Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy/Archive 3

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Assessment categories

I've uploaded the assessment categories intersection table so you guys can more easily assess and rate stuff. The table is transcluded below. Now to update the template... Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 00:50, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Assessment categories

Importance→ Class↓	Top	High	Mid	Low	Bottom	NA	???	Rated	Total
FA	50	25	57	14	5	0	0	152	152
FL	0	3	9	5	1	0	0	19	19
GA	15	26	80	0	23	0	0	276	276
B	63	111	232	200	13	0	0	620	620
C	93	214	938	1,222	54	0	0	2,522	2,522
Start	7	135	1,924	12,690	160	0	0	14,917	14,917
Stub	0	3	148	8,374	104	1	0	8,631	8,631
List	0	15	223	1,914	11	117	0	2,281	2,281
Template	0	0	0	0	0	936	0	937	937
Category	0	0	0	0	0	4,258	0	4,259	4,259
Disambig	0	0	0	0	11	85	0	86	86
File	0	0	0	0	0	517	0	518	518
NA	0	0	1	2	0	26	0	30	30
Redirect	0	0	0	250	0	36,863	0	37,115	37,115
Unassessed	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	3
Assessed	229	532	3,612	24,803	371	43,441	0	72,357	72,357
Total	229	532	3,612	24,803	371	43,441	2	72,358	72,360

No offense, but I think I'd like to see the totals in each cell rather than the cell name. Perhaps you could just link the totals instead?—RJH (talk) 15:09, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I wish I could, because I too would love to see that, but I don't know how to do that. It would involve either querying some stuff on the database (or in the logs), or would need to be updated by a bot everytime the logs are updated (well if you want to manually update them, go right ahead). Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 15:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

You can use PAGESINCATEGORY magic word. I provided an example (see above). Ruslik (talk) 16:14, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know that magic word existed. I'll update the whole table later today. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 16:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

PAGESINCATEGORY has a limit of 999, as 1,000 is formatted with a comma.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 22:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I do not understand, where the problem is ? Ruslik (talk) 04:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

#expr cannot handle commas for subtraction.

­{{#expr:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Top-importance Astronomy articles}}-15}} produces 230

­{{#expr:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Low-importance Astronomy articles}}-15}} produces

Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 04:09, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

You should use {{formatnum:{{#expr:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Low-importance Astronomy articles|R}}-15}}}}, which produces 24,804. See, for instance, {{Counter}}. Ruslik (talk) 10:52, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

This should be working properly now, but it relies on categories tagged by the newer (unimplemented) template, so the outputs might not make sense.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 19:54, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Atmosphere of Jupiter

I submitted this article for a peer review. You can comment here. Ruslik (talk) 12:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Astrophysics Data System

This is a FA article belonging to this project. Michael Kurtz, apparently an author of some of the articles used as source material, contacted me on my talk page and asked me to tag the unreferenced parts of the article. FA articles are currently being reevaluated to see if they continue to maintain FA standards. Hopefully, some editors from this project will update the page and endure that it still meets Featured article criteria. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 22:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Skygazing AfD

Please see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Skygazing if you would like to comment.—RJH (talk) 16:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Updating the template to handle category intersections

The code can be seen here User:Headbomb/Sandbox4. For an example of a tagged page with all parameters enabled, see User talk:Headbomb/Sandbox4.

Features:

• Quality ratings of : FL, FA, A, GA, B, C, Start, Stub, List, Image, Template, Category, Disambig, NA, Unassessed
• Importance ratings of: Top, High, Mid, Low, NA, Unknown
• Wikiprojects (full support): WP Astronomy, WP Astronomical Object (as long as |object=yes is there)
• Wikiproject (partial support): WP Physics. Placing astrophysics=yes places articles in Category:Pages within the scope of WikiProject Physics (WP Astronomy Banner) as before, so the folks at WP Physics can flag them with a WPPhysics banner. But this time this is all it does, essentially transforming the astrophysics parameter into nothing more than a flagging device rather than a tagging device (which would give a quality rating, but no importance rating for the Physics project). However, this was essentially what the astrophysics parameter was used for anyway. The "This article is within the scopes of WP Physics" message doesn't appear anymore.
• Category intersection is fully supported
• Attention, needs-image, needs-infobox are all supported
• Comments are still supported, as before.

Recap: Everything is the same, other than astrophysics being turned into a flagging tool rather than a tagging tool, and category intersection support for both WP Astro and WP Astro Objects. It's tested and fully functional. Now should I upload or do you have questions/comments?Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 01:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I am unclear what you are planning to do when you say "upload". Do you mean you want to replace the article ratings table on the project page? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:08, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

No, I mean replace the WPAstronomy template with the one on in User:Headbomb/Sandbox4. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 15:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, the concern I have is that your template restores the problem with the box in the upper left overlapping the text (that is fixed with the current template). That makes it look unpolished. Is there any way you could address that concern? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 21:42, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see what problem you're talking about. What's on User:Headbomb/Sandbox4 and User talk:Headbomb/Sandbox4 looks fine to me.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 21:57, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it may depend on the (IE) browser width: it goes away sometimes when I vary the window size.—RJH (talk) 19:19, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I just popped IE open and zoomed in and out and the template looks fine at all level of zooms, even the most extreme ones. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 00:01, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but I'm not imagining this. I've tried it on two different PCs with two different versions of IE, and they both show the problem. The maintainer of the current template apparently agrees with me, because he fixed it.—RJH (talk) 16:55, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Well whoever the maintainer of the current template is more than welcome to fix whatever problem there is with the one on my sandbox. He/She also is invited to take a look at {{physics}} since I use that one as the basis for this one.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 17:23, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

{{WPSpace}} also requires an update, otherwise many article will fall through the cracks. Ruslik (talk) 20:11, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

• Well, unfortunately then, I will have to oppose the replacement of the template, for whatever that's worth. Sorry.—RJH (talk) 18:00, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

What for? If there's something to be done in two parts, you'll oppose the first part? Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 04:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The fix is already in place, but your implementation is re-introducing it.—RJH (talk) 15:03, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Well I obviously won't upload a buggy template. I thought you were opposing the template because {{WPSpace}} didn't support category intersections yet.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 16:46, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Headbomb: I did some experimenting with your code. Inserting a "width: 48px;" parameter to the div code for the left-floating image seems to fix the overlap problem, at least for me. (I didn't actually change your code; just experimented with the preview mode.) I'm speculating that the browser may not be handling the font size properly, so it's not computing the correct width. By forcing a minimum value, it appears to work better. No telling what may happen if a viewer has different font settings though.

Perhaps you have different font or font settings than I, which is why you didn't experience the problem?

BTW, I see the same problem with template:Physics, although I need to shrink my browser width down quite a bit before it occurs.—RJH (talk) 15:17, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, make sense since the one on my sandbox is a modified {{physics}}. As for fonts and stuff, I use the default FF3/IE settings (in 1280x800). Anyway I'll look into the "width: 48px;" thing. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 16:46, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

If it's not a problem, I'd suggest using em instead of px in order to scale properly with the font size. "width: 5px;" seems to work okay with the nowrap width.—RJH (talk)

I used a nowrap on the WP Astronomy link. Did that work? Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 16:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I also fixed something about the message at the top of the banner.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 16:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately no, it actually made the appearance worse. Sorry.—RJH (talk) 18:21, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

What about now? Widths are 6 and 4 em.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 20:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

So does it look any better this way? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Article alert is up and running

If you check on the main page, there's a bot-update list notifying you about what's going on about articles tagged by {{WPAstronomy}}. If you want to watch the page so notification appear in your watchlist, just go here and click "watch".Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:14, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Requested articles

For those who have an interest, there is a list of requested astronomy articles at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Natural sciences#Astronomy and cosmology. Many have been there for quite a while. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Consensus was to redirect.—RJH (talk) 20:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Rings of Neptune

The article is a featured article candidate now. You can comment here. Ruslik (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Young stellar object page

Reading this page, Submillimeter continuum observations of Rho Ophiuchi A - The candidate protostar VLA 1623 and prestellar clumps, it states that the arthor created the "Class 0" class on page 16. Needing confirmation on this and then I can update the YSO page. Also, that the term, "extreme Class I" source, I am uncertain if this is a dated term. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 21:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

low mass star

Low-mass stars currently redirects to star formation... this doesn't seem to be the best place to point it, perhaps it could be turned into a dab or a stub (or repointed)? 70.55.86.100 (talk) 09:45, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Do we need an article on stellar mass? Making it a dab probably wouldn't work because that would require at least three different topics, per Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation_page_or_disambiguation_links.3F.—RJH (talk) 18:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

An alternative would be to add a section/table to the solar mass page listing the common names for stellar mass ranges (with references).—RJH (talk) 23:03, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

GA sweeps: 4 Vesta

Hello, as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force, I have conducted a Good Article reassessment of 4 Vesta. I have a few concerns that should be addressed if the article is to remain listed as a GA. If anyone is able to help out, the reassessment can be found here. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 18:44, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Stellar kinematics article?

I think that High-velocity star, Runaway star, and Hypervelocity star could probably be merged into a combined article about Stellar kinematics. Perhaps Space velocity as well, plus a summary of the connection to radial velocity and proper motion. Any thoughts about this? (Some people seem to get a little perturbed about the word 'kinematics', so I thought I'd ask.) Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I support. Moving High-velocity star to Stellar kinematics with expansion and addition of Runaway star and Hypervelocity star articles seems the best way to go. Space velocity contains off topic section (Chemistry), which should be removed. The remaining content also can be merged to Stellar kinematics. Ruslik (talk) 18:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I'll try putting something together when I get some free time.—RJH (talk) 20:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually there is already a stellar dynamics article, so I think it makes sense now to merge the lot into Stellar motion.—RJH (talk) 22:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

{{WPSpace}} template

I implemented new code for this template based on {{WPBannerMeta}}. Comments are appreciated. Ruslik (talk) 17:42, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I want to improve this portal but why is this portal named the way it is ? Isn't suppose to be Portal: Agriculture and can we change it ? Bewareofdog 00:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

MECO

Magnetospheric eternally collapsing object has been nominated for deletion at WP:AFD 70.55.86.100 (talk) 09:45, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Seems to have avoided deletion by means of a massive cleanup.—RJH (talk) 22:28, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

More like it survived deletion because fringe still needs to be included. Everyone expressed concerns of pseudoscience, undue weight, POV pushing etc..., so I've removed most of the article and summed up things in a "MECO is supposed to be this, and has been proposed by Mitra. However MECO is basic on bad mathematics, goes against basic GR results such as black holes, and is not accepted as being legit". This way, every new edit can be reviewed to make sure fringers don't get their way. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:20, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Fractal cosmology

Fractal cosmology has been nominated for deletion at AfD. 76.66.192.6 (talk) 05:28, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

List of astronomical objects by angular size

Would a list of astronomical objects by angular size be of any interest? I've been compiling it mainly for my own edification. --IanOsgood (talk) 00:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Probably somebody will find it of interest. I'd be careful to include some reference sources in the article to avoid deletion.—RJH (talk) 22:27, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

SIMBAD3 shutdown

According to [1] the SIMBAD3 query system will be shutdown soon, so references and external links using the SIMBAD3 format will need to be updated with SIMBAD4 conformant URLs. 76.66.193.170 (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

4 Vesta

Just a quick reminder that this article is undergoing a GA reassessment as part of the GA sweeps. It has been on hold for over two weeks, but several concerns remain. If they are not addressed soon, I will have to delist the article. Because it is part of the Main asteroid belt Featured Topic, this would also mean that the Featured Topic would be delisted. There's not much left to do, so any help you can provide would be great. The reassessment page is here. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 22:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Article ratings request

Could somebody please independently rate Stellar rotation, Stellar kinematics and Stellar magnetic field with a {{WPAstronomy}} template? I'll try to take care of some of the others under Category:Stellar astronomy. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 18:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the ratings, Ruslik0.—RJH (talk) 16:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

De Sitter relativity at AfD

De Sitter relativity has been nominated for deletion 76.66.195.63 (talk) 06:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

8974 Gregaria

G'day folks. This one is in need of some details in the body of the article and I have tagged it for expert assistance. Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 20:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

As is the case with nearly all asteroids, there is little to add. I couldn't find anything scientifically useful in google. I inserted some text, but I'm not sure it was much of an improvement.—RJH (talk) 20:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

likely copyvios

Someone needs to examine Symbiotic variable star. It looks like one big copyvio contributed by CarloscomB while editing anonymously 76.66.195.63 (talk) 03:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Quotefarm tag added.—RJH (talk) 19:57, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Someone needs to examine Z Andromedae. It looks like one big copyvio contributed by CarloscomB. 76.66.195.63 (talk) 03:20, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Category:Astronomers

I tried to place everyone in their nationality category, and I'm down to ~15 entries (from ~150) I can't determine. If you know anything about them, please categorize them accordingly.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 10:59, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Χ Andromedae

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Χ Andromedae, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process.

All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because, even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Said: Rursus (☻) 18:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Article assessment request

The article 243 Ida is rated low on the importance scale, and I think it should be re-evaluated. According to the new guidelines, an object of low importance includes asteroids which contribute little to the field and are mentioned in few publications. Ida is one of the few asteroids visited by spacecraft and has been the subject of numerous publications. Its exploration has contributed greatly to our understanding of asteroid composition and evolution, and, in particular, to our understanding of the origin of OC meteorites. The Galileo flyby was also the first imaged confirmation of a moon orbiting an asteroid. For these reasons, I think the article deserves another look. Thank you. Wronkiew (talk) 19:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Somebody has already bumped it up to Mid, which makes sense to me as well. Thanks for pointing this out.—RJH (talk) 15:42, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Ruslik0 for re-assessing the article. Wronkiew (talk) 17:11, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:Night-Sky Photography +-> Category:Astrophotography

Category:Night-Sky Photography has been nominated for merger into Category:Astrophotography 76.66.195.159 (talk) 06:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

May I destroy?

May I make a redirect page of the article Planetary Database System? The reason is here: Talk:Planetary Database System. Said: Rursus (☻) 16:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. By the way I just realized your little symbol was a smiley. In the normal font it resembles a celtic cross. :-) —RJH (talk) 23:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Importance criteria

Does anybody know why Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Importance ratings is no longer linked from {{WPAstronomy}}? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 23:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I added a message to the template talk page. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 23:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:Star_types

Under the "U" section in Category:Star_types, should this page, User:Pfhreak/Solar_Twin be removed from the list, since it was the template for Solar analog? Thanks, Marasama (talk) 03:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

User-space pages should generally never be in reader-visible categories. Spacepotato (talk) 03:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It should definitely be removed. 76.66.195.159 (talk) 07:14, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Isaac Newton : FAR

Isaac Newton at WP:FAR. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 15:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Day/Month/Year lengths different in past

As I understand it, the lengths of Earth's day, month, and (I think) year would have been different in the distant past, due primarily to gravitational tidal force and, less importantly, other astronomical effects. As far as I can see, our articles day, month, and year make no mention of this. I am not competent to fix these articles myself - can some knowledgeable person do so? Thanks. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 19:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Well you could wikilink Tidal acceleration in the 'See also' section of the day article. I'm not sure it's relevant to Month, as that's a modern human construct. Lunar month would be more appropriate. The year would probably be about the same length regardless; it just would have consisted of more days.—RJH (talk) 00:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Lunar month - thx for clarification here. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 21:25, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Something I was wondering about is whether there is a plot somewhere of the estimated length of the Earth's day vs. age of the Earth? I'm not sure whether it would be a linear track over time, or some type of decaying curve. But I think it would be an interesting addition. (If necessary I could replot it.)—RJH (talk) 17:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Found one here. Not sure about the source though.—RJH (talk) 22:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Dates and Microformats for lists of Eclipses

Please note my proposal for making a table-row template for lists of solar eclipses, so that they emit hCard microformats. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:56, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

2012: Rare astronomical alignment.

2012 says:

"John Major Jenkins has asserted that on this date [21 Dec 2012], there will be "an extremely close conjunction of the northern hemisphere winter solstice sun with the crossing point of the Galactic equator and the ecliptic", an event that will not be repeated for thousands of years."

(Cites for this are the non-scientific sites http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl20.htm and http://www.alignment2012.com/whatisGA.htm )

Is this accurate? If not, we may want to edit this article. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 14:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed the paragraph. FYI, also see: Galactic Alignment. --mikeu ^talk 17:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Category:Gamma ray bursts

Category:Gamma ray bursts has been proposed to be renamed at WP:CFD to Category:Gamma-ray bursts, and appropriate subcategories. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 08:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Supernova induced star formation?

An anonymous editor made this charge to the Supernova article, with a comment that, "Supernova can not trigger new star formation, there is no evidence of this as SNR can only be 10,000's years old yet YSOs are much older than this." Does this mean that the hypothesis of "Supernova induced star formation" is dead? There seem to be a number of papers on the subject, but they are generally 2-3 decades old. I don't have access to the article the editor is citing, and I can't tell based on the abstract. Does anybody have a suggestion? The original reference from NASA seemed pretty clear on the subject, albeit not very detailed. I hope this isn't a case of PoV pushing. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 17:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you can read the article the editor is citing as a preprint is available in the arXiv (arXiv:astro-ph/0701026v1.) It does not discuss the hypothesis of star formation being triggered by the shock waves from supernovae, however. Judging by e.g. [2], [3], this hypothesis is still alive. Spacepotato (talk) 00:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you kindly for your help.—RJH (talk) 22:52, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Good Topic nomination

See Wikipedia:Featured topic candidates/HD 40307. Crystal whacker (talk) 23:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

News article = "Milky Way Galaxy: Snack-Sized No More"

• Milky Way Galaxy: Snack-Sized No More Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 03:28, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Solar core → Stellar core

Solar core has been proposed to be renamed Stellar core at WP:RM 76.66.198.171 (talk) 05:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I oppose this change, as (a) we know by direct observation (via neutrino measurements, & helio-seismology) a lot of specific details about the internal structure of the Sun which we must infer almost entirely from theoretical modeling for stars; and (b) Stellar cores vary tremendously over the range of stellar types, from newborn O stars to pre-supernova Wolfe-Rayet stars to M-dwarfs. The current solar core article is really just about the Sun. If we had a good article on stellar cores, surveying all the known types, we might well include a section describing the Sun's core as an example, but it seems premature to me until we have the latter. (I suppose it would be better to collect comments at one place, and I guess talk:Solar core is the right place.) Wwheaton (talk) 07:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Discussion about the move should occur on Talk:Solar core 76.66.198.171 (talk) 18:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Ceres and the Minor Planet Navigator

A number of articles have a redirect because Ceres is listed as 1 Ceres rather than as Ceres (dwarf planet). As the list and the minor planets navigator runs into potential technical issues, I don't know it it can or should be fixed. I didn't activate it here, but the text to test it in the sandbox is {{MinorPlanets Navigator|1 Ceres||PageName=2 Pallas}}. I have also posted this discussion in the solar system group. Novangelis (talk) 22:17, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

International Year of Astronomy

The International Year of Astronomy is a year-long celebration of astronomy, taking place in 2009. The article is currently tagged with template:Refimprove and template:cleanup. Please have a look. We may also want to take a look at improving articles that are related to IYA2009. For example, this is the 400th anniversary of the publication of Astronomia nova. --mikeu ^talk 18:50, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Galileo Galilei was nominated for the History of Science wikiproject as part of this event, but its not going to make FA any time soon. There are just too many unsourced statements and opionions to make it work without some heavy surgery.—RJH (talk) 22:53, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't so much thinking of FA, just improvements to related articles. International Year of Astronomy is now cleaned up and has refs, but could use some expansion. Kepler's laws of planetary motion has a {{tl:math2english}} tag and Sidereus Nuncius lacks references. History of the telescope has a lot of good information, but might beneft from a copyedit. --mikeu ^talk 06:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Astronomer article

...is pretty bleak. Any chance you folks will get to it, or is the occupation under the domain of another project? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 11:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Should it just redirect to Astronomy? Viriditas (talk) 11:57, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I think there's enough information in the current article to retain it, rather than performing a merge into astronomy (although a summary on the astronomy article would be worthwhile). Compare, for example, to the physicist article. There's more information that could be added.—RJH (talk) 22:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

OH masers

OH masers was recently turned into a redirect to Hydroxyl radical, after having been a very short stub for quite a while. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 10:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Gamma-ray burst FAC help needed

We are preparing gamma-ray burst for featured article candidacy. If anybody would like to help, we need to add a description on the various gamma-ray burst research missions that are not yet covered, such as HETE, and RXTE. See Talk:Gamma-ray burst for pending items. Jehochman ^Talk 16:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest taking it through the WP:PR process first, before going for FA. My initial impression was that the lead has too much information on extinction, but little or nothing on jets and emission mechanisms. I think it should be the other way around, with extinction receiving only a sentence or two.—RJH (talk) 21:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Earth-Crosser vs. Earth-Crossing Asteroids

Someone needs to compare and evaluate these two articles. They agree with each other (and Xref each other) as different things, but the See Also reference on Earth-Crossing is now redirected to the other article, confusing the issue. External web-sites and a couple of books tend to use these terms interchangeably, whether rightly or wrongly. Also see the NASA site: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/groups.html , especially their term "PHA", which seems similar to the Wiki Earth-Crossing article ... maybe! PJLareau (talk) 17:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I noted this inconsistency a while ago. Actually Something-Crossing Asteroids is used much more often than Something-Crosser. So sometime ago I moved all articles like Mars-crosser asteroid to List of Mars-crossing asteroids. However my move of Earth-crosser asteroid to List of Earth-crossing asteroids was reverted. It was pointed to me that there are two articles: Earth-crosser asteroid and Earth-crossing asteroid, both say (strangely) that these two classes of asteroids are different from each other. However the latter article appears to be based on only one publication.

My opinion is that all articles, lists and categories should be renamed to crossing variant, because more widely used. And Earth-crossing asteroid article should be merged with Earth-crosser asteroid and renamed as a list. Ruslik (talk) 20:09, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Personally I prefer "crossing" to "crosser"; the former seems easier to read aloud. However, the David Darling site uses the term Mars-crosser, as does the Encyclopedia Brittanica. On the other hand, per Google, "crosser" seems much more prevalent in scientific journal articles.—RJH (talk) 23:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

You probably meant "crossing" in the last sentence? Ruslik (talk) 04:56, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Er, yeah. I don't multi-task quite like I used to. =) —RJH (talk) 22:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Macula (planetary geology)

Macula (planetary geology) has been nominated for deletion at WP:AFD 76.66.196.229 (talk) 07:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal of Nebula and Interstellar cloud

here is a place to discuss whether the two pages should be merged. Seems like a good idea but not an expert in the area. If not a good idea, then a few pointers can quickly discuss and archive it. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Science FAC symposium

I'm letting you guys know about it because a lot of what is said there is also relevant for you guys. Plus your feedback would definitely be both relevant and appreciated. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:09, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Galactic Alignment

There is a page that I think needs expert attention from some astronomy buffs. It only has two sources and is possibly influenced by pseudoscience. It would be interesting to know the actual details here. For instance, it mentions that the sun is aligned with the galactic "equator" in 1998, but the article was tagged that it needed expert advice, so I thought I would bring it to all of your attention.

Thanks.

(Hades12686 (talk) 12:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC))

Jupiter Trojan

The article is a featured article candidate now. You can comment here. Ruslik (talk) 18:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Abdul Ahad

On several pages related to astronomy, the astronomer and fiction writer Abdul Ahad is being pushed to the foreground. He has written no (or very few) articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Nor do others (substantially) refer to his work in such journals. An article on him has been deleted by AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abdul Ahad. The provided links, used in the accompanying footnotes, are directly or indirectly pointing to a commercial web site promoting also his novels.

Some of the affected articles I know of are:

• Apparent magnitude
• List of astronomers
• Scientific phenomena named after people
• List of Muslim scientists

Input from others is very much appreciated. -- Crowsnest (talk) 02:03, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Asteroid stubs

There's a few thousand of them, in Category:Main Belt asteroid stubs and the related asteroid stub categories. I think most of them (over 95%) should be deleted because of a lack of wp:Notability. Perhaps this has been discussed before. Debresser (talk) 23:32, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes it's been discussed a few times, but there hasn't been a consensus formed so I think we just set it aside.—RJH (talk) 00:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I think any asteroid discovered before the advent of astrophotography should be kept. Anything that has been imaged by radar, anything imaged/studied by a spaceprobe, any used by a a goodly portion of the astrological community (if there is any besides the first few asteroids and Chiron)... 76.66.196.229 (talk) 06:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there's heaps of them and very few have more to them than "12345 Random is a main belt asteroid. It was discovered by Joseph X. Bloggs at the Mt. Somewhere observatory" and then an infobox containing its orbital parameters and whatnot. Most of them, in my opinion, lack notbaility and violate our policy of Wikipedia not being a directory orindiscriminate collection of data. I think these rocks require some source that goes beyond the mere fact of its existence before they should have an article. Otherwise, merge them into a list and have an external link to the JPL asteroid database whose job actually is to list every bit of data on every known asteroid. Reyk _YO! 07:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. All numbered asteroids are generally notable, because they have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. There is no reason to delete them. You can see these AFDs:

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_asteroids,

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_asteroids/120901–121000,

where arguments based on WP:NOT were rejected. Or this one

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/(90569)_2004_GY14 (you can find other AFD as well).

The general opinion is that asteroids are natural objects, and as such they are probably inherently notable. They are not songs, people or companies, which can appear or disappear at any time, they have existed for billions years. Ruslik (talk) 08:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Please note that you refer to deletion proposals of lists. That's precisely what was suggested, to put them in a list. The next door guy who ran over the girl from the other next door also got coverage. Still we'll agree that this does not make him notable. If anybody knows where to propose deletion of a few thousand asteroids, I'll lend him my voice. Debresser (talk) 13:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I do not. The last example is for an asteroid. The reason I referred to lists is that the arguments for their deletion were exactly the same as your arguments for the deletion of asteroid's articles. You actually seems not to realize that the wiki notability is very different from the common understanding of this word, and your example is not relevant. Asteroids are notable because they have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject (I specifically want to repeat this). Ruslik (talk) 14:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

This one got deleted due to zero notability. Reyk _YO! 21:03, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Wrong example. This article consisted of just one sentence: Named in honor of Mel Bartels for his contributions to amateur astronomy, especially his freely-shared designs for driving alt-az telescopes. No inforbox, no orbital parameters. So I am not surprised that it was deleted. Ruslik (talk) 18:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Not being an admin, I can't see the deleted article. If you are suggesting that an infobox containing the asteroid's physical and orbital parameters from the JPL confers notability, then I disagree in the strongest terms. That's like saying an article on me would get deleted if it only contains my name, but if it also had my address and height & weight it would be kept. Reyk _YO! 10:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This AFD discussed Bartels case and rejected it as precedent because Bartels article lacked content and really looked like an example of A1 (someone even mentioned G1—gibberish). Ruslik (talk) 17:31, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with your interpretation of either of those AFDs: there were plenty of NN opinions as well as "no content" opinions in the Bartels AfD, and only one person rejected it as a precedent in the GY14 one. I still say asteroids aren't inherently notable just because they exist. Reyk _YO! 11:52, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

There are thousands more like it. Equally fit for (speedy) deletion. I'd just like to know how to get it done. Debresser (talk) 22:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

The key word here is "significant". An announcement in a specialized journal of a list of the next 500 odd asteroids located and catalogued is not significant.

Who can tell me where to raise this question? Debresser (talk) 17:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

This has been discussed before. There is no consensus to delete these articles. Spacepotato (talk) 23:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Let's discuss it again. Debresser (talk) 01:00, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:GNG, the issue with asteroid article notability might come down to the requirement for secondary sources. I'm not sure I regard the JPL Small-Body Database as a secondary source. On the other hand, perhaps the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names might considered such. I know I've experienced great difficulty in trying to expand some of the more obscure asteroid articles, so I'm not clear those can be anything beyond a stub (in the near future at any rate). This comes back to the requirement for significant coverage. Still, I'm not in any hurry to do a mass delete; they should at least get links to the JPL pages (on the lists of minor planets pages) before that happens.—RJH (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The point I am trying to argue is another. That a mention of another asteroid found in any or all of these sources is not considered significant coverage. I would really like to raise this question anew. Please tell me where to do this. Debresser (talk) 18:19, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

This subject has been extensively discussed, without reaching a useful actionable consensus, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects#main belt asteroids and in Archive 8 ff. Please take note of that large corpus before reworking the same ground here. I think WikiProject Astronomical objects (or a sub-project of that) is the place the discussion needs to be centralized, in any case. Thanks, Wwheaton (talk) 19:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I propose continuing the discussion at the place you mentioned. Debresser (talk) 20:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

IP edits of Gamow and Lemaître

Gamow diffs

Lemaître diffs

If it's vandalism, it's not obvious vandalism. But these edits changed the meaning and implications of these passage quite a bit. No ref was given by the IP, so I can't establish that these are alright, and no refs are given in the previous version either, so I can't establish they are false either.

Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 16:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Kepler Mission

Two weeks until launch and this article is in pretty poor shape. As it will most certainly make the main page (In the news) it would be nice to see this article improved before that time. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 09:32, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. I know I'm looking forward to seeing the results from both this mission and COROT.—RJH (talk) 18:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I would like to start uploading images from testing to assembly to launch. Can anyone recommend the standard series of images for a mission like this that would work well alongside the text? I can probably figure it out, but since you folks have worked on similar articles before, it would be nice to standardize image selection. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 22:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I just read that the focal plane array is the largest camera NASA has ever sent into space, so maybe I should start by uploading that photograph first? Viriditas (talk) 00:35, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I've decided against uploading the FPA photo, since the copyright is somewhat confusing. NASA owns the photo, but Ball Aerospace also seems to claim it. Viriditas (talk) 01:42, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Help needed with the Planetarium article

Hello. Is the Planetarium article within the scope of this WikiProject? I think it needs some attention - the subject is enough at least for a Good Article, but its current condition is, er, far from stellar. I've cleaned the linkfarm and the gallery, but the rest should be done by someone whose Engilsh is better than mine. Thank you. --Daggerstab (talk) 21:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Maunder's Butterfly Diagram

I just came across an interesting topic, Maunder's "butterfly" diagrams, which doesn't seem to have a Wikipedia article, although butterfly diagrams are mentioned in Solar cycle. See, for example:

• http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2000/maunder.html
• http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/sun/activity/butterfly.html
• http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007MmSAI..78..596T
• http://www.asiaoceania.org/abstract/ST/58-ST-A0040.pdf

It certainly seems encyclopedic, as it apparently revolutionized our understanding of the sun, and has been the subject of numerous articles that could be used as references.

Just thought I'd point it out in case anyone is itching to write an article.

—Steven G. Johnson (talk) 02:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

SI Units Only

I recently made an edit to asteroid belt and I did not realize astronomy had a convention to show only metric units. I'm sorry for making a change against the agreed style. I found the distances hard to visualize without the conversions and WP:MOSNUM has a conversion example using the Earth and the Moon. I will abide by the astronomy consensus to not convert, but should the example on MOSNUM be changed to one in a different field of study? —Ost (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 04:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Project banner

I think it would be helpful to have an easy to find bit of code for the Project Banner on the main project page. When I drop by an unfamiliar project, that's often the one thing I'm looking for. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:28, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean? Like having {{WPAstronomy|class=|importance=|object=}} on the main page?

Yeah, in the templates section. That's where I went to look for it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Dealing with inconsistent distances (NGC 2440)

I was doing some research to boost the article on NGC 2440 and came upon some confusing figures. An article in Astronomy magazine says that the central star of NGC 2440 lies about 7,100 light years from Earth (I own a copy of the magazine, and I cited it in NGC 2440). Yet a section of HubbleSite says that the nebula lies about 4,000 light years from Earth. Which is which? Micasta (talk) 02:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

[4] 2.19 kpc 76.66.193.90 (talk) 07:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Amazing! Thank you! :) Micasta (talk) 10:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

FA cleanup needed

According to Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing, the article Mars is in need of cleanup. Hopefully, editors will get on it right away, or the article should be submitted to WP:FAR for review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

There is also Extrasolar planet, Solar system, Dwarf planet, Enceladus (moon), Helium and Titan.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:54, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I posted a message about some concerns to the Mars talk page, but I have no idea if anybody is watching. Unfortunately, the page definitely needs some work to get back up to FA current status. I'm pretty swamped at the moment so I won't be able to help much.—RJH (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I will try to do smth. Ruslik (talk) 20:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Astronomical historians

Category:Astronomical historians has been nominated for renaming to Category:Historians of astronomy. 76.66.193.90 (talk) 06:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I see somebody got here before me -- so I will simply add that your input will be appreciated. Here's the link for the CFD. Cgingold (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages?

I was curious about which Astronomy articles get the most page views. Falsikon's overview lists the top ten (for November at the moment). I also submitted this request here (needs Google account) for Mr.Z-man's article popularity bot to run on this project. I do not know if this has been done before here, or whether it is even wanted, but if the bot runs I guess the results should appear in Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Popular pages (when the redlink turns blue). For an existing example see Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Popular pages. A list of other projects that have had Popular pages added by Mr.Z-bot can be searched for here (search for "popularity"). Would a link to the top ten list be useful at the project page, somewhere need the assessments table maybe? 84user (talk) 16:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

It would probably be a good idea to set up the same for WP Solar System and WP Astronomical Objects as well... 76.66.198.171 (talk) 12:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I have just made these requests:

• [5] requests Wikipedia:WikiProject Solar System/Popular pages for Wikipedia:WikiProject Solar System;
• [6] requests Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Popular pages for Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects

Meanwhile Zman has responded here to say that Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Popular pages is added to the list and will start with January. I guess that means sometime in February Mr.Z-bot will put January's pageview results in that redlinked page. If I have understood Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects (WP AO) classification correctly, each WP AO article's Talk page should already have Template:WPAstronomy as the banner, and therefore it should get included in the Astronomy Popular pages. But I see some articles in Wikipedia:WikiProject Solar System use {{WPSS}} and others, like Talk:Solar System, use {{WPSpace}}. I have asked Zman whether I have given sufficient information in my requests and whether it matters that some articles have more than one project banner. 84user (talk) 00:00, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I think some of the astronomy and astronomical object pages also use the WPSpace banner. 76.66.193.90 (talk) 07:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It's good to see so many articles with high assessment ratings at the top of the list. All that work by the project members has paid off! The highest constellation on the list is Orion, so that could be a good starting point for build a first-rate article in that category.—RJH (talk) 20:14, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Astronomical objects by year of discovery

Did anyone notice Category:Astronomical objects by year of discovery and subcategories? Are we going to use this categorization scheme? 76.66.193.90 (talk) 12:24, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

If we are going to use this schema, then can someone precreate year categories for every year in the 20th and 21st centuries? 76.66.193.90 (talk) 08:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

No offense intended to the user who created those, but I don't see the point. It's just one more category that needs to be populated and updated, probably by whim, and I can't see it being as useful as a well-developed history of astronomy article.—RJH (talk) 20:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Appendix:Astronomical terms

Some people might want to look over wikt:Appendix:Astronomical terms. 76.66.201.179 (talk) 13:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Twin Quasar

See this discussion at WT:ASTRO#Twin Quasar about a recent renaming and revision to the notation format used in the article. 76.66.201.179 (talk) 06:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Stars in fiction trivia

Just wanted to point out that many of the articles in Category:Stars in fiction seem to be lists of trivia. If interested, members of this project may want to try integrating usable content into main articles. Ham Pastrami (talk) 06:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, they were originally removed from the star articles to prevent the stars from being overwhelmed by the fiction sections. 76.66.201.179 (talk) 06:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. These are best kept separate. It's not that difficult to find citations for that stuff. Somebody just needs the motivation to do it.—RJH (talk) 22:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Importance assessment of GRB 970508

This article has passed the GA review, but it has not received an importance assessment from this project. Can someone take a look at it? Wronkiew (talk) 05:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Per the criteria I pegged it as a Mid because of the number of publications and the fact that it is an unusual event (in the sense of being the first GRB to have it's distance measured). Thanks.—RJH (talk) 22:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Galactic orientation

Galactic orientation has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.201.179 (talk) 06:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• Given that it's the only place in Wikipiedia to currently describe Zel'dovich's pancake model, for one thing, clearly this is missing content that someone has kindly given to us for further merciless editing and improvement. Deletion isn't the answer. Uncle G (talk) 01:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
  • It apparently survived AfD, so I did some rough editing and re-arrangement of the article. But it needs more refinement and citations.—RJH (talk) 22:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Size of Hypergiant: S Doradus

In the article S Doradus its radius is given as 390solar radii, but in List of largest known stars it is 550solar radii, but in this image File:Star-sizes.jpg it is even bigger than Betelgeuse. Charvest (talk) 11:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Also the image shows Antares as bigger than Betelgeuse, but the list says it is the other way around. Charvest (talk) 11:55, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

H. Lamers (1995) gives a model of S Dor that has its radius varying from 100 to 380 solar. The data on that list page is heavily uncited, so I'm not sure whether to believe any it. (The same problem exists for the list of the most luminous stars.) It's curious that File:Star-sizes.jpg won an award since it is completely uncited.—RJH (talk) 21:17, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Help needed at Cyclic model

Perhaps someone can persuade User:Hrafn that his/her repeated gutting of this article is unhelpful. I don't have time to attempt to deal with it right now, but the article cannot be left in the state this user apparently prefers. False vacuum (talk) 08:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to move Inflation, replace with dab. page

is here. The idea is that price inflation is not obviously of greatly vaster significance than cosmic inflation, which incidentally is usually called plain "inflation". False vacuum (talk) 05:58, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

blackhole articles at WP:PROD

Formation and evolution of black holes and Properties and features of black holes have been proposed for deletion. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 05:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Vote on date autoformatting and linking

People may be interested to know that the Vote on date autoformatting and linking is now open. All users are invited to participate. Lightmouse (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese star names

Traditional Chinese star names has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 11:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Neutrino Array Radio Calibration

Neutrino Array Radio Calibration has been nominated for deletion. 70.29.213.241 (talk) 07:07, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Star article creation bot?

I've just noticed that there are a huge number of identified stars that do not have articles, or even lists devoted to them. The Henry Draper Catalogue includes 359,083 different stars. The Tycho-2 Catalogue contains 2,539,913 different stars. We should at least have a list of them, if not an individual article for each one. Obviously, we would need a bot to do most of the work and I have no idea how to go about creating one. If anyone does have the technical know-how, I think this could be a great project. Just an idea.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 00:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You could create a script that creates a text file with proper wiki formatting, and then just upload/paste that file as an article. 76.66.193.90 (talk) 05:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Lists are fine. Individual articles, not so much. I believe there was the same problem with list of asteroids. If they are notable, then make an article. If it's simply "Star X is located at these coordinates", then don't create the article. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking even the creation of lists might need a bot. To list 2.5 million different stars, even with very long lists of 1,000 (such as List of minor planets for example), we're talking about 2,500 lists. Again, I have no idea how to create such a bot.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:48, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Whenever this is done, it should be categorized in its own category... say Category:Lists of Tycho-2 objects, and a set of lists of lists should list to the 2,540 lists (say 6 lists of lists) to aid navigation (500 lists each, 40 in the last), and a list of lists of lists to list those 6. And a catalogue level Category:Tycho-2 objects to categorize the two list categories and any stars, star systems that would be categorized. 76.66.201.179 (talk) 20:09, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been trying to figure this out and maybe someone knows. Is the list of Tycho-2 stars actually online somewhere? I couldn't find it on their website.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It's on their FTP site - ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/259/ so you can create the List of Tycho-2 objects (1-1000), List of Tycho-2 objects (1001-2000), .... List of Tycho-2 objects (2,539,001-2,539,913) ; Lists of Tycho-2 objects (1-500,000), .... Lists of Tycho-2 objects (2,500,001-2,539,913) ; Lists of lists of Tycho-2 objects ; -- 76.66.201.179 (talk) 05:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I tried to download and open the files but they have weird extensions. (dat.00, dat.01, etc.) Any ideas?--Cdogsimmons (talk) 21:47, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what the problem is, they're simple text files. Did you read ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/259/ReadMe and ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/259/guide.pdf ? 76.66.193.69 (talk) 12:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Good Job! Now that we've solved that we can start to figure out the lists. Here's a sample of the numbers involved:

0001 00008 1| | 2.31750494| 2.23184345| -16.3| -9.0| 68| 73| 1.7| 1.8|1958.89|1951.94| 4|1.0|1.0|0.9|1.0|12.146|0.158|12.146|0.223|999| |

I'm pretty sure (but I could be wrong) that those numbers correspond to the following:

  1-  4  I4      ---     TYC1     [2,9529]+= TYC1 from TYC (1)
  6- 10  I5      ---     TYC2     [1,12112]  TYC2 from TYC (1)
     12  I1      ---     TYC3     [1,4]      TYC3 from TYC (1)
     14  A1      ---     flag     [HT] data from Hipparcos or Tycho-1 (2)
 16- 27  F12.8   deg     RAdeg    Right Asc, ICRS, at epoch=J1991.25
 29- 40  F12.8   deg     DEdeg    Decl, ICRS, at epoch=J1991.25
 42- 48  F7.1    mas/yr  pmRA     []? Proper motion in RA*cos(dec)
 50- 56  F7.1    mas/yr  pmDE     []? Proper motion in Dec
 58- 62  F5.1    mas   e_RAdeg    s.e. RA*cos(dec)
 64- 68  F5.1    mas   e_DEdeg    s.e. of Dec
 70- 74  F5.1   mas/yr e_pmRA     []? s.e. prop mot in RA * cos(dec)
 76- 80  F5.1   mas/yr e_pmDE     []? s.e. of proper motion in Dec
     82  A1      ---     mflag    [ BVH] Note about Tycho magnitudes (3)
 84- 89  F6.3    mag     BTmag    []? Tycho-1 BT magnitude (4)
 91- 95  F5.3    mag   e_BTmag    []? s.e. of BT (4)
 97-102  F6.3    mag     VTmag    []?  Tycho-1 VT or Hp magnitude (4)
104-108  F5.3    mag   e_VTmag    []? s.e. of VT (4)
110-112  I3   0.1arcsec  prox     [1,999] proximity indicator (5)
    114  A1      ---     TYC      [ T] Tycho-1 star
116-121  I6      ---     HIP      [1,120404]? Hipparcos number
    122  A1      ---     CCDM     CCDM component identifier for HIP stars

I don't really know what a lot of this stuff means to be honest but I don't think that matters. I suppose I could put together a sample list in a sandbox. I'll get started.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 16:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. I have almost given up on this by the way. I don't know what these numbers mean and they seem to change format. Did I mention I don't know how to set up a bot? Help!--Cdogsimmons (talk) 15:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Why would you ever do such a thing as create millions of star articles using a bot? That creates nothing except a maintenance nightmare. It's enough of a headache trying to get the current star articles configured with proper data.—RJH (talk) 22:10, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, we're also missing a List of IC objects for the Index Catalogue, as a counterpart for the List of NGC objects. 76.66.193.90 (talk) 08:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, we don't have a List of HR objects to go with Bright Star Catalogue (and no Category:HR objects) 76.66.193.69 (talk) 12:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, there's now an HR cat. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 04:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a List of HIP objects should go along with the category Category:HIP objects 76.66.193.69 (talk) 04:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Found an unlinked to List of stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue... 76.66.193.69 (talk) 00:49, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

FAR on Comet

I have nominated Comet for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.Cirt (talk) 12:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Old requested articles

Here are the astronomy article requests that are more than two years old:

• Boson star - Core collapse (globular) - Doppler beaming - Donut theory of universe - Galactic ridge - Intermediate stars - k-essence - Kyoto DST & PFSS - Natural broadening - Phase Curve - Rectified image - Safe Slot - Small Bang Theory - Soapbubble Superstructure of Galactic Walls - z branch, banana branch - Soliton star - Solunar and Feeding Time Calculations - Spatial singularity - Stellar density - Stellar pulsations - Triple quasar - Z Andromedae variable

• Brussels Observatory - Gotha Observatory - Johannesburg Observatory - N2K Consortium - Rim Star System

Thanks.—RJH (talk) 22:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

standardized object template?

I ran across a few astronomical pages (asteroids, mostly) in the category category:Pages needing an infobox conversion and it seems to me it would be fairly easy to create a generic infobox template for these things. certainly for solar orbital objects, and possibly extended to stellar objects as well. I'm no physicist, though (just a bright social scientist) so I'll probably get something wrong if I go at it blithely. I'll make a quick draft given what I can see on these pages (maybe twenty minutes work, that), but if someone with an actual astronomical brain could point out where I screw up or miss imprtant details, I'd be obliged. --Ludwigs2 05:48, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Please visit WP:WikiProject Astronomical objects, and we already have templates. You can see them at such places as the article for the Sun, or the asteroid 4 Vesta, or the planet Mars, or the Moon, or Milky Way Galaxy, or Andromeda (constellation), etc. 76.66.196.218 (talk) 06:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Solar system basic nominated for deletion at AfD

Solar system basic has been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Solar system basic. Note that the creator of this article has recently created a sandbox article User:HarryAlffa/Solar System synopsis that he categorized into article categories, so I expect the article to be recreated if deleted... 76.66.196.218 (talk) 13:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Lead section of Solar System

There is an active discussion on rewriting the lead section of Solar System, as Solar System is a featured article, more participants might be a good idea. See Talk:Solar System and Wikipedia:Featured article review/Solar System/archive1 76.66.196.218 (talk) 14:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT

Apologies for the notice, but this is being posted to every WikiProject to avoid accusations of systemic bias. Hiding T 13:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

{{Infobox magnetosphere}}

I created this infobox for the articles about planetary magnetospheres (currently used in two articles). Comments and suggestions are appreciated. Ruslik (talk) 12:20, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Magnetosphere of Jupiter

I nominated this article for peer review. You can leave your comments here. Ruslik (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of commons images

It looks like there is a bot called "CommonsDelinker" that is deleting all of the Chandra images because "Only non commercial use is allowed: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/image_use.html." Unfortunately this bot is not doing a very good job and is leaving remnants behind (for example here). You may want to check the pages where you see that bot in your watchlist.—RJH (talk) 14:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a problem I've encountered before... the biggest issue seems to be with images that meet EnWiki's "fair use" requirements, but fail those for Commons. What happens is that the image is deleted from the English Wikipedia in favour of its equivalent copy at Commons, to avoid duplication. At some later point, the Commons version is deemed to be in violation of the fair use rules for Commons, and thus is deleted over there. The bot then cleans out EnWiki's links to that image - even though the image met the requirements here. If you see an image that appears to meet the licensing rules here, please let me know and I can look into undeleting the local version. --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Planetbox image artist conception proposal

Template talk:Planetbox image has a proposal for using artist conception images in Planetbox. I linked to earlier discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Image Review, which was announced in 2007 and to Talk:Gliese 581 c#GA Review. 84user (talk) 18:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Briefly, the proposal is that use of images supplied by official organizations associated with a discovery should be used (in fact, encouraged) as long at is made clear that the image represents an artist's impression of one possible form of the planet. — Aldaron • T/C 18:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Please check this

Please check this, I'm an amateur astronomer and don't know nuclear physics. I'm not a physicist butI am a social scientist and I know how often prejudice has prevented or delayed the solution of a problem. One example that physicist know is when physicists in the second half of the 19th Century didn't understand radioactive decay because they believed that transmutation of elements was impossible. If the earliest red dwarf stars have heavy elements clearly heavy elements were synthesized before they were formed. I can only think of two possibilities,

1. Some supernovae happened before the earliest Red dwarfs known to astronomers formed. As we can only see red dwarfs near the sun that makes sense perhaps.
2. Our models of the Big Bang and Early universe are wrong and heavy elements formed before the first red dwarf stars.

Experts please look at this it could be important. Proxima Centauri 2 (talk) 16:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Please, don't add your proposals for astronomical research to Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is not the place for your original research. Spacepotato (talk) 20:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at Metallicity#Population_III_stars and Occam's Razor. :-) —RJH (talk) 16:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Does your WikiProject care about talk pages of redirects?

Does your project care about what happens to the talk pages of articles that have been replaced with redirects? If so, please provide your input at User:Mikaey/Request for Input/ListasBot 3. Thanks, Matt (talk) 01:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I certainly think we should care about them, since they keep coming up for deletion because people suffer from WP:IDONTKNOWIT in relation to astronomy. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 10:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Trifid Nebula distance from Earth

Hi there. The article for Trifid mentions is distance from Earth to be between 2000-9000 ly, while reliable sources such as the NASA/Spitzer database (http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2005-02/ssc2005-02a.shtml) puts it accurately at 5400 ly. Should it be edited? 212.44.19.206 (talk) 13:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd say yes. A cited value should take precedence over data of unknown origin.—RJH (talk) 16:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

File:I screenimage 30579.jpg

File:I screenimage 30579.jpg has been nominated for deletion, as an ESA copyrighted image being replaceable. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

File:X3solarflare.gif

File:X3solarflare.gif has been nominated for deletion, as an ESA copyrighted image being replaceable. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

File:Solarflareanimation.gif

File:Solarflareanimation.gif has been nominated for deletion, as an ESA copyrighted image being replaceable. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Images

Hallo there! I inform you that we have obtained an OTRS ticket for all the images available on this italian site: hundreds and hundreds of high-quality images. Follows here the OTRS ticket, anyone who have OTRS access can confirm it.

{{permissionOTRS|2008072210023406}}

You can upload the images only on Wikipedia, on Commons they are not allowed. Enjoy. --Roberto Segnali all'Indiano 05:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Pre-main sequence articles

Perhaps it's just me, but it seems as if the information regarding the early evolution of stars (from a contracting cloud to zero age main sequence) is somewhat lacking an overarching organization. We have these articles: Protostar, T Tauri star, Pre-main sequence star, FU Orionis star, Herbig Ae/Be star, Hayashi track, Henyey track, Bok globule, Star formation, Young stellar object and Hayashi limit. What should be the top level article for these articles? Should they be consolidated and reorganized? Thank you.—RJH (talk) 16:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that star formation should be the root article, and the others should branch off it, keeping most of them. Bok globule, Herbig–Haro object, T Tauri star should definitely remain separate. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 21:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikisky, step one: The STScI

I inform you that we have obtained an OTRS ticket for all the images available on The STScI Digitized Sky Survey, POSS2: all b/w sky survey is available for us. Images are only for no-commercial purposes.

{{permissionOTRS|2009052010051757}}

You can upload the images only on Wikipedia, on Commons they are not allowed. Enjoy. --Roberto Segnali all'Indiano 16:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Urantia Book on Tycho's Nova

There is a discussion at Talk:SN_1572#Tycho's Nova Decision - May 15, 2009 on how best to incorporate subject matter from The Urantia Book pertaining to Tycho's Nova into wikipedia. I am also posting this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religious texts#Urantia Book on Tycho's Nova. 84user (talk) 00:41, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Have editors over in this area of Wikipedia had the inclination to review the material referenced above? --Joe DiMaggio, Jacksonville, Florida (talk) 16:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Moon images categories up for deletion

Category:Images of moons and Category:Lunar images (images of The Moon) have been nominated for deletion at WP:CFD on May 23. 70.29.208.129 (talk) 04:05, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

ESA image categories up for deletion

Category:European Space Agency images and Category:ESA multimedia gallery images have been nominated for deletion at WP:CFD. As I understand it, ESA images are not eligible for Commons... 70.29.208.129 (talk) 04:05, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Moving astronomy images to Commons

Hi all. I'm slowly moving freely licensed images from Category:Astronomy images onto Commons; help moving them would be much appreciated (commonshelper is good for moving them). If you're aware of any of the licenses being incorrect (e.g. images under CC-BY-SA that shouldn't be), the please let me know / fix them. I'm especially worried about images from Wikisky... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:53, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Mike, I've some real reservations about moving images unless we can guarantee that they will not end up being deleted from Commons. The problem that I've encountered is that images which have valid use on EnWiki are transferred, but then end up getting deleted from Commons because they don't meet the site-wide requirements. The image links then get deleted from EnWiki, without any restoration of the image here. I've caught a few, but I wonder how many are missed? --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:33, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

If the licenses on the images that I'm moving are correct, then they won't be deleted from Commons. My understanding is that there should be a notification here of an image being deleted on commons - at the very least in the form of the image being removed from a page (I'm not sure if there's any sort of notification system that puts a notice with the images during deletion?) Personally, though, I'm generally of the view that if the images aren't acceptable on Commons then they shouldn't be acceptable here... Mike Peel (talk) 20:57, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The main diference between commons image policy and ours is that we accept fair use of non freely licensed images, while commons does not. All images in commons must be under a free license or public domain. So, as long as the images you're transferring are GDFL, CC-BY-SA or similar, this shouldn't be a problem. 189.105.101.176 (talk) 00:13, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

There are at least three significant sources of astronomical images that may not be acceptible on the Commons: the Chandra observatory images[7], JAXA[8] images, and ESA[9] images. Two are limited by license to non-commercial educational and public information purposes, while the JAXA is non-commercial only. None of these licenses is allowed under Wikipedia:Image_policy#Free_licenses, so it looks like those will be subject to deletion unless we can slide low-res copies in under free use. Basically that blows.—RJH (talk) 18:08, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Chandra is a NASA mission, so images should be PD by default, no? Mike Peel (talk) 18:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia_talk:ASTRO#Deletion_of_commons_images, apparently Chandra images have been deleted from Commons. (see http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/image_use.html ) 70.29.208.129 (talk) 14:24, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I've just come across commons:Commons:Deletion requests/All DSS2 Images from wikisky, which might be of interest to people here. Mike Peel (talk) 10:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Redshift

Grateful for some expert input at this article. Landed little marsdon (talk) 20:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Optics FA drive

A 9x expansion of the optics article has been undertaken by ScienceApologist. Assistance welcomed to help raise it to featured article level. Best wishes all, Durova^Charge! 22:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

File:Space Barnstar Idea 1.png

File:Space Barnstar Idea 1.png has been nominated for deletion. 70.29.208.129 (talk) 05:13, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Bottom importance added

The 'Bottom' importance rating has been added to {{WPAstronomy}} and the category Category:Bottom-importance Astronomy articles has been established. I populated it with a few articles. Please add some more if you know of suitable pages.—RJH (talk) 23:31, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

So we now have "Top" and "Bottom"; can we add some more quarks at some point? Being able to rate an article "Charmed" or "Strange" would be great. ;-) On a serious note, you might want to update Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Importance ratings with some examples.

In general, I've never really liked the idea of an article's importance, as it always strikes me as a little too subjective. Adding bottom-class to an article now says to the author of that article that it is "Not of importance to astronomy overall" and is possibly "crank". Could someone remind me why we use importance at all? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think bottom works, because "low" seems not low enough for some things. Just about everything is "low"... somethings should be lower.

As for needing importance levels... it shows just what you describe... and can show articles that need work if they're not B-class already, but are rated as being important to the understanding of astronomy, or showing articles that should be worked on to be boosted to FA-class.

70.29.208.129 (talk) 11:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if my copy-paste left a bad impression. Please feel free to reword the description so that it is less harsh on potential readers. Personally I have to tried to focus more editing attention on articles that have higher ratings, as I think it is a good practice to make the core topics as solid and polished as possible.—RJH (talk) 18:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

proposal for notiability guidelines for non fiction science books

I want to propose that there be a set of notability requirements, at Wikipedia, for non fiction books, in the popular science category. I can't speak for other disciplines, but non-fiction science rates some sort of notability category. For example, who is going to make a dramatic feature film based on popularized non fiction physics books. And, these science books are probably not going to end up in a literature course at a university. There is no plot to summarize, and is not likely to win a major literary award, etc., etc. I am surprised that this has not been brought up before. The current notablility guidelines are stacked against these types of books. On that note - if anyone has any ideas about what these proposed notablility guidelines should be, I am open to suggestions, so I can present with something in hand. Feel free to leave suggestions at my talk page. Ti-30X (talk) 04:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I often see reviews of non-fiction science books in reputable public science magazines (such as Science News, Scientific American and Sky & Telescope), so that may be a suitable criteria. Some book reviews have been cited in NASA ADS.—RJH (talk) 19:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Physics of the Impossible

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Physics of the Impossible. Thanks. Ti-30X (talk) 04:52, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

A Small Problem that Should be Addressed

Though this problem is admittedly very minor, it seems to be inherent to the Wikipedia article for each of the 110 Messier objects, and I could find no way to solve it. On every article for each of the 110 Messier objects (110 articles in all), the line under the title of the article "strikes through" (as so) the coordinates of the corresponding object. (For example, in Wikipedia's article entitled "Crab Nebula" [M1], the line under the title "Crab Nebula" and above "A featured article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" strikes through (overlaps) the object's coordinates to the right. This same problem can be found for all of the Messier objects (I checked a few random ones, all of which had this problem, and extrapolated that all 110 articles had the same problem).

Even worse, I could find no way to solve the problem. I identified the code for inputting the coordinates, which, for the Crap Nebula, for example, appears near the bottom of the edit page (below the "external links" section and above the categories section) although the coordinates appear at the top of the article itself. The code is immediately below {{Messier objects}} and is

{{Sky|5|34|31.97|+|22|00|52.1|6500}}.

However, I could find no modification to this code that solves the problem (for example, trying to put a line break before the code in order to put some vertical space between the title line and the coordinates makes the coordinates disappear completely).

With my mild knowledge of programming, it seems that the code, itself, could be modified in one shot, correcting the problem in all 110 articles rather than going about correcting each one separately. However, I do not believe I am qualified to do this and believe that someone with more knowledge of Wikipedia and the Astronomy portal or WikiProject could solve the problem with much more success than I.

--Some Old Man (talk) 03:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Whether this problem is present will depend on your browser configuration and which skin you are using. For me, using either of two browsers (Firefox 3.0.10 or Internet Explorer 8) and the default monobook skin, the coordinates display correctly, immediately below the horizontal line. Using either of the chick or modern skins, on the other hand, I experience the problem you describe. You might wish to try a different browser and/or skin, although I expect that Wikipedia will often appear best when using the default monobook skin. Spacepotato (talk) 07:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You may want to bring up this issue on Template talk:Sky.—RJH (talk) 19:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting; I very much appreciate these responses. The problem appears, for me, using Internet Explorer 7 and the default monobook skin. I plan to bring this issue up on Template talk:Sky as RJHall proposed or with the makers of the facebook skins, but with the added conditions brough up by Spacepotato. I realize a similar issue might be present in many other pages, accross all of facebook, if it is dependent on the skin type and browerser type, especially since I notice the problem using the default skin (but with Internet Explorer 7). Hence, I will keep the issue warm. Again, thank you both!

--Some Old Man (talk) 21:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)