Talk:Castor (star)

Mass of Aa

There seems to be a contradiction between the table and the sidebar, for the mass of castor Aa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michel Lamontagne (talk • contribs) 02:46, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Distance from Earth?

How far is Castor from Earth? - --Brasswatchman 23:56, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

51.5 ly distant according to Hipparcos.--Jyril 00:01, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. --Brasswatchman 05:41, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

I changed the spectral type of Castor Ab to unknown as it is not officially known to be M5 V. http://www.solstation.com/stars2/castor6.htm April 24, 2006.

Naming

Why is this star listed under its common name but Alpheratz is listed under Alpha Andromedae? AndrewRT - Talk 22:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Error in separation of components

The A and B components of Castor are separated by 2" as of 2006, not 6".

computer sim

hey can we get a computer simulation of these stars moving around? BlazeofGlory 00:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

It blinked

I was in the Seatle area (3/1/2008 11 PM) looking at this star with the naked eye when it blinked. Is this a glitch in the "matrix" or did I witness a common occurance in this multiple star system? Nagnirc (talk) 18:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

A balloon?

There are multiple possible explanations: an occultation, a passing aircraft, a small cloud or jet stream, for example. If I may ask, how long did the dimming last?—RJH (talk) 18:11, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

External links modified

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Confusion? Clunk?

@Lithopsian: I thank you for not reverting-&-dismissing-with-'diss'-language. Certainly it is disappointing that my edits, all, were not only broadly dismissible, but—conveniently, for you, at least—none worthy of individual attention; and all were assignable to one or two convenient labels. Now I'm asking you to say specifically what you see that warrants the one label or the other. Please indicate each edit that induces 'confusion', and how so,—i.e., what is the established information that is confused by the offending edit? —please be specific. And pls specify each edit that introduces 'clunk'.

Meanwhile, here is my reasoning as to why each edit, as enumerated, is needed:

[Curr]> Castor was recorded as a double star in 1718 by James Pound. It may have been {1} resolved {2} in 1678 by Cassini. The separation of the two {3} stars, Castor A and B, has increased from 2" {4} in 1970 to about 6" in 2017.{5} The two {6} components have magnitudes of 1.9 and 3.0.

There are three visual components, and all are spectroscopic binaries. Castor is a complex multiple star system made up of six individual stars.

[myEdit]> Castor was recorded as a double star in 1718 by James Pound. It may have been {1}.. resolved into separated bodies of light by Cassini {2}.. in 1678. The separation of the two {3}.. binary systems Castor A and B has increased from 2" {4}.. (2 seconds of arc) in 1970 to about 6" in 2017. {5}.. These two {6}.. component systems have magnitudes of 1.9 and 3.0.

{1}.. (This edit) elaborates re the meaning of "resolved", as used in astronomy. Most lay readers are 'non-astronomy' folk—so they will be puzzled. (Perhaps: "resolved into separate bodies of light" is preferable; ..or, "..into multiple bodies of light".). {2}.. Date is bumped so that phrase #{1} can immediately follow "resolved". {3}.. NB1> Quote, in this section, second paragraph, (see above): "Castor is a complex multiple star system made up of six individual stars". And,quote from the article lede: ... "It [Castor] is actually a sextuple star system in three binary pairs made up of the stars Castor Aa, Castor Ab, Castor Ba, Castor Bb, Castor Ca, and Castor Cb." NB2> The purpose of this section, "Stellar System"—its essential information—is: That within the constellation Gemini, Castor A is not a star; it is two stars; indeed, it is a binary star system within Castor, an even larger multiple (sextuple) star system—(and repeat, for Castor B). ////\\\\ Therefore it is entirely appropriate—not confusing, not clunky—to speak of the same information being established in this section, and in the article. Thereby, the reader is put on notice that subsequent uses of "star"---especially after this section---may actually represent more than one star. {4}.. Explains for the lay reader—at its first use in this article—this mark ( " ) of astronomy jargon: the symbol for seconds of angle arc. (Perhaps: ",or 2 seconds of arc," works better.) {5}.. Note, it is not confusing or clunky to gather inline citations at the end of the sentence, after the period—indeed, it is approved guideline formatting; see Wikipedia:Citing sources #Inline citations. {6}.. Pls see again #{3}, NB1> and NB2>.

Lithopsian, the edits merit judging individually---indeed, they not are piled together in one miserable lump of awful, confusing, & clunky. Please review them individually. And ask you, please, to not squelch good faith editing with a wet-rug-of-indiscriminate-diss, which you would not want pitched at your work. ///\\\ That's enough Airing My Grievances---I'm for discussion instead. I propose a substitute revision---it merges the first two paragraphs of this section, putting the context phrase "Castor is a complex ..." in the lede---where it should be:

Castor is a complex multiple star system made up of six individual stars; there are three visual components, all which are spectroscopic binaries. Appearing to the naked eye as a single star, Castor was first recorded as a double star in 1718 by James Pound, but it may have been resolved into multiple bodies of light by Cassini as early as 1678. The separation between Castor A and Castor B has increased from about 2", or 2 seconds of arc, in 1970 to about 6" in 2017. These two binary star systems have magnitudes of 1.9 and 3.0., respectively.

Thank you and merry Festivus. :-) 24.214.86.222 (talk) 02:38, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

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Your edit left behind a grammatically poor lead sentence. It was worse than the version it replaced and so I reverted it. I'm not sure what your beef is with multiple edits, you made one edit and it addressed a single paragraph, so it got a single revert. There are issues that could be addressed in the lead, but the multiple possible meanings for Castor (point of light in the sky, six-star system, IAU proper name for one physical star) means that any opening sentence is likely to be either controversial or confusing. Attempting to be all things to all men in one sentence will lead to failure. The lead should summarise the content of the body, and nuances can be discussed in later sections. "seconds of arc" is a good example; absolutely we should be launching into multiple alternatives in the lead paragraph; using a standard unit, as provided by the {{val}} template with a wikilink, ought to be sufficient, but if it absolutely won't be understandable at any level to the average reader then it can be spelled out (and possibly parenthesised). Likewise citations; put them where you like, but probably they shouldn't be in the lead at all because the lead is only summarising what is fully explained elsewhere. Citations in the lead hurt readability and are only needed in articles that are not yet fully fleshed-out into a concise lead with full sections. Lithopsian (talk) 15:00, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Concerning your proposed new lead: the first thing to go is the word "complex". Subjective adjectives in the lead sentence are also going to be a red flag and usually they will be unencyclopaedic. It starts to veer towards "clunky" with the "multiple bodies of light" phrase. Cassini (may have) seen two stars, so say that. You may be able to find an alternative to stars to make a more appealing sentence, but it doesn't need to become poetry. It shouldn't launch into a discussion of "Castor A" and "Castor B" without first introducing the meaning of those terms - certainly most people who don't recognise an arc-second aren't going to be familiar with double star naming conventions. That might mean being slightly vague, for example just referring to them as two stars instead of by name, complete disclosure can come later. The first sentence describes six stars, but then the rest of the lead discusses two, again too much detail before any context. Some useful (or at least interesting) information from the existing lead has been dropped but is probably of interest to many readers, for example the factoid about being called α but being fainter than Pollux. The lead could contain two paragraphs; there are three non-stub sections and the contents of each deserve at least a nod in the lead. Mention variability, although only of a minor component, chemical peculiarity, main sequence stars, red dwarf companions, Lithopsian (talk) 15:16, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

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The several copy-edits as above do not revise the technical content of the article. Instead, they make the narrative more readable and comprehensible to the lay reader; ie, to those Wp readers not acquainted with astronomy's terminology and jargon. There are several individual copy-edits; each edit deals with a separate issue and each merits separate review. Each edit aims to improve a particular phrasing of the text—they should not be reverted as a group.

Again I propose, and now post, a substitute revision, merging the first two paragraphs of this section ("Stellar System") and moving the phrase ["Castor is a complex multiple star system ... "] from the end of the second paragraph—to introduce the correct context at the front of the section. And this text is revised per some of your stated concerns.

Lithopsian, please review each edit, giving separate consideration to each; you'll probably see that each is an improvement for the lay reader. If not, please explain; be specific. Thanks//222-----24.214.86.222 (talk) 17:09, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

The word "complex" is vague and unnecessary. I think it can be removed without harming the statement. Praemonitus (talk) 18:46, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

References

Ridiculously thin reference list

So, with the long info-box and the picture right at the bottom of the article, we get a long but thin reference list. Personally, it looks terrible, but I know if I was to edit it to look better, it'd be reverted and I'd get asked for a consensus, get banned, probably doxed, for having the audacity to edit an article... it IS Wikipedia, after all, and I'm not one of the chosen few with such privilege as being able to edit without permission. So I'll leave it up to you to deal with. 88.108.225.91 (talk) 23:20, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Castor is also a town

I just drove through it in eastern Alberta. StarryEye (talk) 01:32, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

And there is an entry for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor,_Alberta. Skeptic2 (talk) 17:39, 24 August 2019 (UTC)