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Unilateral changes for this project

MartinZ has been making a large number of seemingly unilateral changes to this project which I think merit some discussion (and maybe trouting). I think that they should stop before things get broken beyond repair. A list of things that I've noticed:

• Unilaterally changing the AST member's list. They were reverted, but they did the same thing to WP Spaceflight's membership
• Unilaterally deciding how our projects are organized
• Creating Category:Kepler-452 planetary system / Category:Gliese 581 planetary system while depopulating and breaking the cat tree of Category:Kepler-452 / Category:Gliese 581.
• Moved Category:Wikipedia European Space Agency task force to Category:European Space Agency task force for... reasons.
• Moved Wikipedia:WikiProject Space/Portals because "it's inactive".
• about a dozen other unilateral changes that aren't purely cosmetic

This hasn't hit the level of bringing it before the admins yet, since I'd like to keep it in-house (and we haven't really had much of a discussion yet). However, I'd really like to hear MartinZ's explanation for some of this (especially the moving of entire projects), and ask that they self-revert their actions (in particular the stuff that affects articles, like category renaming). Primefac (talk) 14:06, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

As a note, I'm not going to be upset if some of these changes turn out to be acceptable, but it's the act of Righting Great Wrongs without telling anyone that bothers me and needs more eyes. Primefac (talk) 14:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm off the opinion that most of these changes are too sweeping and too big to be done without discussion. I'd revert everything back to status quo, since WP:ABDF very much applies here. Then we can have discussions, with arguments for (or against) these changes. I also don't like the Gliese 581 planetary system article. I don't see why Gliese 581 isn't suitable for all this material. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:31, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Agree. I think the articles like Kepler-442 planetary system and Gliese 581 planetary system are mostly redundant and could be merged with the parent star articles. Loooke (talk) 19:53, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I disagree—if you want to merge something, you should merge the star articles into the system articles. —MartinZ (talk) 20:08, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The title needs to satisfy WP:CRITERIA. Because most exoplanets don't have well known names, viewers are more likely to search on the star name, which satisfies naturalness, conciseness, and consistency. Praemonitus (talk) 21:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

But it's still inappropriate to include content about the planets in the star article because it's outside the scope of the article. —MartinZ (talk) 15:54, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Gliese 581 is the perfect place for such material. The planets aren't independently notable of the star, nor is the star independantly notable of the planets. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:17, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

It's perfectly acceptable for two closely related topics to share an article. See WP:SPLIT for more information. Praemonitus (talk) 17:06, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Does that mean you're perfectly fine with having content about the solar system planets in the “Sun” article? Also, I cannot see anything in WP:SPLIT that supports your position. —MartinZ (talk) 06:45, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

See WP:CONSPLIT, which discusses articles sharing distinct topics of a more diverse nature than what we're talking about here. Ergo, closely related topics can share the same article up until consensus is reached for a split. In the case of the Sun article, clearly it's a WP:SIZESPLIT. There are 99,000 characters in the document, which is close to the 100,000 limit. Adding in the planets would propel it well beyond that total. Praemonitus (talk) 14:49, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

But, assuming size is not an issue, would you support merging “Solar System” into “Sun?” Would you also support merging “United States” into “Washington, D.C.,” if size isn't an issue? —MartinZ (talk) 16:05, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

So why did you call the articles "...planetary system"? Not at all the same as "Solar system" which I could see as including both the sun and planets (and everything else, assuming size isn't an issue). The "system" part of Gliese 581 is implicit and always has been. Any number of star articles include summary of detailed information about planetary systems, debris discs, sub-stellar companions, etc. If you feel that is inadequate, mis-leading, or just plain wrong, I would suggest it needs some prior discussion before you set out to "fix" hundreds of articles. Lithopsian (talk) 16:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it’s the same, because the solar system is a planetary system. One could also say that the “system” part of “Sun” is implicit, yet, that article is the only one of the star articles that doesn't include information about the rest of its planetary system. —MartinZ (talk) 17:31, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't like the argument that you're trying to make because the Solar System and the Gliese 581 system are very different. Obviously, the two are both planetary systems. However, the Solar System is much more extensively studied, has a lot of history behind it (the planets were known to be separate entities before we figured out the hierarchy of the Solar System), and even has official names to its planets. The Gliese 581 system isn't like that. The names of the planets, such as "Gliese 581 g", are much more connected to the parent star than the Sun.

In short, I disagree with your analogy: we wouldn't put information about planets in the Sun article and the reason for that is related to the reason why the planets aren't called "Sun b", "Sun c", "Sun d", etc. Loooke (talk) 20:23, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't support a straw man argument. You're being ridiculous. Praemonitus (talk) 17:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

“Gliese 581” isn't suitable for the same reason that “Sun” isn’t suitable for all the material about the solar system. —MartinZ (talk) 19:58, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

And the WikiProject stuff? Primefac (talk) 20:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I wanted to cleanup a few things, and made the assumption that no one would care about the changes. —MartinZ (talk) 20:14, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

You clearly missed the next reply then, and the sarcasm dripping off of Praemonitus's statement. Primefac (talk) 20:19, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I apologize for that. I just didn't feel it was worth the bother. Praemonitus (talk) 14:42, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Revert everything. Hugely disruptive changes...in the above list, can anything be considered beneficial? The planetary system articles and categories are especially in need of termination. — Huntster (t @ c) 20:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Can you explain how they're actually disruptive? I especially don't see the problem with the planetary system articles and categories. —MartinZ (talk) 21:15, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

• Bunch of cat changes that might need looking at. Primefac (talk) 22:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

• MartinZ's damaging edits to the WikiProject Council's list of astronomy projects is bad for us. He listed Spaceflight as a topic of Astronomy, which is ludicrous. I've reverted that change back to the March 2017 version of Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 05:02, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I've reverted the changes to Template:Astronomy projects navigation for the same reason. Spaceflight is not astronomy -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 05:42, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

  May I please ask you to not put "RVV" (which means "reverting vandalism") into your edit summaries when reverting my contributions, as they aren't vandalism [1][2]. —MartinZ (talk) 08:49, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• MartinZ is removing physical cosmology from astronomy and moving it to philosophy -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 05:46, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Category:European Space Agency task force" is a very bad category name. It uses the name of a content category for Wikipedia background crap. The WPTF is not a content category, but the name of the category MartinZ uses is a content category name. ESA has many TFs in real life, they would end up in this category name. Further you cannot just rename categories. That is not allowed, they have to be proposed (such as at WP:CFDS) for just this reason. -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 05:54, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• I have been seeing his changes to WP Spaceflight, and not only did they look good I was really happy he took the initiative to do it, for what its worth. I don't have an opinion for this project because I do not do work with it. Kees08 (talk) 06:46, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Are you saying you approve of him unilaterally declaring WP Spaceflight members inactive? E.g., User:N2e says on his talk page that he "is going to be on Wikipedia in on-and-off doses". I don't think this kind of thing should be done; do we have a norm/guideline which covers declaring other people inactive? JustinTime55 (talk) 14:04, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

When I made the inactive list, I wrote above the list that if the user has not edited for more than a year they get moved to the inactive list. As the first person to unilaterally declare people inactive, as well as a lot of other changes that need to be done to our project, I was just happy someone was taking initiative to do some maintenance activities. If you get marked inactive when you are not, all you have to do is move your name back. That members list does not really mean a whole lot anyways, I was hoping to use it to find people to coordinate with but so far that has not really worked out. Kees08 (talk) 14:17, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• As MartinZ is also doing this to WP:COSMOLOGY, if you're participants in that, you may want to comment there as well -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 04:57, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  It’s said at their project page that we aren’t their parent project: “Our fellow sister WikiProjects are WikiProject Astronomy, WikiProject Astronomical objects, and WikiProject Physics [emphasis added].” There’s no reason for you to care about this when the actual members of that project doesn’t. —MartinZ (talk) 05:58, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Did you actually read what 70.51.200.162 wrote? It doesn't appear so. Praemonitus (talk) 16:09, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  If they actually did care, they would have done something about this themselves. —MartinZ (talk) 18:32, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  I think perhaps you presume too much. It doesn't hurt to ask first. Please read Wikipedia:Civility. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 18:47, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Although it may have been true that I did presume too much when making changes to this project, I still believe that it can be reasonably assumed—per WP:SILENCE—that they don’t have anything against my contributions to their project. In fact, they actually wrote on their project page that they don’t consider themselves part our project. —MartinZ (talk) 13:13, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

  Again, WP:COSMOLOGY not being part of our project is not germane to this part of the thread. 70.51.200.162 was presumably mentioning it to alert members of that project who happen to be here and may not have WP:COSMOLOGY on their watch list. Praemonitus (talk) 17:36, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

  Also, SILENCE is also the weakest form of consensus. I think it's pretty clear that your changes were unwelcome, as most of them have been reverted. Also, SILENCE is a cheap get-out-of-jail-free essay when you're editing pages that hardly anyone watches. Primefac (talk) 19:00, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

  My changes on this project were unwelcome. The members of WP:COSMOLOGY haven't done anything about my contributions yet, despite the fact that my changes were done to their project page. —MartinZ (talk) 19:20, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

  No, your changes at WPCOSMOLOGY goes against what the existing talk page comments talk about. So you are against that project as well. You should have asked for a new consensus for changes there since the existing talk page and existing page history there clearly shows affinity for Astronomy. Otherwise, why would years of inclusion in astronomy exist? An editor there who isn't me has been reverting your changes, so clearly it isn't SILENCE since you're being reverted. It's a fundamental failure of your going by WP:BRD by you not even deigning to discuss changes with WPCOSMOLOGY when multiple people revert you. -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 04:28, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

  There's nothing on that talk page that would indicate that they consider themselves part of our project, and the other editor who reverted me stopped when I told them that the consensus was to not categorize WP:COSMOLOGY under WP:ASTRONOMY. Discussing it with the project wouldn't have worked either, as evidenced by the fact that they have been WP:SILENT for all this time. —MartinZ (talk) 12:51, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

See also Kepler-442, Kepler-442 planetary system, and associated categories, currently partially reverted pending discussion. Lithopsian (talk) 15:45, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Looking at this talk page, it's clear that MartinZ's edits on the planetary system articles and categories were/are against consensus, so I reverted everything at Kepler-452, redirected Kepler-452 planetary system, and moved the category back to Category:Kepler-452. Loooke (talk) 20:43, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

MartinZ has made a lot of bold edits and content removals at Gliese 581 that should be looked at. For example, he split information about the planets to Gliese 581 planetary system. Here's an especially absurd edit where he removed a working starbox and added an {{Infobox star}} which worse in almost every way. @MartinZ, can you explain why you replaced a standardized starbox with important information and cited sources, with an old unused template lacking inline citations? Loooke (talk) 20:43, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I didn't realize that it was unused. —MartinZ (talk) 20:52, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Could you edit it back to the old version then? Loooke (talk) 21:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. —MartinZ (talk) 21:16, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that since I have last edited Gliese 581g MartinZ and other editors have also removed quite a bit of content from the article as well as breaking several citations to the point where you can't even easily fix them. See changes Davidbuddy9Talk 00:37, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Davidbuddy9, if the page is broken and not easily fixed, just revert to the last good version. Primefac (talk) 01:15, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

I fixed the citations, and quite easily, in fact. —MartinZ (talk) 12:29, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that MartinZ needs to slow down with the editing here, since it seems to be getting disruptive. Primefac (talk) 01:15, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I did slow down about ten days ago, and I haven’t done anything controversial since then. Most of the problems that have arisen are actually caused by people reverting my changes (i.e., they aren't reverted properly); for example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Members all was renamed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Space/Members all, but there's still a link that goes to the former on Wikipedia:WikiProject Space/Projects. I tried to fix the link, but got reverted by 70.51.200.162. There are a few other problems I have seen, though I didn’t fix them out of fear of being accused of continuing my controversial changes. —MartinZ (talk) 12:27, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Comment: I just read through this whole discussion, and for those who may come back to it I would simply like to remind everyone of WP:Civility and WP:Assume good faith. It seems that both sides are getting a tad more tense than the situation warrants. Rollbacking can fix mistakes. Besides, editors have deleted the main page - I think things could be a bit worse here =) --Nerd1a4i (talk) 22:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report

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Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I see C. F. Gauss has a low rating. Perhaps he should be bumped up a bit, if only for his work on the computation of minor planet orbits? Praemonitus (talk) 18:37, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Updating List of numbered comets

This list goes up to 347P, but JPL's Small-Body Database Browser lists three more: 348P/PANSTARRS, 349P/Lemmon, and 350P/McNaught. Can someone update the list? Thanks. Loooke (talk) 23:02, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Hey, usually I'm in charge of that and other comet lists. I've been a bit outdated recently, and I'm waiting for the next MPC batch to come out to have a substantial number of info to update. I suppose I could try updating it later this weekend, though. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 18:41, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Adding parameters to template:convert (Lunar Distance, Earth radius, Jupiter Radius, Solar Radius, Earth mass, Jupiter mass, Solar mass)

@Kheider: @Tom.Reding: @Davidbuddy9: @Lithopsian: @Drbogdan: @Rfassbind: @Modest Genius: hopefully I've pinged most of the relevant users (apologies if I pinged you unnecessarily): I have submitted a request to add the parameters Lunar distance (astronomy), Earth radius, Jupiter radius, Solar radius, Earth mass, Jupiter mass, and Solar mass (or at least a portion of these) to Template:Convert. As the people who I assume would most frequently be applying these, concerning template editors (@Tarl N.: @Johnuniq: @Kendall-K1:) and I would like your opinions on the frequency of usage of these parameters, whether it would be useful to add these for easy conversion in various articles, and just as importantly, if these units are standardized well enough to be given a constant conversion. Hope everyone's having a good day/night! exoplanetaryscience (talk) 05:13, 29 April 2017 (UTC) (please see original discussion on template talk:convert for more details.)

Please discuss what is wanted here. The proposal is that units be added to {{convert}}: Earth radius + Lunar distance (and more just added above). For each unit, the details to be decided are:

• Would it be useful for convert to handle the unit? That is, would the conversions be used in articles?
• What unit code should be used in the convert template?
• What is the precise km value?
• What should convert show for the symbol (if abbreviated) and name (if not)?

The following shows how convert handles solar radius:

• {{convert|10|solar radius|km|abbr=on}} → 10 R_☉ (7,000,000 km)
• {{convert|10|solar radius|km|0|abbr=on}} → 10 R_☉ (6,957,000 km)
• {{convert|10|solar radius|km|abbr=off}} → 10 solar radii (7,000,000 kilometres)

Johnuniq (talk) 05:43, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Good initiative. I think for all the 7 units, conversion figures (in km or kg), unit names, unit symbols (abbreviations) are given in the corresponding articles above. Aren't they? As for lunar distance I would suggest "LD" rather than the more complicated version using a Δ-symbol. The article gives 384,402 km for 1 LD. For articles on near-Earth objects, I often used an online-converter which uses a rounded 384,400 km for 1 LD, so I happy with either one of these conversion values. Rfassbind – talk 08:19, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I'll comment that what's important isn't how often the parameters are used, but how often they have to be converted to conventional units in our articles. I'll also comment that you don't want to use rounded values for the conversions - use as precise values as you can find. E.g., Lunar distance = 384,402 km (average semi-major axis), Earth radius = 6,371.0088 km (IUGG mean radius), Jovian radius = 69,911 (volumetric mean radius), Solar radius = 695700 km (IAU nominal solar radius), Earth Mass = 5.9722e24 kg, Jovian mass = 1.89819e27 kg, Solar Mass = 1.98855e30 kg. Some of those may be debated, in particular lunar distance which has several different average values. Tarl N. (discuss) 14:38, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I frequently use solar radius and solar mass (and others not included in this proposal), usually with the relevant templates, and very rarely convert them. There are nominal values for both adopted by the IAU and these should be considered definitive when describing other objects with these units. See IAU resolution for actual nominal values. Lithopsian (talk) 16:02, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Hmm. That IAU resolution doesn't entirely solve the problem for us - for both Earth and Jupiter radii, it provides separate Polar and Equatorial radii. We'd want either a mean radius or a volumetric radius, or some reason to pick one of those extreme values. It doesn't provide masses, either, it provides the GM product, which is more precise - but that requires us to derive the actual mass using the gravitational constant, which approaches WP:SYNTH (i.e., the reference cited doesn't actually use the number we'd pick). Sure, nits, but if we pick from that list, we'd need a specific rationale for each of the numbers picked. Tarl N. (discuss) 23:33, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

I can imagine some rare uses of the solar mass/radius, but astronomers use these units rather than converting to SI for very good reasons. Not only are the numbers huge, the calibration point often isn't known to many significant figures. For example, the ratio of Earth's mass to the Sun's mass is known much more precisely than either of those numbers alone, thanks to the uncertain value of G. How often do we actually want/need to convert these in articles? I don't see any possible use case for the lunar unit. Modest Genius ^talk 16:53, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Commnet {{convert}} should also handle conversion from/to parsec and parallax angle; and conversion between angle units (ie. mas / arcsec / HMS / DMS / DD ) ; and conversion between angular speed units; this would handle things like apparent size unit conversions, proper motion unit conversions, etc -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 05:14, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
  • That's getting rather complicated for no obvious use. {{starbox astrometry}} already does the parallax-distance conversion, and I don't see why it would help to have that in the running text. Besides, simply inverting the parallax isn't always the right calculation. If the uncertainties are more than about 10% the symmetric uncertainty in parallax becomes highly asymmetric in distance; the volume goes as distance cubed so the most likely distance shifts away from 1/ the most likely parallax. Modest Genius ^talk 16:53, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

How to best improve the Peter Jalowiczor article to a higher class?

I've been working on the Peter Jalowiczor article, and I want to know how best to improve it. It has been classifed as a "Start" class, but I've made many significant edits since then, adding sections, links to the article from other articles, references from many sources (I also formatted the citations), graphics, a "see also" section, an infobox, and many other things. I'm currently waiting on a response to an email asking for permission to use a photo of him. What else can I do to improve it? I want to improve it to the point that it is eventually a "Good Article" or even a "Featured Article". Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! --Nerd1a4i (talk) 16:33, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

This person is clearly of borderline notability - as the recent AfD showed. For now I've rated it B class as it seems as good as can be done with the (few) available sources, I see it's now at WP:GAN for the next step after that. Low importance on our scale. Modest Genius ^talk 17:03, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Top-cited missing journals

WP:JCW, a compilation of 'journal' citations on Wikipedia has recently been updated (see old thread). The top-cited missing journals/works of astronomy are

• Catalogue of Eggen's UBV data. SIMBAD / Catalogue of Eggen's UBV data
  • Not a journal or book. The mention of SIMBAD suggests a catalogue on VizieR, but was unable to identify which one. Or perhaps it's Bibcode:1960MNRAS.120...79E, which isn't on VizieR? Modest Genius ^talk 16:04, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
    • There's Bibcode:1986EgUBV........0M, which Mermilliod put together to rank/classify Eggen's information, but apparently it's unpublished (despite being used on just about every star article on Wikipedia). Primefac (talk) 16:17, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
      • We should have an entry about Eggen's data somewhere then. Even if it's just the Eggen article (assuming this is a person/publisher/group). Unless this is an old version of the Mermilliod UBV thing below? Might be worth including in the Mermilliod article? Either way, I know nothing of this source/catalogue/data, I'll leave it to people here to figure out the details for this one. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:42, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
        • I'm confused by Bibcode:1986EgUBV........0M. There's no link to an online catalogue or other database, and if it hasn't been published it can't be a book or other paper resource. So where is the data? ADS gives the source as SIMBAD, who of course were the originators of Bibcodes. SIMBAD does list the Bibcode as a source for some stars, but clicking on the relevant entry just gives a Not Found error message (for all Bibcodes, not just that one). Modest Genius ^talk 18:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
          • [3] might help. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:59, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
            • Not really. I still can't work out where any of this data is actually available. Were editors just copying values from SIMBAD without checking the source? If so, that violates WP:SAYWHERE, as well as being totally unverifiable. Modest Genius ^talk 14:39, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
              • Very likely copied from Simbad without checking the source directly, since the source in this case cannot be checked through the given bibcode. However, there are a series of publications describing the development of this UBV catalogue, for example see http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1987A%26AS...71..413M. Wikipedia has UBV Photoelectric Photometry Catalogue. Lithopsian (talk) 15:08, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
                • Pinging @Praemonitus: who seems to have added many of these. Modest Genius ^talk 18:10, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
                  • @Modest Genius: The unpublished Eggen (1986) data is frequently listed on Simbad as the most recent source in the 'ubv' section of Measurements. See for example, rho Tuc. Before now I had no reason to doubt the veracity of this source, since the data typically aligns very well with the other listed values. Praemonitus (talk) 19:20, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
                    • OK, I think WP:SAYWHERE applies. If the number is taken from SIMBAD then the citation should be to SIMBAD, not an obscure unpublished catalogue that none of us can find. Modest Genius ^talk 17:22, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
• CDS/ADC Collection of Electronic Catalogues
  • That's just another name for VizieR, which isn't a sufficient reference for anything (the equivalent of citing a search engine). Modest Genius ^talk 16:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Contributi Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova in Asiago
  • No idea what this publication is, but I've redirected to our page on the observatory. Modest Genius ^talk 18:24, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
  • Already covered at Journal_of_Geophysical_Research#Sections Modest Genius ^talk 16:10, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets
  • Already covered at Journal_of_Geophysical_Research#Sections Modest Genius ^talk 16:10, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets
• New Astronomy Reviews / Vistas in Astronomy / Astronomy Quarterly (not to be confused with New Astronomy (journal), which seems completely unrelated)
  • I think Elsevier split Vistas in Astronomy into two journals New Astronomy and New Astronomy Reviews. However, I can't be sure, because the editorial in the last issue of Vistas doi:10.1016/S0083-6656(98)80130-X, which presumably explains things, is behind the Elsevier paywall. So is the one in the first issue of New Astronomy. Modest Genius ^talk 16:27, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
    • What the editorial says is that Vistas in Astronomy was acquired by Elsevier, that it is to be renamed to New Astronomy Reviews and to dump the historical and philosophical articles and stick to reviews and conference proceedings. It kept the volume numbering sequence, but the complete board of editors was replaced by new people. New Astronomy was an electronic journal already published by Elsevier before this, but its existance was the motivation for the change. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:38, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
      • Thanks. Could be the basis of a stub. Modest Genius ^talk 18:06, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
• VizieR On-line Data Catalog: B/gcvs. Originally published in: 2009yCat....102025S (Bibcode:2009yCat....102025S)
  • That's the VizieR version of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars. The redirect has no incoming links; any unlinked citations can be updated to point there. Modest Genius ^talk 16:17, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• VizieR On-line Data Catalog: I/337. Originally published in: Astron. Astrophys
  • That was a temporary placeholder used while Gaia Data Release 1 was in the process of being published. All such citations should be updated to point to Bibcode:2016A&A...595A...2G, which is the catalogue description paper in A&A. Modest Genius ^talk 16:31, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Pinging @Lithopsian:, who seems to have added many of those citations. Modest Genius ^talk 18:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
      • They are mostly just copied from article to article, after I found a bibcode that seemed relevant. While Bibcode:2016A&A...595A...2G is the primary description of the data release, it does not link to the data that is actually being referenced (ie. Bibcode:2016yCat.1337....0G) - it may have been a temporary placeholder but it is still the central point from the Vizier point of view. Usually the bibcode for the paper is linked to the relevant online data repository and I think we need a citation that does that somehow. I guess the same could be said for many of the Vizie databases. Lithopsian (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
        • The VizieR catalogue is just a copy (actually a subset) of the DR1 data on the Gaia website, which is described and linked to in that A&A paper. I don't see why we need a link to VizieR at all if the paper is cited. Modest Genius ^talk 18:46, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• VizieR On-line Data Catalog: II/168. Originally published in: Institut d'Astronomie
  • Another VizieR copy of published data, this time Mermilliod's UBV catalogue. The correct reference seems to be Bibcode:1994cmud.book.....M. Modest Genius ^talk 16:37, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• VizieR On-line Data Catalog: II/246. Originally published in: 2003yCat.2246....0C (Bibcode:2003yCat.2246....0C)
  • That's the VizieR copy of the 2MASS point source catalogue. The correct citation is Bibcode:2003tmc..book.....C. Modest Genius ^talk 16:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• VizieR On-line Data Catalog: V/50. Originally published in: 1964BS....C......0H (Bibcode:1964BS....C......0H)
  • That's the fifth (1991) version of the Bright Star Catalogue, which is already mentioned in that article. References should be updated to something along the lines Hoffleit, Dorrit; Warren, Wayne (1991). Bright Star Catalogue (5 ed.). Bibcode:1991bsc..book.....H. Modest Genius ^talk 16:46, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Veröff. Astron. Rechen-Inst. Heidelb / Veröffentlichungen des Astronomischen Rechen–Instituts Heidelberg

Possibly indirectly related

• Annals of Geophysics
• Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems/Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems
• Journal of Asian Earth Sciences
• Journal of Geodynamics
• Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
  • Already covered at Journal_of_Geophysical_Research#Sections Modest Genius ^talk 16:50, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer
  • I'm surprised this one doesn't already have an article. It's a fairly well-known journal. Modest Genius ^talk 16:50, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics
• Pure and Applied Geophysics
• Seismological Research Letters

If members of this project could help writing those articles, that would be much appreciated. See our journal-writing guide at WP:JWG for help on writing these articles. Note that some of these might be better as sections of another article (usually publisher, or affiliated society), similar to Australia ICOMOS#Historic Environment. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:24, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Discovery of spiral arms

I just got back from an amateur lecture on galactic structure, intrigued by the question of how our own little galaxy can be understood, looking at it from the messy inside with plenty of nearby clouds and such obscuring the view. This led to the question of visible light vs radio; I had generally been told that radio was what it was all about and visible never could do much, but then there's this historical paper [4] from a few years ago. So, perhaps some of our editors could suggest how the various biographies, histories, and technical and scientific articles could be improved to explain and clarify these and similar matters. Jim.henderson (talk) 05:26, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Blue blobs

Hey all,

I stumbled across this article in the process of de-orphaning old unloved pages, and I can't figure out what to do with it - link to it elsewhere and leave it be, merge and redirect, or take to AfD. I just do not have the knowledge base to confirm I won't be screwing up. Is this term sufficiently notable to require its own article? Is there an appropriate target I could redirect to? I can handle any work that results, I just need to be pointed in the right direction. There is a very old discussion at this Project on the topic (9 years old to be exact), but it looks like the conversation petered out and nothing was done. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:40, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

It could probably be merged/redirected into any number of pages in the Category:Star clusters (Galaxy merger and Interacting galaxy are kind of the best two). I don't think this particular term is particularly notable. Primefac (talk) 21:47, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

The article could be renamed to Arp's Loop, or possibly merged into Interacting galaxy. Praemonitus (talk) 21:49, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

From the old discussion, it seems like it should be deleted, a WP:PROD should handle it. -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 08:51, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I have redirected it to interacting galaxy, thanks for your help everyone :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:52, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Pulsar up for deletion

A deletion discussion for PSR J1856+0245 has been started. Please join in the conversation here. Primefac (talk) 16:47, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Third pair of eyes on Solar Cycles

Could someone give me a second set of eyes on these contribs? They've gone and changed every single solar cycle (as well as the main list), but they haven't changed any of the refs so I can't verify the dates. I'll keep digging, but if someone else wants to take a gander that would be fantastic. Primefac (talk) 17:13, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh no! Are we using wrong images for some moons of Uranus and Neptune?

Copy-pasted from Talk:Moons of Neptune

The Halimede image that we're using might actually be Laomedeia: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~mholman/S2002N3_anim.gif Note: it's S/2002 N 3, so it's Laomedeia, not Halimede.

And here's one that is said to be Halimede: http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/gladman/nep2002N1.gif

And also, we have two moons that are missing images in the Moons of Uranus article. I have found images for both.

Discovery image for Margaret: http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/satellites/ura2003movie.html

And here's Trinculo. http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/gladman/s2001u1col.jpg

8.40.151.110 (talk) 02:20, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Should we merge WP:COSMOLOGY as a taskforce of WP:ASTRONOMY?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should we merge WP:COSMOLOGY as a taskforce of WP:ASTRONOMY? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:06, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Why is there a separate WP:COSMOLOGY? Seems to me this would be much better suited as a taskforce of WP:AST. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:09, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb, the Cosmology project was created by now-blocked sockpuppetteer Tetra quark. If I remember correctly, they said "I'm going to do this" and the consensus was "sure, go for it if you want" (though I can't find the specific thread here). The project never really gained any traction, looking at their rather short talk page, and we could probably gobble it back up. Primefac (talk) 02:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

• Should we start a merger discussion to merge WPCOSMOLOGY into a taskforce of this wikiproject? -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 04:30, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Consider this merger discussion already be started. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:06, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Pinging User:Tetra quark, User:YohanN7, User:StringTheory11, User:SkyFlubbler, User:Polytope24, User:Royalmate1, User:Huntster, User:Drbogdan, User:Owais Khursheed, User:Tomruen, User:Orduin, User:Anythingcouldhappen, User:Dbfirs, User:Exoplanetaryscience, User:Mahusha, User:Richard Nowell, User:A Guy OTI, User:SocraticOath, User:Royalmate3, User:CryOCed, User:MrdaChi, User:QuantumSearcher, User:Italia2006, User:TerrainAhead, User:AllenWolf, User:Lurind, User:Alex2056 Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Support merge because

• Pretty much all cosmology is astronomy/astrophysics. While there are non-cosmology astronomy articles, all cosmology articles are of interest to astronomy.
• Only ~222 articles are part of WP:COSMOLOGY
• This will save banner space (only display {{WP Astronomy}} with the taskforce linked in the banner, rather than both {{WP Astronomy}}/{{WP Cosmology}}) on talk pages
• This will make banner/category maintenance much easier to deal with
• Guarantees cosmology discussion are cross-posted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Article alerts
• WP:ASTRONOMY/WT:ASTRONOMY much higher traffic venue
• WP:COSMOLOGY/WT:COSMOLOGY has very little activity. Most of its driving force was a now-blocked user/sockmaster.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:13, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

There’s one problem with this proposal: not all cosmology articles are of interest to astronomy. There are certain parts of cosmology, such as religious cosmology, that aren’t of interest to astronomy; therefore, I suggest that the scope of WP:COSMOLOGY be limited to physical cosmology, which is the part of cosmology that is of interest to astronomy. —MartinZ (talk) 14:27, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I consider religious cosmology to be of interest to this project. This is intimately related to the history of astronomy, after all. But if most disagree, this can be left to WP:WikiProject Religion. Losing 2-3 cornercase articles isn't a big deal.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:33, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't care; I'm no longer active anyways. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Comment This is a bit out of my field, and projects as opposed to articles even more so; in fact for a moment I thought the RFC referred to a proposal to link the articles, which had me blinking a bit. So I am hardly suited to comment. But in spite of the etymology, according to which "Astronomy" would be a subset of the discipline "Cosmology", the emphasis of the cosmology category seems to be largely on Cosmogeny, whereas the astronomy category seems to be on everything outside the upper atmosphere, either in the past or future. Well, as for the terminology suit yourselves. The relevant aspect of the question seems to me to be one of practicality, not philological "correctness". If whoever are active in the project are happy about managing the whole works as a unit, go ahead. And as for religious aspects, no, do NOT split that; as long as religious claims materially appeal to scientific cosmological principles, according to which anyone can refute or support them, much as we can support or refute claims that the moon is green cheese, I say include them. Claims that the cow jumped over the moon or that all cosmogeny started with Muspelheim and Niflheim do not require any connection with material cosmology (or astronomy) at all, do not appeal to cosmological realities at all, and accordingly can be ignored by the project(s) JonRichfield (talk) 09:35, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Support I'm not exactly a participant of this WikiProject but got called here by FRS. However, if you're after an opinion, I think it's a good idea to absorb the project if it is shown to be dormant if this Project is willing to take on the subject (and given the connection I can't see why you wouldn't). I see you've attempted to open discussion on the relevant WP talk page. If they don't respond to it that's probably reason enough to support a merge, but if they are truly active and want to remain independent I would of course recommend against a merge. --Topperfalkon (talk) 13:01, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Abstain. I've been summoned here by the FRS. But this decision should be a matter for those active in the projects. Maproom (talk) 06:26, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Support. No reason not too. There might well be more expertise if included in the larger subject. Richard Nowell (talk) 11:21, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Support per preceding really Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:26, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Abstain I also feel that this should be up to members of the Wikiprojects. ~222 articles seems like not enough to warrant a separate project though... – 𝕘wendy | ☎  01:59, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea (Lylahearts (talk) 23:33, 14 June 2017 (UTC))

Support per above arguments. It can always be split off again if there is overwhelming demand. Praemonitus (talk) 22:38, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Converting crater infobox templates to use the coord template

Hi there. I am part of a team that is converting all relevant infoboxes to use |coordinates= and {{coord}} instead of individual, non-standard latitude and longitude parameters. The non-Earth crater templates are our last handful of templates to convert. See Wikipedia:Coordinates in infoboxes for details about the project and the RfC that led to it.

If you know anything about these templates (e.g. {{Infobox Mercury crater}}) and can help us understand how the quadrangle categories are assigned and how latitude and longitude values can be higher than those used for Earth coordinates, please join this discussion. Thanks for any help you can provide. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:16, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

How is that going to work for bodies that the template does not support? (ie. coordinates on celestial bodies that the template does not allow in "globe" parameter.) It should allow coordinates for bodies not supported via "globe", but that will always break {{coord}} -- 65.94.169.56 (talk) 06:54, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Do you have an example of this usage? Please link to an article. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:36, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't have an example on me right now. But it is blatantly obvious that this use case will occur in the future, since there is a limited number of "globe" options available at {{coord}} while there are many more celestial bodies with imaged surfaces than that list of bodies. If the infobox will not support generic coordinates without the need for using {{coord}} then the template is borked. It's not like the universe only consists of the bodies listed at the globe parameter list. -- 65.94.169.56 (talk) 05:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Please post here and ping me when you have an article that demonstrates this error. I, or another editor, will be happy to help you fix the problem at that time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:53, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

That's hardly a solution. How am I ever going to be the only user to ever encounter this problem? I'm not the only astronomy editor on Wikipedia, am I? This lack of futureproofing is clearly not thought out well. And the assumption that the entire universe is already addressable with {{coord}} is a very inward-looking way of thinking of things, since science continues apace, and astronomers observe more celestial bodies with better resolutions all the time. -- 65.94.169.56 (talk) 13:11, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

{{coord}} does not support Charon, which apparently has a coordinate system set [5] ; and for which we already have several location articles. (Though currently without infoboxen) -- 65.94.169.56 (talk) 13:31, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Non-existent NGC objects

Hi everyone. Recently, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NGC 6666 was closed as delete and redirect to List of NGC objects (6001–7000). However, there are still other pages about these non-existent objects, so can we all delete/redirect those to their respective List of NGC objects articles? Thanks. Loooke (talk) 14:21, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Support per WP:MERGE, as long as the article by itself lacks notability. But perhaps those should be flagged as non-existent in a separate list on the target page? Praemonitus (talk) 14:47, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Note: NGC 6666 does appear to exist.[6] It apparently had the wrong RA in Dreyer's original catalogue. Praemonitus (talk) 16:54, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support - I don't think we need AFDs for all of these, just a local consensus and/or being BOLD and redirecting them. I do concur that they should be included in the redirect target in some form (I notice that 6666 isn't yet on the list page). Primefac (talk) 13:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. So far I redirected NGC 56 and NGC 111; should the redirects keep the category links (like Category:NGC objects or Category:Cetus (constellation))? Loooke (talk) 19:56, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd keep the Category:NGC objects; the redirect gets changed to italics on the category listing. Praemonitus (talk) 21:42, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

There is also NGC 421 and NGC 412. Perhaps there could be an article on all the non-existant NGC objects. But there is hardly enough to support standalone articles. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

References to http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog/top10

The article Kepler-70b claims that the planet has a surface temperature of "7,143 K (6,870 °C; 12,398 °F)". That precision doesn't make sense, so I looked into the reference. That just tells us that everything is automatically generated based on the database of habitable exoplanets. Which is a bit odd, because Kepler-70b is obviously not habitable. I didn't find the planet entry in the catalog, so I looked for original measurements: A compact system of small planets around a former red-giant star discusses the planet temperature in the supplementary material - and discusses four scenarios with 6553 K, 7668 K, 7792 K, and 9118 K. In other words: The planet is hot, but we don't really know how hot. The list is used as reference in a few articles. In Kepler-70c it doesn't seem to support the statement where it is used as reference. All that makes me question if the top10 list is a suitable reference at all. Individual planet pages: maybe (any idea how to actually search for planets? I only find links going in circles). --mfb (talk) 00:48, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

The Top-10 list itself essentially says it is not a reliable source. "There are some issues with the display of the data and some numbers might be incorrect." The Exoplanet.eu entry doesn't list a calculated temperature.[7] Praemonitus (talk) 01:33, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I removed all references to it - and the things claimed only by this lists. Exception: The most distant exoplanets, that seems to be accurate. --mfb (talk) 00:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Constellation page

Could several editors please check my recent updates of the last few days on the page Constellation. I have attempted to simplify the text to make better sense rather than the more rambling earlier version. Comments here on on the Talkpage would be greatly appreciated.

As a personal comment, there has been a notable push to include southern Dutch constellations by a group of several Users, which seems to be promoting this on nationalistic grounds rather than a balanced approach. I have resisted this for some time with many reverts, which these users seem particularly unwilling to discuss.

Thanks. Arianewiki1 (talk) 03:29, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Could someone lend a hand

Hello to the members of this project. When you have a moment could one or more of you take a look at this recently created article HD 269700. The editor who started it is having some difficulties with the infobox. Also anything you can do to enhance the article will be appreciated. Thanks ahead of time. MarnetteD|Talk 20:16, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I actually doubt that it is notable. Ruslik_Zero 20:53, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Ruslik0 and for your edits to the article. Since I have no experience with this projects articles I wasn't sure whether it met your WP:GNG criteria or not. It was prod'ed at one point but that was removed. Please proceed in dealing with the article as you see fit. Thanks again. MarnetteD|Talk 21:10, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

It's been nominated for deletion. Feel free to chime in there. Primefac (talk) 21:34, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Infoboxes and Starboxes

It seems silly to have both {{infobox star}} and the {{starbox begin}} series. I can understand why we have the former (it's a little less complicated) but I don't think we need both. Would it make sense to convert it into a wrapper for the "starbox" series? That way you get the "ease" of using an infobox, but the consistency of the starboxes.

The other option, of course, is to delete it, as it's only used on two pages (one of which is up for deletion itself). Primefac (talk) 21:37, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I'd delete {{infobox star}}; it's deprecated (lacks parameters like parallax, temperature, etc.) and is basically not used anywhere. Loooke (talk) 00:50, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

In the next year or so I'm hoping to convert infobox star to use Wikidata, and will add parameters from starbox that aren't available. So I'd say keep both for now, and we can fix this in the future. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 00:55, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Mike Peel, that almost sounds like you want to convert it into a wrapper for the starbox set. Primefac (talk) 01:04, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac: More like I'd want to develop it so it replaces the starbox set, so you can just have {{infobox star}} in an article and set the info in Wikidata. I'm hoping to start on this later this year (I have other things I need to complete first). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 01:07, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

European Space Agency images

Expert help is needed on Wikimedia Commons, to categorise recently-uploaded European Space Agency images - and, of course, to add them to Wikipedia articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:44, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Now archived --mfb (talk) 00:52, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to find out about this fairly decent-looking Hyades cluster image. It's credited to NASA, ESO, and STSCl, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, with conditions. Is that suitable for use here? Praemonitus (talk) 20:18, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I think you mean ESA, not ESO? Anyway you're better off asking somewhere like Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, who I'm sure have come across Hubble images before. Modest Genius ^talk 18:57, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

That should be OK. It is just a DSS composite, not a Hubble image. Images on those pages are all Creative Commons unless otherwise stated. The "conditions" are about attribution and shouldn't be a problem. Lithopsian (talk) 19:50, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

It is not that simple. DSS media is copyrighted to different institutions. See http://archive.eso.org/dss/dss-copyrights.html and https://archive.stsci.edu/dss/copyright.html. I do think this may need further discussion, and may go ahead and nominate the DSS category on Commons for deletion based on those sites. There mere fact that ESA or NASA or whomever hosts a file does not mean that the copyright goes away or is transmuted. — Huntster (t @ c) 11:59, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, everyone's a lawyer. I'm not. I'm just a schmuck that thinks when the web page says the image is released under a Creative Commons license, then maybe it is. How they get from DSS copyrights to CC isn't my problem. If you want to chase down DSS images (there are dozens, possibly hundreds, at Commons) then you could do worse than read this thread on the very similar SDSS images first. Spoiler - the discussion got exactly nowhere and I still don't know if it was because of too many armchair lawyers or not enough. There's also a much older thread about DSS images that you can still find in the archive. Lithopsian (talk) 13:30, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I know. It's convoluted, and the re-publishers don't make thing easier. Specifically in this case, how can an ESA/Hubble CC license be applied to something that isn't related to Hubble or ESA at all? I think you were referring to the "Usage of ESA/Hubble Images and Videos" link on the page? That seems to simply be a generic thing on every page on the site regardless of image origin (even NASA produced images get that same template). It would be (and often is taken to be) so easy to simply lay responsibility on ESA's or NASA's shoulders, but I don't think that's appropriate. Remember that, once upon a time, folks used to take material from the APOD site and claim PD-NASA simply because APOD was on the NASA domain...that's no longer allowed, of course. Hmm... — Huntster (t @ c) 14:45, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Saraswati Supercluster

I have read an article about the Saraswati Supercluster, so I have started a stub based on this article (it seems the paper has been accepted in the Astronomical Journal). It is notable that one of the authors of the paper is the discoverer of the well-kown Shapley Supercluster, Somak Raychaudhury, so I would consider this discovery notable enough to be in the Wikipedia. Please, feel free to improve it! I have no time right now to expand it, but it would be interesting to contrast this information with superstructures such as the Huge-LQG and the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, especially in the context of how this challenges (or not) the cosmological principle. Eynar Oxartum (talk) 10:27, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Note that Wikipedia notability is not inherited and is not determined by the article content. It would be best to include citations to establish notability per the WP:GNG, or it may be facing WP:AfD some day. Praemonitus (talk) 15:07, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we should be very hesitant about an article based purely on a preprint and a press release by the authors' institution. WP:NASTRO requires multiple sources independent of the scientists who discovered the object. Tagged with {{third party sources}}; if none are available then it's vulnerable to deletion. Modest Genius ^talk 10:01, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

New article John E. Geake

Does anyone know of a better source than the obit I got most of his details from? I got the feeling that the OUP obituarist wouldn't have known a photometer from a polarimeter from a refractometer if he'd sat on all three in turn, and wouldn't have known which end of each he had just sat on. Notability is IMO not in doubt, 9298 Geake is named after him; but that "WP:RS" source for the biographical details has, for me, sloppiness written all over it. Narky Blert (talk) 01:05, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. Just about everyone who spent their career in planetary science has a minor planet named after them, so that doesn't establish notability. The relevant guideline is WP:NACADEMIC; the article doesn't currently demonstrate that they meet that threshold, though it's possible that additional sources could satisfy it. Note that the obituary was published in Astronomy & Geophysics, not by OUP. I've fixed the citation. Modest Genius ^talk 10:11, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

CMG - "Catalogue of One Thousand Named Galaxies"

I saw a user add a lot of these "CMG" designations to many articles about galaxies, for example this. Apparently these are designations from Gerard Bodifee's Catalogue of Named Galaxies (catalog is here), but what even is this? Loooke (talk) 00:39, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I moved one (!) of these additions out of the lead and into the body. I debated removing it completely, but thought I'd see what other reaction there was to these edits. The source is essentially one guy who decided (in 2010) that a thousand galaxies needed proper names and set about making them up. At best it gives undue weight to have these unheard of and unused names in the lead of every galaxy article, at worst it is simple advertising. Lithopsian (talk) 13:57, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree: I think these names should all be removed. They are not recognized by the IAU, nor are they in common usage anywhere. - Parejkoj (talk) 16:54, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. It looks like the source fails WP:RSSELF. Per Wikipedia:Verifiability, I don't see a reason to keep those additions. Praemonitus (talk) 17:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree that all of these designations should be removed completely from the articles, for the reasons given above. Aldebarium (talk) 20:09, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

From these comments, it's becoming pretty clear that these designations should be removed (this was my suspicion all along). Could take a while though. Loooke (talk) 01:10, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

First step is to make a list of affected pages; should be fairly straightforward. Galaxy#Nomenclature probably needs trimming to avoid the incredibly UNDUE influence of this catalogue. Primefac (talk) 11:38, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Already done in case anyone else is thinking of going there. Lithopsian (talk) 13:20, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Okay, there are 426 pages that meet the description. I'll see about doing an AWB run to remove them. Won't be able to dedicate time until maybe Thursday, so if anyone wants to start clearing it out be my guest. Otherwise, NODEADLINE and all that. Primefac (talk) 12:14, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Is the plan just to remove the whole lot? Would it be easier to just revert all these edits?

Oh, well if that's the case, then sure, just undo their edits. I didn't realize this was a relatively recent thing. Primefac (talk) 13:22, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

At the risk of muddying the waters, it seems only polite to @Theodolite: before charging in. Lithopsian (talk) 17:06, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Good call. No need for torches and pitchforks just yet. Primefac (talk) 17:12, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello! I'll be the first to admit that I'm unfamiliar with most of Wikipedia's rules and it's no surprise I've apparently violated several of them. This is what happened: I was browsing galaxy articles last week, as you do, and wondered why there wasn't any better way of naming them than the current hodgepodge of NGCs and ICs and Arps. Some googling brought Mr. Bodifee to my attention. I appreciated his elegant rules of nomenclature and the many lovely and occasionally eccentric names he invented, and if he was a crank, at least he seemed to be a well-credentialed one. I wound up devoting my weekend to adding Bodifee's names to every galaxy that had its own Wikipedia article, with a translation of the Latin and occasionally an explanatory note ( e.g.). It seemed relatively harmless and added some spice and poetry to the world. I hope it wasn't completely in vain. Theodolite (talk) 04:49, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Theodolite, unfortunately it seems it will be in vain. You have to understand that, since this was a pair of authors essentially making everything up without any real outside coordination, approval, etc., we cannot accept it in Wikipedia articles. There's no peer review, no acceptance by the IAU. If I were to name two thousand galaxies, should my catalogue be included on the site? Obviously, no. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I have immediately removed all of these alleged names as vandalism, which are clearly made up common names with no actual prior history. These issues especially abhorrent is naming the source and linking it too. I.e. "In the Catalogue of One Thousand Named Galaxies..." is clearly self-promotion or has just fooled the User to think they are commonly used. Worst all these edits were done without gaining any consensus at all, and were apparently announced after the fact. Arianewiki1 (talk) 15:04, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree that these names have no standing in the astronomical community so should not be included in the articles. Modest Genius ^talk 21:00, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

A bit late to this discussion, but anyway: while I agree with the removal of these names, they are not "vandalism" or in all probability "self-promotion". Bodifée is a well-known (though now more and more forgotten) astronomer and used to be something like the Carl Sagan of Flanders (as a popularizer of astronomy, who appeared on TV, radio, ... very regularly). He has the necessary credentials as well, he isn't some crank. But even so, this is just his attempt to make these galaxies more accessible, more familiar, and this doesn't seem to have gained any traction (in Flanders or elsewhere), so there is no reason to include them here. But this doesn't mean that we must attack or insult the author if these names, or the editor who (apparently in good faith) added these. Fram (talk) 14:01, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

I have removed about 20 more of these names. The catalog can still get a mention on Gerard Bodifee though. It is a bit out of our scope for Contemporary Latin which also mentions the names. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:05, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Science Photo Competition 2017

FYI Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Science#World_Science_Photo_Competition_2017--Alexmar983 (talk) 08:54, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Nearest star in constellation infoboxes

Arianewiki1 has been removing nearest star from constellation infobox. Thought it might be worth a quick straw poll on consensus for a sweeping change across all constellation infoboxes. To be fair, it's not generally a notable category. Comments please. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:49, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Main objection: As for nearest star in some constellation is based on exactly what? Magnitude, naked-eye, what? I cannot find any reference or cite for this. (Also saying adding No. of Messier objects in southern constellations is just silly.) Frankly, a simple CDS VizieR [8] star catalogue search will find many closer objects in Pavo than this. Arianewiki1 (talk) 07:10, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Keep On the plus side, this information is likely to be interesting to visitors. On the negative side, it's difficult to reliably source. If the information can be sourced reliably, then I think it's a positive addition. My preference would be to tag the specific entries on the constellation pages, rather than summarily remove it without consensus. For now I'd just limit these to stars on the RECONS list of the 100 nearest systems, since that is sufficient to satisfy the citation requirement for a constellation. Praemonitus (talk) 23:26, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Remove parameters. Sourcing is difficult, and it isn't a very important distinction in my view. It's a particular star that's relatively close to us in a particular patch of sky. <sarcasm>Woo. Hoo.</sarcasm> — Huntster (t @ c) 22:12, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't see the purpose in these. If there's a particularly notable nearby star, it can be identified in the text of the article. In most cases it won't be of any interest, or the holder of that title will be arguable, so there's no need to add to every infobox. There's no explanation in the infobox documentation, and no scientific value in knowing the closest star in each arbitrarily-defined patch of sky. List of nearby stars already exists. Modest Genius ^talk 14:46, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Remove Not an important distinction among stars. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 14:58, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Mehh: I don't have any fundamental objections to this information being in the infobox, if it can be shown to be trustworthy. It is well-defined and not prone to changing very often. Probably not the first thing people will be looking for, but there's several things more obscure than this in the box. Sources are tricky, I'm not sure there is going to be any formally published source showing this. However there are plenty of reliable sources for nearby stars, sorted in various ways, if you're prepared to do a little WP:SYNTHESIS. Wikipedia itself has lists of nearby stars, and a sortable list of stars in each constellation so it is simple to look up the nearest one in a given constellation - a bit incestuous but ultimately verifiable after a fashion. If this is kept then there needs to be clarity about just what qualifies: Lyra and Vela are good examples, one of which has a (binary) brown dwarf as its closest star while one ignores a brown dwarf and declares Vega to be the closest "star". Lithopsian (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Remove in general this is unmaintainable and uninteresting at the constellation level. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:29, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

There's a rough consensus to remove the "nearest star" parameter, so I have done so at the template. Primefac (talk) 15:39, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

To continue to satisfy WP:FACR 1b then, where notable per WP:GNG the information should be migrated to the body of the article. Praemonitus (talk) 17:08, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society cleanup

Please see WT:JCW#Invalid cleanup. This concerns the usage of |journal= in |cite journal=. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:19, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Solar eclipse of January 17, 101: total?

Solar eclipse of January 17, 101 leads with "A total solar eclipse occurred on January 17, 101." But NASA's Catalog of Solar Eclipses: 0101 to 0200 lists it as partial.

I'm starting to go through various articles on total eclipses and make sure they're cataloged properly under Category:Total solar eclipses and I noticed this one, as the first one of the 1xx century; there may be others.

I assume I can generally rely on the NASA tables as authoritative and correct the article's text and categorization, yes? TJRC (talk) 22:52, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Generally you can consider NASA publications as reliable sources. On the other hand, the article in question, Solar eclipse of January 17, 101, has no useful content. It deserves to be a line in a table (List of solar eclipses in the 2nd century) unless there is something specific about that particular eclipse which call out for being documented. Perhaps that article should simply be deleted? Tarl N. (discuss) 16:21, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

It was partial. Delete the page. nothing to see here. In general, while NASA sources could be considered reliable, I wouldn't consider them authoritative. They are frequently exaggerated for effect, misrepresented by the PR staff that wrote them, or just inadequately fact-checked. They are, sad to say, more often advertisement than science. Also, be careful what you consider a "NASA source". For example, APOD is hosted at nasa.gov but is shockingly poor on factual accuracy. Some of the mission and institute sub-pages are better. Always double-check your facts, don't assume it is on nasa.gov therefore guaranteed to be correct. Lithopsian (talk) 16:40, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

This feels like a list subject rather than something deserving its own article. Some account needs to be taken of where it was - an eclipse in Ancient Rome was a big deal and really well documented, but this one was visible off the north coast of Russia, in January - I'm guessing it was barely noticed.Le Deluge (talk) 16:43, 25 August 2017 (UTC)