Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy/Archive 13

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z8_GND_5296

The article Galaxy states: "In October 2013, z8_GND_5296 was confirmed to be the most distant galaxy yet discovered, at a distance of approximately 30 billion light-years from Earth." Shouldn't that be 13 billion light-years? 83.80.18.68 (talk) 13:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

No. 30 billion ly is the correct co-moving distance. See distance measures in cosmology. Anyway, this query would be better suited to Talk:z8_GND_5296. Modest Genius ^talk 13:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Feature finder

I was screwing around with Lua recently, and have come up with a Module:FindFeatures to parse a list of features from various articles with tables containing lists of coordinates, and to use these data files to find features near a point. So far I've come up with lists in a rectangular region or within a certain radius; now I'm thinking it should also offer a ranked list of the closest N features on the list. I was doing this for Mars but the other planets should work similarly. I think it would be possible to modify something like Template:Infobox crater data to automatically take the coordinates and "globe" parameters it is given to run this module and get, say, the three or five nearest neighbors to display. But before finalizing the last bit I should find out: is this a feature people would find useful? How many neighboring features would you want to link to? Wnt (talk) 05:03, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I actually quite like this idea. I assume it would use RA and Dec, so that you could look for objects near other objects. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:58, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Can you point me to files that contain long but not "astronomically" long lists of objects by RA/Dec for me to use? The module is a cute toy but it's not up to handling the Gaia dataset. :) What is important to mention? Wnt (talk) 01:58, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I misunderstood; I thought you meant something similar to the WMF's new beta feature that finds places near others based on geographical coordinates, and I was assuming that you were talking about sky coordinates here as a result. But yeah, I also like the idea of finding, for example, craters near other craters. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:18, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I have a sandboxed version of the code running on the rather short article Addams (crater). I hadn't actually been aware of the WMF feature before now, so I'm not sure if I'm reinventing the wheel or not. Wnt (talk) 04:00, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I like it! Definitely different from the WMF's feature too. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:58, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Star class articles

I just added a section to O-type star asking for opinions on what to do with that article. However, it is quite new and possibly nobody is checking in on it, so I thought I'd ask here also. The article needs improving, or possibly removing. We don't have corresponding articles for other spectral classes, although there are articles for each spectral type of main sequence star and broader classes for giants and supergiants. I'm loathe to make an exception for just this one spectral type. Lithopsian (talk) 18:19, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the article is a bit sloppy, but from a brief look at the article (and the "see other" links) it looks like a reference article - somewhere to start if you know it's an O-type, but not whether it should be considered a main-sequence or not. So it needs cleaning, yes, but in my opinion it shouldn't be deleted. As for your last comment - just because the other classes don't have a page, doesn't mean that at some point an interested editor won't add it. Primefac (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

All spectral type and luminosity classes should have an article. -- 76.65.128.112 (talk) 06:06, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree...what could we have in them that stuff like O-type main-sequence star doesn't already have? StringTheory11 (t • c) 06:51, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Well the answer to that question is now available for all to see. I have completed the major edits to the page, just small changes and tidying up to do. If it appears to contain useful information that wouldn't be in other articles then I guess it should stay. If everything would fit quite happily elsewhere then it should go. Lithopsian (talk) 12:21, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I think an overview with links to both O-type main-sequence star and stars like Zeta Puppis and Mintaka - examples of Blue supergiants. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:41, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Overview articles / set index articles for each spectral type and luminosity class would atleast point the readership to more specific articles, instead of leading them to a searchpage. This can be used to explain what each rating (ie. "A"-type, or "III"-class) means in the most basic manner, before pointing people to more indepth articles for each more specific combination of spectral type and luminosity class (ie. "GV"-star ). We already have places for luminosity-classes, and can redirect the coded form to them since we have hypergiant star etc. The spectral types should have a complementary set of articles. -- 76.65.128.112 (talk) 23:45, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

"Draft" rating

I suggest that this wikiproject implement the new "Draft"-class and categorize into Category: Draft-Class Astronomy articles‎ and Category: Draft-Class Astronomical objects articles‎, for pages in the WP:Drafts namespace that was recently initiated. This would allow tracking of articles related to this wikiproject that are in draft form, which members of this wikiproject may wish to improve and move into the mainspace. -- 76.65.128.112 (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Portal:Mars' FPR

Mars has been nominated for a featured portal review. Portals are typically reviewed for one week. During this review, editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the portal from featured status. Please leave your comments and help us to return the portal to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, portals may lose its status as featured portals. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.— Preceding unsigned comment added by GamerPro64 (talk • contribs)

Talk:Eye of Sauron#Requested move

I have requested to move the disambiguation page, Eye of Sauron, to a disambiguation title in order to redirect that title to Sauron. Please feel free to weigh in on the discussion. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:12, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Would moving "last obs" in citations from |date= to |type= be acceptable to remove citation error messages?

Hello, Astronomy folks. I am one of a few people who are working on fixing date formatting errors in citations. One of the errors we are seeing is extra — but useful — non-date text in |date=, like "date=2008-09-30 last obs" (see citation 2 in 163P/NEAT for an example). Date values of this type cause error messages.

Cite web comparison

Wikitext	{{cite web|accessdate=2012-02-28|date=2012-01-20 last obs|publisher=Jet Propulsion Laboratory|title=JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT|url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=163P}}
Live	"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2012-01-20 last obs. Retrieved 2012-02-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Sandbox	"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2012-01-20 last obs. Retrieved 2012-02-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
This produces a date error in the Live citation. If you do not see it, you can change your css file to display it.

One possible way of resolving this problem is to move the extra text to the |type= parameter. This results in potentially awkward formatting (though you might like it, I don't know).

Cite web comparison

Wikitext	{{cite web|accessdate=2012-02-28|date=2012-01-20|publisher=Jet Propulsion Laboratory|title=JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT|type=last obs|url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=163P}}
Live	"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT" (last obs). Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2012-01-20. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
Sandbox	"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT" (last obs). Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2012-01-20. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
No date error.

On Kheider's Talk page, Kheider wrote the following:

If we were going to modify the cite, I would consider going all the way and changing "|date=2008-08-29 |type=last obs" to "|type=last observation: 2008-08-29" dumping the whole date parameter. -- Kheider (talk) 13:24, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Cite web comparison

Wikitext	{{cite web|accessdate=2012-02-28|publisher=Jet Propulsion Laboratory|title=JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT|type=last observation: 2012-01-20|url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=163P}}
Live	"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT" (last observation: 2012-01-20). Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
Sandbox	"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT" (last observation: 2012-01-20). Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
No date error, no date parameter.

If a bot changed parameters in this last manner, would this be acceptable? Can you think of another way in which we could reformat the citation to avoid the error and still preserve the valuable information about the observation date? Thanks for your feedback. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:39, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

This type of problem is far too complex for a bot. It is also impossible to resolve if the editor does not have access to the original source.

The footnote contains an citationaccess date and a publication date. The publication date should be the nearest we can figure out for when the data was published. I would say in this case, using the latest database values, would be "2013-03-03 (solution date)". A sentence could be added after the citation template explaining the last observation used in the solution was dated March 14, 2012. By the way, the only prose date in the article is year-first, which is not an acceptable format per WP:MOS. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:46, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I manually fixed the infobox and prose dates to the mmmm dd, yyyy format, since that was used in the infobox. I did not change the dates in any references. GoingBatty (talk) 19:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC) modified 19:34 UT.

Jc3s5h, I do not see a citation date and a publication date in the citation. I see only |date= and |accessdate=.

The proposed value of "2013-03-03 (solution date)" would still cause an error message in any date parameter. Here it is with |publication-date= and |date=:

Cite web comparison

Wikitext	{{cite web|accessdate=2012-02-28|date=2012-01-20 (last observation)|publication-date=2013-03-03 (solution date)|publisher=Jet Propulsion Laboratory|title=JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT|url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=163P}}
Live	"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT". Jet Propulsion Laboratory (published 2013-03-03 (solution date)). 2012-01-20 (last observation). Retrieved 2012-02-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |publication-date= (help)
Sandbox	"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT". Jet Propulsion Laboratory (published 2013-03-03 (solution date)). 2012-01-20 (last observation). Retrieved 2012-02-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |publication-date= (help)
This still produces a date error in the Live citation. If you do not see it, you can change your css file to display it.

Can you please provide an example citation that would be accurate, meet the needs of this project, and use valid dates in all date parameters? Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

A valid example would be:

{{cite web |date=2013-03-03 [solution date] |title=JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT |url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=163P |publisher=Jet Propulsion Laboratory |accessdate=2013-12-29}}. The last observation in the solution was dated March 14, 2012. which displays as

• "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2013-03-03 [solution date]. Retrieved 2013-12-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help). The last observation in the solution was dated March 14, 2012.

Help:Citation style 1 gives statements about date format, but contains no statement preventing the addition of text to explain the meaning of the date. A valid date is one which observes Help:Citation style 1 and the documentation for the particular cite template being used; it is an error for the module to mark a compliant date as an error. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:47, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

See §Syntax at {{cite web}} or any of the other CS1 templates.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:00, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I see this was added at 23:29 UT 15 February 2012 by User:Gadget850, and there is no corresponding discussion in the talk page archive. Considering that Help talk:Citation Style 1 had been created only a few months before then, I'm not convinced the change had adequate discussion. I suspect it reflects the understanding of just one editor and no one else noticed the change. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:02, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

The problem with the JPL Small-Body Database is the date can have many different meanings. Are you referring to the last observation date (most important variable as to whether there have been potential major changes to the known orbital solution), the last solution date (which just means JPL re-compiled their database = boring as changes will be minor), or the epoch used to define the solution (for most objects the epoch is automatically updated every 4-6 months = also boring as changes will be minor). -- Kheider (talk) 15:12, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I would suggest moving the "last obs" to the |id= field, rather than kludging it in some other way. For example:

{{cite web |url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=163P |title=JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT |publisher=Jet Propulsion Laboratory |date=3 March 2013 |accessdate=29 December 2013 |id=last observation date}}

"JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163P/NEAT". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 3 March 2013. last observation date. Retrieved 29 December 2013.

— Huntster (t @ c) 01:32, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I strongly object to using an inappropriate parameter to contain metadata just because the way it is currently presented happens to put the data in a position that, for the present, seems to make sense when read by a person who only looks at the article as presented, and never examines the wikitext. The other parameters described in Help:Citation Style 1#Identifiers are numbers assigned by various authorities; they are not qualifiers for dates. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I don't care what the solution is, so long as it gets non-date information out of the date field. It simply is not appropriate for it to exist there. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that a qualification about the exact meaning of a date is non-date information. It is date information, and belongs in the same field. If this makes it difficult to automatically validate dates, tough. Automated date validation is a new idea and there is no consensus that the community would be willing to sacrifice useful information just so dates can be automatically validated. I am not the only one who thinks publication dates sometimes need qualification. Chicago Manual of Style 16th ed. p. 756 gives this example:

3. Wikipedia, s.v. "Stevie Nicks," last modified July 19, 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Nicks.

Jc3s5h (talk) 02:34, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

To be blunt, I've been on Wikipedia a long time, and I can't recall ever having seen an attempt to use the date field for anything but specifically dates until this "last obs" business. Doesn't mean it can't happen of course, but it is definitely not normal, and I think consensus must be established before going this route. Also, it's perfectly fine if CMS wants to format their citations in that way, but we aren't using CMS; ours is a highly unique citation style. — Huntster (t @ c) 06:12, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

AfC submission

Here's a submission relevant to your Project. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:16, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

And another one. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea what the relevant policies are in these cases. Both articles would appear to be written by interested (or perhaps even "involved") parties, but are accurate (to the best of my abilities), well-written, well-sourced, not controversial, and on subjects that probably should be in Wikipedia. Lithopsian (talk) 21:42, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate your help. That's the kind of feedback we're looking for. You can be bold and accept them, or even get involved with AfC. We sure need more astronomy Wikipedians! We see quite a few submissions, such as this other one. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 23:02, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Lithopsian, and the same thing applies to the LAB-1 article. They're not exactly GA material, but are better than most stubs. I consider myself a pretty experienced editor, but can't get my head around the AfC process at all. Modest Genius ^talk 00:14, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the first article is okay to be published but GEOS-3 should have some work done. It is primarily a list of instruments and milestones rather than a detailed description in prose. Wer900 • talk 02:05, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The blob looks cool - I moved it into mainspace. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:24, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Mass limits beyond Neptune

At Planets beyond Neptune, we cite calculations that conclude there are no planets beyond Neptune. However, the data's from 1990. We've had another quarter century of our probes heading out of the Solar system, so what can we say now? It would be nice to update the article. Can we place mass limits on any bodies that might be out there, and how far out can we be certain there is nothing planetary? What about things out of the ecliptic? etc. — kwami (talk) 00:40, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

That's clearly wrong, as we now know that giant planets shift orbits, so there could be a giant planet out there that was thrown out there by interactions with other giant planets (explaining the late heavy bombardment, the shift of all the orbits of the outer planets outwards) according to some theories. And how to explain the Kuiper cliff, Sedna, the more remote SDOs... There's also Nemesis. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:05, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

We know there are no large bodies because they would effect the orbits of known bodies, so that wouldn't seem to be the case. And Nemesis is spurious. But s.t. like Sedna, moving slowly enough that its effects have not been noticed, maybe? — kwami (talk) 08:59, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

No we don't. We know there are no large bodies near Neptune or the closer Kuiper objects, we don't know if there's any large objects that are more distant. Neptune's orbit places a limit on how close a large object can be, it does not mean there's no large objects out there. The 1990 research is based on the density of the protoplanetary disc, but if planets shift orbit, and can be thrown out of their zones of formation, that takes all those assumptions out the window. The cause of the Kuiper Cliff is still not known, and that can be the influence of a distant large body, one which is too distant for Neptune's orbit to be affected in a measurable way. The scattered disc objects that are beyond the influence of Neptune also may be indication of that object. Several papers already propose that, and they're all post-1990, since the Kuiper belt wasn't discovered until after 1990 anyways. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 00:59, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:OR. If you find a source which discusses this, go ahead. Otherwise, it's perfectly possible that no astronomer has bothered to update the calculations, because the situation has hardly changed. The Voyagers and Pioneer 11 have got a bit further away, but they passed Neptune decades ago and nothing else has been out there. Modest Genius ^talk 12:20, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

The further a gas giant is from the Sun, the less effect we will notice on the Oort Cloud. But at this point there is no reason to expect a gas giant as massive as Jupiter as such an object would be detectable by WISE. At this point the obsolete Nemesis theory is a joke. -- Kheider (talk) 13:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I can't tell who is responding to who, or whether we have consensus that the article is up-to-date. I don't mean s.t. Jovian, but maybe s.t. around the mass of Mars. Far enough out & slowly moving enough, as well as small enough, that it has no measurable effect on Neptune, but not so far out or massive enough to be Nemesis. What about st 90° out of the ecliptic and currently at the high point in its orbit? As the article currently stands, we claim that nothing that massive could exist anywhere at all in the Solar system, and I suspect that the Pioneer & Voyager data isn't strong enough to support such a claim. And then there's Sedna: I take it that a stable orbit requires that there be nothing significantly larger than Sedna (w say a planetary discriminant of > 1) out to Sedna's aphelion? Anon. speaks of papers published about this, but doesn't mention any. I'm wondering if our claim needs to be qualified or updated. If we actually know it to be true, that would mean we know more about the SS than I suspected. But if we have a Mars-sized body out there that doesn't qualify as a planet, that could throw a wrench into our definitions. If we know that there can be nothing that massive out to the Oort Cloud, then our def of 'planet' is safe, at least in the SS. — kwami (talk) 18:53, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I have heard discussion on podcasts of possible scenarios and sizes on podcasts. Like everything else, the best course of action is to add information from recent reliable sources discussing the matter. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:06, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

• doi:10.1006/icar.2002.6935Bibcode:2002Icar..160...32B
• doi:10.1023/B:MOON.0000031958.97062.7dBibcode:2003EM&P...92..447M
• doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15458.xBibcode:2009MNRAS.400..346I
• doi:10.1088/0004-6256/135/4/1161Bibcode:2008AJ....135.1161L

etc -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 08:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Modest Genius hit the nail on the head - if there's research out there, there's nothing stopping someone from updating the page. Primefac (talk) 20:16, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Lykawka has some papers about this: see the links to his papers off his home page. He thinks there's still a good chance of a large body out there. Tbayboy (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Template_talk:Infobox_constellation#RA.2Fdeclension

Have also opened up a discussion on whether these are better as points or ranges in infobox for constellations. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:23, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Those list of ... tables

Just looking at the List of stars in Vela, I see columns for "vis mag" and "abs mag". "vis mag" points to the apparent magnitude page, so the meaning is fairly clear, but it really should say apparent, eg. "app vis mag" or perhaps just "app mag", or perhaps "app mag (M_V)". "abs mag" points to the absolute magnitude page which really leaves us in ambiguous territory. Both visual and bolometric absolute magnitudes are in common use, although there are others too. I suspect from looking at the data that this is a visual absolute magnitude, but is it really? Would a reader know? Do all the editors know? Should it be clarified? Lithopsian (talk) 20:52, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

groan -not looked at this for a long time. My impression is that discussion is more about luminosity than abs mag these days. Will take a look. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:59, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, seems to be the visual absolute magnitude from calculations. Anyways, improving these lists is on my long-term radar for things to do, but it will be a huge job (maybe even bigger than the {{stars of xxx}} templates that I'm currently working on), since they're currently in quite bad shape. StringTheory11 (t • c) 23:23, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Merger of Twinkling into Astronomical seeing

I'm proposing merging the Twinkling article into Astronomical seeing, as the former is an effect of the latter. The discussion can be found here -- Primefac (talk) 22:14, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

AfC

FYI, there's a notice at WT:PHYSICS about Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Clumping factor -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 05:57, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Bill Wakefield

Dear astronomers: Here is an old abandoned Afc submission about an interesting person. I'm not sure whether this is the right place to report it, but in any case, is this submission notable and worth keeping and fixing up? A lot of work has been put into it, although some material needs removing. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:00, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Solar physics article

I've recently done some work on the Solar Physics article. It was mainly adding some information about solar observations through history and some of the projects/satellites looking at the Sun at the moment. If you can think of anything else that would be worth adding, I'd appreciate the ideas. I feel that most topics are already covered in the Sun article. Cheers, Careless Torque (talk) 11:44, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Solar physics isn't within our remit of astronomy. You might do better with WikiProject Solar System. At first glance, the article needs a lead section and a discussion of the actual science (not just the tools and history). Modest Genius ^talk 14:15, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Solar physics is part of stellar physics, and solar astronomy is one of the oldest branches of astronomy, so I would think it would fall in our scope. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

What's the point in having a separate Solar System WikiProject if they don't handle the stuff within the Solar System? I'm not saying solar physics isn't part of astronomy, I'm saying it's not within the purview of WikiProject Astronomy. Different things. Modest Genius ^talk 22:11, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

True, though WPSOLAR also handles the meteorology, geology and geography of various bodies, which is somewhat less related to traditional astronomy. And space missions beyond Earth orbit, which is not in the scope of this project per se. Solar physics is tightly bound into stellar physics, as the Sun is used as a model for distant stars, it would be something that should be in our scope. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 06:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

While I agree with Modest Genius that WP:SOLAR is the best place to put this notification, it's not like it's harmful to post it here as well. I've posted notifications on astronomy-related articles in the WT:PHYS because they were marked as being in the purview of both projects. Besides, someone in this project who isn't part of the Solar group may be interested in helping out. All part of hitting a wider audience. (PS, Careless Torque, remember to log in). Primefac (talk) 10:58, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I said 'You might do better'; I didn't tell them to go away. There's no harm in posting here, but they're more likely to get a good response elsewhere. I do notice that I'm the only one to have actually commented on the article so far. Modest Genius ^talk 21:16, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Formatting numbers

We're modifying the {{val}} template for formatting numbers, which could affect the display of astro info boxes.

For cases like

1.111 ^+0.002
_−0.001×10⁻³,

do we want parentheses the way we do for

(1.111 ±0.002)×10⁻³ ?

Also, is the default formatting of the uncertanties we have here adequate, or do we want to force a fixed-width font, so we have mixed fonts in our numbers?

— kwami (talk) 20:00, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I see no problem with example one. I think it is obvious that the super- and sub-scripts are specifically part of the first number, and in my opinion mixing regular-sized parentheses with the scripts looks a bit odd. Default formatting seems fine as well; I don't think mixing fonts is visually attractive or solving any problems. — Huntster (t @ c) 20:13, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

The fixed-width font is necessary in the case of asymmetrical uncertainties, otherwise you end up with unreadable horrors like 1.123456789+0.111111111
−0.999999999. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:55, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

That hardly ever happens in practice. (I've never seen it here on WP, at least.) We could have an option to force fixed width in the rare cases it's needed, but it should apply to the whole number so the super & sub-scripts aren't different shapes or larger than the main number when they're supposed to be smaller.

The SI standard is to use parentheses, but then it's to use parentheses w units too, and we don't bother with that. — kwami (talk) 00:50, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Uncertainties should never be quoted to more than 2 significant figures, so that situation should never arise. Modest Genius ^talk 10:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion about star proper names....

taking place at Talk:List_of_brightest_stars#Proper_name...anyone with opinions on this please chime in.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:12, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

IC 1101 size is drastically incorrect

I think we have a good example of Citogenesis in the physical size given for IC 1101: it's probably a factor of 5 too big, even if we're generous in using the full diffuse light radius as the physical size. I've commented at Talk:IC_1101#Citogenesis_example_here? about what's wrong. Can anyone figure out where the number in the article came from? Did I do my simple math wrong (300"@320Mpc = 440Mpc)? If this is as wrong as I think, there's a bunch of articles that link there that need to be cleaned up, too. - Parejkoj (talk) 05:03, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC).

The use of quadrant field in constellation infobox

In the constellation infobox there is a quadrant field. I thought this would be straightforward to reference but finding material on this has been difficult enough to make me wonder about its usefulness. I also saw Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomy/Archive_10#PROD_of_Quadrant_.28astronomy.29.E2.80.8E. As far as I can tell, the quadrant field has been added in 2012, here. What do folks think? Is it useful or obscure to the point of being redundant (and hence should be removed)? If so does someone know a reliable source that I can use as a reference? Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:45, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the only way we could really get a "source" on this is if we were to consider figuring out this value from the RA and Dec not synthesis, but rather as a simple calculation. It's quite borderline on whether it becomes synthesis or not IMO. Anyways, I think if we don't consider this synthesis, and instead consider it a calculation, then we should include it, but if the consensus is that it is WP:OR, then I don't see much point in keeping it. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:10, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Main thing is I was surprised at how lacking the sourcing is - I was under the impression it was a pretty straightforward citable fact but am having trouble finding anything and am beginning to think that even if it is sourceable, then its lack of widespread presence indicates that including it in the infobox may be giving it undue weight....but am a bit of a neophyte so happy to wait for more opinions on this. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:03, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The term is in use but it is hardly commonplace. Search journals for "galactic quadrant" and you'll see what I mean. Maybe it should be a category rather than in the infobox? The existing Wikipedia article already lists the constellations by quadrant, complete with some references. Lithopsian (talk) 14:00, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

There's no issue with synthesis - it's a simple calculation from the RA and dec, no worse than working out which constellation a star is in. Should an article on galactic quadrants exist? Yes. Should this information be included on every object's page via an infobox? No. It's not vital information, and is easy to calculate for anyone who wants it. However, I don't think it hurts to have it on each constellation page. There aren't that many of them, and I think it's borderline of whether that information is useful when considering an entire constellation. I don't object to its usage on constellation pages, but I don't think we should expand this into other infoboxes. Modest Genius ^talk 14:38, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree. For an individual object, Galactic longitude is a more useful number anyway -- it tells you the quadrant but much more precisely. For a constellation, the range of longitudes can be so great that maybe the quadrant is useful. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 21:46, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I found a scientific source using it, namely Spiral structure of the Third Galactic Quadrant and the solution to the Canis Major debate, here it is defined. I cannot make up my mind whether it is useful or not, but privately I would prefer galactic coordinates of the center of the constellation in the place of galactic quadrant, which by the way seems very far fetched regarding Coma Berenices. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 10:12, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I have seen it in a source before (can't remember for the life of me which one and I'm stuck in physics lecture so I can't run off and look) but I don't think it's essential to have in an infobox. Just my 2 cents. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 19:07, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Hence proposal - shall we remove it from the constellation infobox?

If it is this esoteric, even if it has a few sources here and there, I'd say it is not worth including in an infoox. Anyone really wanna keep it? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:14, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

• Remove. Not worth it IMHO; it contains no extra information than can be provided from an RA and Dec range. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:21, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, it seems un-useful and somewhat redundant. — Huntster (t @ c) 18:34, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

• Keep, there are many articles that make use of the quadrant term, not just the one Rursus found (just make a quick search at arXiv). I agree that it's hard to find a source locating a given object in a specific quadrant, but I believe there's no WP:SYN going on in simply crunching the numbers and adding it ourselves. In any case, if it doesn't generate issues I'd say there's little point in removing it, it costs nothing to keep it there anyway. Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 18:53, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

• Remove. Gaba_p suggests it costs nothing to keep it, but I disagree. Clutter is a cost. It should be justified in terms of how it will help the reader understand or find a constellation. If such justification isn't forthcoming, get rid of it. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:32, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

• Remove: (decision made) how does it help the normal reader? If anyone unusually needs it, provide it in a list class article! Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:30, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

• I say remove as well, so that's three removes, 1 keep...and some discussion noting that it isn't that commonly used....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:06, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

• Remove redundant info that is easily computed from RA/DEC information and represents just clutter. — Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 02:54, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Well this is a pretty obvious consensus, and I'd say it's unlikely to change at this point. If nobody has any objections, I'll start the necessary work in a few days. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:25, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, time to start the rollout. Any help would be greatly appreciated. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:28, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Sisterhood

Those of you that are interested in the classification of stellar objects and building the future astronomical infobox should take a look at d:Wikidata:WikiProject Astronomy. For those of you that don't know: Wikidata is trying to centralize essential data across all Wikimedia projects and languages. In the future there will be lots of ways to use this data. The prettiest we have so far is:

• http://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?lang=en&q=3030

Again: Any help we can get would be much appreciated. --Tobias1984 (talk) 00:00, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

That brings up an issue about astronomy on the sister projects. We don't have a Commons:Commons:WikiProject Astronomy or a Wiktionary:Wiktionary:WikiProject Astronomy, and considering the number of media we have on commons for astronomy, that is needed, and the lack of astronomical knowledge amongst the wiktionary administrators would seem to lead to deletion of astronomy terms. -- 70.24.244.161 (talk) 06:41, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that Astronomy should have projects on every Wikimedia site. It just takes a few didicated people to start them. The Wikidata project is doing great already but we would like people from every language of Wikipedia to participate. It would be great if a few people could watchlist the page and sign the participants list. --Tobias1984 (talk) 10:46, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Commons and Wiktionary don't have Projects for any science that I can see, nor for Science in general. Mostly in Commons I don't do science, rather upload or clerk pictures about geography, history and transport, active topics that have Projects having very little activity. A vital Astronomy group can only happen where this mode of operation becomes generally more used. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:12, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Planetary nebula template

Where is the documentation and usage code for Template:Infobox planetary nebula? --BiH (talk) 21:23, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any documentation, offhand. In cases like this, I look for examples as a guide to usage. Cat's Eye Nebula is a featured article and looks to have a well-filled out planetary nebula infobox. --Mark viking (talk) 22:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Hotspot infoboxen

FYI, {{Infobox hotspot custom}} and {{Infobox moon hot spot data}} are under discussion, see Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2014_February_18 -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 00:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

"Trojan"

The meaning of "trojan" is under discussion, see the discussion here -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 01:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Not to get picky, but this is actually whether "Trojan" or "trojan" gets used as the article title. Also, I fixed your wikilink. Primefac (talk) 10:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed move of Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy to Canis Major Overdensity

I think this frames the subject matter better. See the article and article talk for summary and vote at Talk:Canis_Major_Dwarf_Galaxy#Requested_move Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 04:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Move discussions with very little feedback

Can we please get some eyes on Talk:HR 4523 and Talk:HR 7722? They both have active RMs, but both are seeing very little activity, and some more eyes would be useful. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:18, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

V342 Velorum

I stumbled across this article while doing some other work, and I honestly don't know what to do with it. While it seems very interesting and deserving of an article by looking at it, it is totally unsourced and I'm having a hard time finding sources that verify many of the statements in the article. Thoughts on what to do? StringTheory11 (t • c) 19:52, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Starting with SIMBAD.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:11, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

If I had to hazard a guess, it might be that the editor assumed that "luminous blue variable" meant any blue giant/supergiant that was variable rather than the specific class....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:14, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

It is just a standard bright supergiant, and not an LBV. I'll sort out the article because it has a number of inaccuracies. Lithopsian (talk) 20:19, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

In that case, it doesn't seem to pass the notability guidelines, so I think a PROD or AfD is the best solution here. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:27, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Aaawww, it's a variable star....they're always interesting...but yeah I can see your point. Maybe it should be redirected and listed at List of stars in Vela..that way no need to prod and we can revert if new data bcomes available. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:33, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Only variable in the minor random way that virtually all luminous supergiants are. I have data, but I agree it isn't really a notable star. Lithopsian (talk) 20:40, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree, and I'll do that now. I've gone through the other articles the editor started, but there don't appear to be any other problems like this, thankfully. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:34, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Standard to redlink stars in the list without their own articles? 20:47, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Red text is fine - it won't hurt anyone. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I assuming you're referring to when I delinked V342 Vel from the list of stars in Vela. I did that since we determined that it was not deserving of its own article here. Basically, we should leave redlinks when the star deserves its own article, but not when it doesn't. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:39, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I think that if there are star articles found and all we have are base stats and they fail notability, we could probably redirect all and migrate stats into the List of....articles Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:39, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with this to a point, but there has to be some point that we don't merge to the list, since otherwise the lists would get nearly infinitely big. Like it somebody created an article on RandomStar123, a typical star with absolutely nothing of note, then there's no reason to merge. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:46, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

True, but I don't think anyone has made random articles on 12th mag stars. I have no problem with random 7th-9th mag stars being added. I don't think there'll be that many.Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

The user who created this article, Obiwan042 (talk · contribs) has multiple level-3 warnings on his/her talk page about veracity of statements added to star articles, so perhaps all the articles created by this person should be reviewed. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:12, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Bloody hell, I even noted this 3 years ago....hmmm. time to check. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:23, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

There are a whole series of stubs, mostly border-line naked eye stars. Many are already tagged for lack of references, some are not. I'm making a list. Back shortly. Lithopsian (talk) 14:47, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Lacking references:

• Omicron1_Canis_Majoris expanded
• HD 36960
• upsilon Orionis expanded
• HD 72561
• Rho Ophiuchi
• HD 165516
• V4381 Sagittarii
• Lambda Mensae
• HD 48099

Lacking references and not tagged:

• 1 Scorpii
• 119 Tauri
• Thuban
• Vela X-1
• S Coronae Borealis
• Mu Normae
• RW Cephei
• Mu Mensae
• Zeta Mensae
• HD 133683
• HD 115337
• 17 Camelopardalis
• Lambda Cephei
• Phi Cassiopeiae
• HD 168476
• Phi Cassiopeia is a redirect that should probably be removed

I deleted the last as a non-probable redirect. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, expanded upsilon Orionis for a DYK Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:48, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Aaand Omi1 CMa too. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Kelle Cruz‎

I just tagged Kelle Cruz‎ for your project.

I found a couple of 'first author' papers in Google Scholar, which says they are cited 78 and 158 times. Are these sufficient citations (along with the APS profile) to speak to notability for including Cruz's bio in English Wikipedia? Please answer at Talk:Kelle Cruz.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:31, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Need help finding sources RE: the size of the Hubble Deep Field

Hello,

I am struggling with conflicting sources RE: the size (angular diameter) of the Hubble Deep Field.

If you can help, please see my original post on the talk page of that article.

Thanks. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 21:28, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/AGORA High-Resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand what "[Reviewers: Please note permissions that have been granted for reuse on the Talk page.]" means. What talk page is this referring to? -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 06:52, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Good question. It is this talk page:

• User_talk:Sjzaslaw/sandbox

I'll link it from the submission.

Re-use permission needs to be mailed to WP:OTRS or posted on the source website. Permission must include a compatible free license.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:10, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

That talk page should probably be moved to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/AGORA High-Resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project-talk and have {{Talkspace draft-talk}} attached to it, with the corresponding {{Talkspace draft}} attached to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/AGORA High-Resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project to link the two pages together in the regular wikipedia talkspace draft / talkspace draft talk pairing. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 00:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Done. Thanks 70.50.151.11 . --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 19:12, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

AGORA is a very interesting supercomputing project, though I don't think it is quite mature enough to have its own article at Wikipedia yet. I think that some coverage in the University of California High-Performance AstroComputing Center article will be adequate, (though we would need to resolve the copyright problems there.)

What do more experienced astronomy editors think?

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:36, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Capella (star)

I'd proposed moving this to Capella - see Talk:Capella_(star)#Requested_move. Discuss away. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:38, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

GMT discussion at WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

There is a discussion at WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#UT vs GMT for pre-1961 occurences about what to do when a Universal Time before 1962ish is mentioned in a Wikipedia article; is it better to use "GMT" or "UT". Jc3s5h (talk) 17:05, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 03/03

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/NGC 64. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:54, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Certainly notable per WP:NASTRO, although AfC itself is something that I dare not touch with a 10-foot pole. I encourage the reviewer to submit it to the mainspace though. StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:00, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I just moved it - it's a valid stub. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:53, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Musca and Caelum

Musca is at FAC and Caelum is at Peer Review, if anyone wants to take a look. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Category:Astronomy people

Category:Astronomy people (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for renaming -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 05:52, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Urania's Mirror

New article I've created. I've guesstimated it as Low importance and B-class, does that seem about right? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 10:42, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Adam for the new article. I had tagged it as C-class instead of B-class but If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any concerns, feel free to revert. Thanks again - Ninney (talk) 11:06, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, the last section could still use a lot of work, so C-class is fair enough. I'm hoping to get it to GA eventually, but it's not a bad first draft, methinks. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 12:34, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Expansion to Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall

I have several problems regarding this article:

• Its name I felt the name is a bit too long, I just named it. The structure was not named by the original cited paper by Istvan Horvath et al and its name was based from its location from the Discovery News article. But it was too long, I feel.

• Data Probably it was only correlated by 14 gamma ray bursts with similar redshifts. The area is 45 degrees wide. However, it was too large, and I tried to map out all the GRB occurrences beginning from 1997 to 2012 through a chartboard in my room, and showed no obvious sign of what was the clustering detected by Horvath et al in the Hercules-Corona Borealis region.

• Expansion I need someone who will revise even more the article. Solving the "Homogeneity problem" section requires a big deal. I think it is a flux in the early universe, but more explanation please!

Comment it in the talk page.

Thank you! ==Johndric Valdez (talk) 11:46, 8 March 2014 (UTC)==

Oh, I almost forgot, the size of the universe. This structure is 10 billion light years by 7.2 billion light years at a distance of 10 billion light years. 10 billion + 10 billion = 20 billion, larger than the light travel distance of the visible universe (13.798 billion light years) Even the shorter dimension, 7.2 billion + 10 billion = 17.2 billion, still larger.

I've put it in the talk page, but no one explains it well. One says it would be quite be a "fallacious assumption" to say that its furthest point was that part. Now, why? Why? I need to know ==Johndric Valdez (talk) 11:56, 8 March 2014 (UTC)==

Well, remember that the light travel distance is a radius from our point. The other thing to remember is that the universe is expanding, so that things, such as the cosmic radiation background, can have started tiny and expanded out to huge, particularly if the effect began before inflation. I couldn't possibly speculate further. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 12:39, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I have serious doubts about this result—it is based on only 31 quasars out of which 14 are alleged to clump together to form this structure. Ruslik_Zero 16:24, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

"Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall"; if we (Wikipedia editors) coined this term, then we just did some WP:OR. "Hercules–Corona Borealis GRB overdensity" would be a descriptive term. However our article also calls it "Hercules–Corona Borealis Supercluster Complex", but Tully shows a complex/filament/wall with this name from 1988

 3   HERCULES - CORONA BOREALIS SUPERCLUSTER COMPLEX
    3.1    Hercules Supercluster
    3.2    Bootes Supercluster
    3.3    Corona Borealis Supercluster
    3.4    Corona Borealis - Hercules Supercluster

— http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~lazz/distribution/LSC_DataDir1/LIGOmovies/NearbyGalaxyCatalogueDefinitions.html

-- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 00:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

{{infobox nebula}}

Template:Infobox nebula (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 08:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Aurora (astronomy)

Currently we have the article Aurora (astronomy) which seems to deal exclusively with the Earth. Do we have a more generalized article covering aurora in other places? -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 01:11, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

No, look again. There is a section. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:41, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, then the article should probably be split, and a new stub made, with the current article being renamed to aurorae on Earth or something. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:22, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

"Aurora (astronomy)" is being moved to "aurora", so that clears the name "Aurora (astronomy)" for the new stub. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 06:40, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

The move has been completed, so we can start a new article on the general term aurora at aurora (astronomy) -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 07:12, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

It compares Earth aurorae to the others, it doesn't exactly cover other auroras. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 06:40, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Stripe 82

Stripe 82: this is a new article about a region of sky that has been imaged multiple times by multiple different studies. However, I cannot seem to find exactly where the region is, so that I can categorize and fix it properly. Does anyone know where the region is located? In addition, do people think that a region of the sky itself is worthy of an article? StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:20, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems to be a privileged piece of the Sloan digital survey that astronomers are concentrating as a sort of test case for various observational techniques. There was even a conference at Princeton on the stripe, which is good evidence for notability. From that link it is equatorial, but I don't know more than that. --Mark viking (talk) 17:45, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I think we need a new category for things like this... Category:Sky regions ? -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 08:04, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Created and populated. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:01, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Stripe 82 is ±2.5° in dec from the celestial equator ref. The image suggests it runs for 120°, from +60° to -60° (degrees of RA), but that's just by eye. This has coordinates, but I can't work out the reference system. The article needs more prose and an explanation of notability, or it runs the risk of being prodded as a non-notable list. Modest Genius ^talk 00:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Nebula of Orion

Found a weird page... I think it should redirect to Orion Nebula; what do you think? -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 08:18, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

This is a disambiguation page. It exists to guide readers from a plausible name for an article to the article they are actually interested in. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:22, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

It is a disambiguation page, but it is also claiming that the term "Nebula of Orion" has no primary topic. I should think that Orion Nebula is the primary topic of "Nebula of Orion", and this page doesn't even list the linked to list of nebulae at the Orion Complex article. If it is meant to contend that they are all called "Nebula of Orion", they should be listed on the page. If there is a primary topic the the disambiguation page should carry "(disambiguation)", and the page should redirect to the main article. It also looks like it should be converted to a WP:SETINDEX, not remain a disambiguation page, considering the redlinks from the Orion Complex section it links to. Aside from that, it only appears to list star clusters and not nebulae, per the header for the only section that lists articles on the dab page itself, so is "strange". -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 05:57, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree, this should redirect to Orion Nebula as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I'm not convinced that there is any need for a dab page, as none of those other items is ever called 'Nebula of Orion' or 'Orion Nebula', so there's no need to disambiguate. Modest Genius ^talk 00:16, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

 Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:00, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 27/03

I don't know what the policy is on these new planets, but I just read that same article yesterday...talk about coincidence! Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Biden (Dwarf Planet). FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:06, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

This AfC needs to be killed, 2012 VP113 (the technical name for the body) already exists as a page. Primefac (talk) 19:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

It would probably be useful to create Biden (Dwarf Planet) & Biden (dwarf planet) as redirects -- 70.24.250.235 (talk) 05:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Good idea. Done. Primefac (talk) 19:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

ICRS, TIRS, GCRS, ERA

There don't seem to be any articles, or even section of articles, about these reference systems/frames that link International Terrestrial Reference System to International Celestial Reference System/International Celestial Reference Frame.

I am thinking of creating some material on this, and have two questions?

1. Did I miss articles or sections of articles about these that I missed?
2. Would it be better to create articles about these, or would it be better to incorporate them into existing articles. If it's better to put them in existing articles, should we merge the ITRS, ICRS, and ICRF articles into the same articles?

Jc3s5h (talk) 11:19, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Great, these topics could do with some expansion! We also have Earth-centered inertial, which mentions the GCRF and ICRF and International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, which mention the reference frames, but in no detail. With regard to merging, I think that ICRS and ICRF could be usefully merged, but ITRS and ITRF should stay separate from ICRS and ICRF--the reason being that ITRF tends to be used in geodesy and GIS, whereas ICRS and ICRF are more relevant for astrometry and celestial mechanics and navigation. --Mark viking (talk) 00:44, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The thing is that usually there is a need to transform coordinates among these systems to perform a single task, such as observing a star from an earth-based observatory. The relationships and transformations seem to be just as important as the reference systems/frames. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I can understand that. I recently completely rewrote Geographic coordinate conversion as a start on covering such transforms for terrestrial coordinate systems. I guess the question is whether is it better to merge all these articles or to create an article like Celestial coordinate conversion or Astronomical coordinate conversion. --Mark viking (talk) 18:11, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Request for article

Your newest project member here. I expect I'll be more use to this project as a wordsmither than as a raw content provider. But nosing around today I discovered that there is no article for the Barycentric Celestial Reference System, and no clear resolution (disambiguation) path for "BCRS" into astronomical info, not even for resolving what the acronym stands for. I see that the ICRS article is still a stub, but it might be useful to have a stub for BCRS also, with some cross-referencing, perhaps to Barycentric coordinates (astronomy), time dilation and definition articles, and maybe Astronomical unit. That last article is where I ran into BCRS, in trying to decode a source describing why the au was redefined in 2012. The acronym apparently seems so familiar to experts that they often fail even to define it, but the novice reader on WP could use some help. Evensteven (talk) 21:53, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Well I for one have never heard of BCRS, and I've been working in professional astronomy since 2006... There's some discussion of articles on reference systems a few items up on this talk page, you might like to add it to that list. Those articles will inevitable be very technical. Modest Genius ^talk 21:57, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

This is part of the IAU 2000 resolutions, see [1]. That paper might make a good secondary source. --Mark viking (talk) 22:25, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, well now I see why I was having to grope for clues. But for all I knew, it looked foundational. I bumped into something that said the ICRS is a subset of BCRS(or was it a special case?), but I didn't quite follow that, as I could get no clear definitions. I would guess that the body of such an article could get highly technical, but I leave it to others to decide how much detail is useful. I suggested creation of a stub article now just in order to provide some basic lead material for the less expert, and a connection point for related topics. Evensteven (talk) 22:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

That abstract could be used as a thesaurus for 'talked about'. Modest Genius ^talk 23:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Looking into this question I stumbled into Barycentric coordinate system and guarded it with a hatnote so it won't become a Rancho La Brea tar pit of astronomers. As for our own astronomical barycentic measurements, seems to me we've already got plenty enough articles, maybe even too many, but not enough links connecting them, and too many asumptions of familiarity for, well, moderately ignorant amateurs like me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jim.henderson (talk) 15:45, 03 April 2014 (UTC)

The "too many assumptions of familiarity" item is really what I've been getting at here. If a new article isn't the right way to approach it, it's no problem by me; that was just my initial thought. It looks like this topic might converge with the discussion in the #ICRS, TIRS, GCRS, ERA section above? Evensteven (talk) 18:28, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I think this section and the #ICRS, TIRS, GCRS, ERA both have the position that (1) there are a number of reference systems and reference frames out there used in astrometry, (2) WP coverage of these is inadequate, and (3) in particular, relations among these systems is unclear and information on coordinate conversions is not there. For terrestrial reference frames, we have a number of articles on particular frames, an overall article in Geographic coordinate system, and a comparison/conversions article in Geographic coordinate conversion. We could do something similar here. Or we could, as you suggested, just create a stub for BCRS. --Mark viking (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Commonplace. Wikipedia articles on most topics beyond the most elementary level are full of WP:JARGON inserted by well meaning insiders. They remember the early years when they learned the business, starting with learning insider vocabulary. They work with professional publications that use the same language. Doing precise work with the blunt, slippery tools of ordinary discourse is a business of its own, largely unknown to specialists in any field. So, those of us who have some idea how to do this, and some notion of the topic, must figure how to bridge a gap which we haven't crossed ourselves, to write prefaces and install links to explain clearly something we only roughly understand. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Something that bothers me is that so many official descriptions of technical standards stick to describing what the standard is, without describing the motivation for creating it. Even if the Wikipedia editor thinks (s)he knows the motivation, it's hard to find a reliable source to confirm the editor's impression about the motive is right. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:48, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty much agreed on all these points. One of the things I think I can contribute to this project is my very recognition of these problems, and some of just that language to introduce material at novice or intermediate levels. I'm not entirely particular about how the gaps we're recognizing here are filled - there could easily be more than one good way - but we should indeed fill them. From what I've read now, it looks to me like BCRS and GCRS are simply two new reference systems created in 2001, which have distinct advantages over older systems in that they remove from certain observations dependencies on relativistic effects. One provides a heliocentric coordinate system (BCRS), the other a geocentric one (GCRS), and conversions can (with some trouble) be done from one to the other. It's not perfectly clear to me, but I think similar systems could also be constructed in reference to any other significant gravity well (other planets, maybe even large moons), but haven't yet been made because of lack of sufficient need. I'd expect proliferation of systems could be a topic of discussion about standards in time to come, but probably over decades. But these present ones clearly relate to ICRS, which itself seems to relate to other reference frames in astrometry. So I'd say these are things we need to tie together at an introductory level, which is always a good starting place. If we structure the information the right way, it will be easy to expand the set of articles we have to include ever more expert information. What I don't know myself is just how much of that information exists, or how much of that belongs in WP. We need to have some idea of that also in order to know how many articles are necessary for coverage. My guess is still that a new stub for BCRS is a requisite first step, but I defer to anyone who knows better. Btw, a good college textbook might be a place to get some basic reliable coverage of motivations for standards. But my personal history goes too far back for me to have anything current at hand, unless I can find it in my public library. Anyone have a copy of Filippenko's The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millenium (4th edition, 2014)? How deep does that go? Evensteven (talk) 05:36, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

One more thought: Here on WP, I'm not bothered by the prospect of writing something on a topic I only understand vaguely. I can give it a shot (be bold!), and if I get it wrong, I expect someone more expert can correct the trajectory. After all, WP is itself a process of successive approximations. Evensteven (talk) 05:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and created a stub for Barycentric celestial reference system and redirected BCRS to the new article. Feel free to jump in and improve. --Mark viking (talk) 08:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks;I'm looking at it. I notice that GCRS is similarly uncovered (somehow I had acquired a false impression earlier that it did exist). Since there couldn't have been lots of demand for coverage in the past, I'd like to suggest that we could simply cover GCRS in the BCRS article, at least for now. (There's some there already.) More redirects would be enough to get readers to the info. Of course, the topics could always be separated later if it proved desirable. Or is someone in favor of a separate stub now? Evensteven (talk) 16:16, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 08/04

Draft:Cosmic age problem. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:12, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications, and Remote Sensing. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:42, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Cosmos Episode List Question

I've been trying to cut down the number of Unassessed articles in this group, and today I came across "Standing Up in the Milky Way," an episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which for some reason has been ranked as being in the purview of WP Astronomy. I can understand the main article being included, but does the episode itself (and the subsequent episodes) really need to be added to our project? Primefac (talk) 20:27, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

The series article already has descriptions of individual episodes, and ready-made places for those to come. That seems plenty for this project. As a whole, a series of what could be 15 articles for this subject seems more like promotion in this context. Doesn't it really fall more under the purview of television? Couldn't a little desirable linking be done instead? There's a fine introductory course on Astronomy given by Alex Filippenko on DVD (one of the Great Courses) which seems more pertinent (if less dramatic), yet I don't think we'd want to create 97 articles for it. This could snowball in an undesirable way. Evensteven (talk) 00:33, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Just classify the individual episodes as bottom-class and be done with it. They are related to astronomy, so would on the face of it, seem to be within the purview. Thus we have the bottom class that can be used. Since the quality rating is the same across projects, any WPTV member should also end up giving all projects a quality rating. (Though this aspect of WPPs never made sense to me, how can quality be the same across all topic areas?) -- 70.24.250.235 (talk) 04:29, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Good points (both of you) - however, different projects can give different ratings (I've certainly seen a few of them); it's only Wiki's overall ranking that goes with the "highest bidder" so to speak. Of course, that's not to say a WPTV person couldn't just add rankings for other projects, but that seems a little cheeky. Primefac (talk) 08:42, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Added images to ~450 asteroid images.

Hey y'all, Just leaving a note that I've added ~450 asteroid images to some asteroid pages. The images are 3D models based on light-curve inversions, from a database I found from Charles University. The list of articles effected is here. I wrote a script to do the insertion, so I can run it again if/when more models are published.

Tim1357 ^talk|poke 19:52, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder

Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 17:02, 17 April 2014 (UTC).

{{Starbox 2}}

Template:Starbox 2 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.77.36 (talk) 05:32, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:Astronomy people

Category:Astronomy people (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for renaming -- 65.94.77.36 (talk) 23:47, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Royal Society journals - subscription offer for one year

I'm delighted to say that the Royal Society, the UK’s National Academy for science, is offering 24 Wikipedians free access for one year to its prestigious range of scientific journals. Please note that much of the content of these journals is already freely available online, the details varying slightly between the journals – see the Royal Society Publishing webpages. For the purposes of this offer the Royal Society's journals are divided into 3 groups: Biological sciences, Physical sciences and history of science. For full details and signing-up, please see the applications page. Initial applications will close on 25 May 2014, but later applications will go on the waiting list. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 03:16, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

European Extremely Large Telescope: ‎Time for an update?

The European Extremely Large Telescope article seems to be out of date at the moment. As of April 2014, there are reports suggesting that construction of the telescope is now either imminent or already under way: see http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/20/spot-alien-life-european-extremely-large-telescope-chilean . This presumably means that the agreement to build it must now be complete. Can someone who is up to date on this please take a look at the article? Thanks, -- The Anome (talk) 16:56, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Weirdly, construction has started (site clearance anyway), but the agreement has still not been finalised. ESO are still waiting for Brazil to sort out their accession agreement and payment, which impacts on the funding for E-ELT. The project is in a funding limbo at the moment, but preliminary work is being done. Modest Genius ^talk 13:25, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Problem with the closest Seyfert galaxy

It is really a wide claim that the Circinus Galaxy is the closest known Seyfert galaxy to Earth, at 13 million light years. However, I've found out that NGC 185, a satellite of Andromeda galaxy and a relatively close neighbor to our galaxy, is a Seyfert galaxy. And it's distance was only just a mere 2.06 million light years! Also, there is the galaxy NGC 4945, distanced 11.7 million light years. But lots of the articles in the Internet claim the Circinus Galaxy as closest.

I just simply don't get it. Where in the world does the claim that Circinus Galaxy as the closest known Seyfert galaxy to Earth came from? NGC 185 is six times closer, and is also a Seyfert, yet it is not mentioned. Is there any misidentification? ==Johndric Valdez (talk) 04:44, 1 May 2014 (UTC)==

The status of NGC185 as a Seyfert apparently is in doubt [2]; if it doesn't have an active nucleus, then it isn't a Seyfert, but some other type of galaxy with Seyfert like features. (as claimed by the linked to paper)

The distances for Circinus and 4945 are similar, and the spread in the values reported for those two galaxies span millions of light years. 4945 in [3] says 13 million light years, not your figure of 11.7; so it would depend on what figure you're using for the distance.

This source [4] says NGC4395 is the nearest, at 8Mly

While this source [5] clearly says the Circinus is the closest Type 2 Seyfert.

-- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 05:12, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

The Indestructibles

I declined a prod after adding a few sources, but this article needs work. Posting here to request article improvements, if anyone is interested. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:47, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, that's a mess of an article, and do we really need it? A few sentences on the Egyptian name and pyramid connection could be added to Circumpolar star, which is a much better article. Modest Genius ^talk 03:31, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Great Annihilator - merge into Galactic Center?

I've created a merger proposal to merge Great Annihilator into Galactic Center, as it's currently only one line long and doesn't really necessitate its own page. Primefac (talk) 16:37, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I believe the correct name for that source is 1E 1740.7-2942 SIMBAD; the current article title is a silly and informal nickname. It seems to have lots of references so is probably worth having its own article. However, a one line stub isn't much use, at least without any context. Modest Genius ^talk 16:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It should definitely have an article, as it clearly meets clause #3 of WP:NASTRO. Of course, the current article doesn't really say much about it, so should probably be expanded. I don't think it should be merged though; it's not doing any harm. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:46, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

{{Lunar coords and quad cat}}

Template:Lunar coords and quad cat (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for merger. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 06:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Sibling of the Sun

What do you think about an ITN for HD 162826? (Also, any improvement to the article would be appreciated - I haven't mined the preprint very heavily) See [6]. Wnt (talk) 01:50, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Astronomy At Wikimania 2014

Are you looking to recruit more contributors to your project?
We are offering to design and print physical paper leaflets to be distributed at Wikimania 2014 for all projects that apply.
For more information, click the link below.
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 10:38, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Moonrise photo

Moonrise over Nationalpark Müritz

I recently uploaded this photo, and then nominated it to be a featured image in the commons. If some of you are active in the commons, perhaps you'd like to comment on the discussion. Ckyba (talk) 20:29, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Is that a separate process from Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates ? -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 06:46, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

PR

I would appreciate any feedback at Wikipedia:Peer review/List of nearest exoplanets/archive1. Thanks, Nergaal (talk) 09:49, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Portal:Astronomy/Events/2014 → 2014 in astronomy

FYI, Portal:Astronomy/Events/2014 has been proposed to be renamed to 2014 in astronomy, and possibly all the year pages in the portal as well. See Portal talk:Astronomy/Events/2014 -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 05:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Voyager_1#Manmade_vs._Humanmade

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Voyager_1#Manmade_vs._Humanmade. Manmade vs humanmade - Which one? Thanks. Tutelary (talk) 00:15, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL

This page, 2780 Monnig, list in the category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL. I check the accessdate and URL, but can't find the error. Can you help me to find out it. Thanks.--Cheers! (talk) 16:32, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

oh, error is in the cite journal template which has accessdate but no URL.--Cheers! (talk) 16:36, 4 June 2014 (UTC)