.htm)

That's a 78% increase! Which makes my attempts to calculate the luminosity based on apparent-magnitude and distance rather imprecise, as it stands. : ( — Preceding unsigned comment added by Venryx (talk • contribs) 00:00, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

They're all wrong. Or alternatively, they're all correct, within their margins of error. Best not to get too hung up on the exact values for things that are not known very exactly. All the references you quote, and the one in the article, could be considered unreliable or out of date. However, a quick search of recent (published in 2017) literature suggests that values around 4 kpc are widely accepted, post HST-study and post-Gaia. Figures up to 4.5 kpc are considered possible. The article currently contains a distance with a reliable reference, but if you want to use a more up-to-date reliable reference with a different value, then go ahead. This 2016/2017 paper gives 3.95 kpc and would make a suitable reference. Lithopsian (talk) 14:17, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Corrected distances in main text using a cite that determined the distance and not copied from elesewhere. There are significant problems finding 47 Tuc and its distance, which is discussed in several papers on this cluster. 4.00±0.35 kpc. falls within most of these values, whose accuracy is close to only one significant figure. Absorption of light is irrelevant, because most distances have been determined independently of luminosity.

Also, the articl has lots of little errors and inconsistencies, which I've patched up, and also made it agree with other related Wikipedia articles too. I.e. SMC. Arianewiki1 (talk) 20:04, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Part of our Galaxy ?

Is it considered "one of the most massive globular clusters in the Galaxy" or a cluster in the proximity of the Milky Way galaxy and to its bulge, a cluster that occasionally passed through the galactic plane but is not a proper "part" of the Galaxy? For example, would the number of its stars be included when counting those of the Milky Way ?Meerwind7 (talk) 20:08, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

47 Tuc is definitely part of the Milky Way, and relatively close to the center as globular clusters go. -- Elphion (talk) 20:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)