Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 FAC 2 Astronomical subjects 3 Transit of Venus 4 Definition of planet 5 Morning width 6 Anon changing data 7 John Dee 8 Black hole 9 Galaxy 10 Project directory 11 Astronomy versus Astrophysics 12 Scientific citations 13 Merger with WikiProject Astronomical objects 14 Stellar classification - (LeDrew) 15 Supernova 16 Jupiter, Universe and Black hole AC&ID 17 Wikipedia Day Awards 18 Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector is now FAC 19 Science Collaboration of the Month 20 Renaming astro-stub to astronomy-stub 21 Worklist 22 Template:WPAstronomy 23 Planet Infoboxes TfD's 24 Astronomy articles by quality 25 Wikipedia:WikiProject Telescopes 26 Astronomical templates 27 Citation systems 28 Copyright 29 Ugly format 30 50000 Quaoar - GA work 31 Comet Hyakutake 32 Jupiter 33 Carl Sagan is a featured article candidate 34 Carl Sagan FAR 35 Wiktionary 36 Astrobox templates 37 Possible Astronomy Featured Topic 38 Wikipedia:Scientific peer review 39 Andromeda-Milky Way collision nominated for deletion 40 List of possible articles 41 Solar System 42 University of Illinois Observatory 43 Black hole 44 Pulsar vs Rotation-powered pulsar (and X-ray pulsar) 45 Aspects of Mars 45.1 Ephemerides 46 Exploded Planet Hypothesis 47 Conversion templates 48 Bastille Day event 49 Cassini–Huygens 50 Spacecraft names

FAC

Please add comments to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Redshift. Thanks, --ScienceApologist 23:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Astronomical subjects

Please review Special:Contributions/Mlhooten and Special:Contributions/166.82.166.38. Uncle G 14:26, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Transit of Venus

Transit of Venus is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Definition of planet

Definition of planet is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 20:00, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Morning width

Hi, I wrote a short stub on morning width using a definition I found somewherew on the Internet. Could someone who actually knows sometihng about astronomy verify its correctness? Cheers, —Ruud 21:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a really obscure term that I have not encountered in professional astronomy. It would be the type of term used in archaeoastronomy. A web search truns up nothing. I am uncertain if this is a real term. You should at least reference the source of your information (or a source that you are certain did not copy Wikipedia) so that other people can check your information. George J. Bendo 22:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I got the definition from http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/gcal/gcal_90.html. I translated the term from German: "Besonderes Interesse verdienen auch zwei Texte über die morgenweite und die Bestimmiung des Azimuts aus der Höhe, weil in ihnen indische Formeln in geometrischem Gewand gegeben werden und es so aussieht als ob sie mit Hilfe eines Sinusquadranten berechnet wroden wären." The two texts mentioned here are 9th century Arabic treatises on astronomy. —Ruud 22:22, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Anon changing data

Hi, 80.121.98.214 (talk • contribs) has changed some values for physical data about stars. It looks suspicious, but I'm hoping for a second opinion about whether the changes are legitimate. Thanks, Wmahan. 19:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

He appears to be changing temperatures and radii. Note that the radius cannot be measured directly but can be derived using the luminosity and temperature. Therefore, 80.121.98.214 appears to be making changes purely related to updating the temperatures.

To be honest, the changes by 80.121.98.214 are not all that big. Changing 7000 K to 6600 K is not that big a deal, especially since the temperatures probably are not better defined anyway. However, someone should ask him to cite his references.

For that matter, all the data in the infoboxes should be referenced. For example, look at the Alpha Persei article (where the temperature and radius were recently modified by 80.121.98.214). Nothing in that infobox is referenced. Where did all of that data come from? One of the external links? SIMBAD? Someone's field guide of the night sky? Allen's Astrophysical Quantities? Scientific preprints? Who knows? It probably came from multiple sources, but we don't know which ones.

Infobox material can be referenced gracefully; for example, see the Sombrero Galaxy article. The infobox data for stars should also be referenced. GeorgeJBendo 21:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

John Dee

John Dee is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 21:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Black hole

Black hole is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 16:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Galaxy

This is one of those essential astronomy topics that I think deserves a FA-rated treatment. The current page is fairly decent already, but I think there's more to be done. (Particularly with regard to meeting the stringent reference requirements; a prerequisite of a GA article.) Could the members of this group suggest a to-do list to make this page meet the comprehensiveness standards required for an FA article? Thank you. — RJH (talk) 02:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

From the standpoint, here is what I see missing in terms of content:

• The introduction should spend more time describing the basic properties of galaxies (such as their typical sizes and masses). It also contains a lot of redundant information; it seems to describe the interstellar medium using several different synonyms. (I removed at least one synonym: "plasma".)

• The observational history section should mention the Shapley Kurtis debate. Information of the historical detections of galaxies at wavelengths other than radio wavelengths would be nice. The HST's contributions to extragalactic astronomy and the Hubble Deep Field are not described accurately.

• The "Types of galaxies" section missed a key point: many galaxies' basic properties are related to their Hubble type, including the basic character of the ISM, the star formation history, the AGN type, and the stellar dynamics. The "Active galaxies" subsection needs an overhaul.

• The "Large scale structure" section contains the same awkward descriptions of galaxy groups and clusters that is found throughout Wikipedia. (I think someone copied a lot of information from SEDS, which was written by a German person who sometimes used awkward English phrases.) The section needs some revisions. I tried revising the second paragraph, but I am not happy with what I wrote. (I also need to find good references for some of that information.)

• The "Galaxy formation and evolution" section makes no mention of mergers except for the cheesy discussion of the pending merger between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. This is a glaring oversight that needs to be addressed. Changes in galaxy morphology over time also needs to be described.

• The "Galactic biology" section appears to be given too much weight. I recommend shrinking this section if possible.

• A "multiwavelength galaxies" section would be nice. (SINGS, a project that I have worked on, should have something somewhere.)

These are just brief comments for now. I will keep an eye on the page and make improvements when I can. Dr. Submillimeter 08:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, these are helpful. I took the liberty of summarizing these on the galaxy page's to-do list (which I just added to the talk page.) — RJH (talk) 17:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for transcribing my comments. (I also need to learn how to spell Curtis's name.) Dr. Submillimeter 18:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Astronomy versus Astrophysics

I just nominated Category:Astrophysicists for deletion today, as it appears to duplicate Category:Astronomers. The discussion on the nomination led into a discussion about whether "astrophysics" can be considered a subcategory of "astronomy". My immediate perception as a professional astronomer/astrophysicist is that the difference does not really exist, as most astronomers use physics in their analysis. When I do a Google search on "difference between astronomy and astrophysics", I get links to a bunch of "ask the experts" pages that seem to say the same thing. This led me to look at the astronomy and astrophysics articles in Wikipedia. Unsurprisingly, the two articles contain duplicate information. Additionally, some of the things described in astronomy are physics oriented, and some of the things in astrophysics are not physics intensive. Similar statements can be made for Category:Astronomy and Category:Astrophysics. In my opinion, it looks like all of this stuff should be merged together. What are other people's opinions? GeorgeJBendo 18:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I have had colleagues, astrometrists, who drew sharp distinction between astronomy and astrophysics, and put themselves firmly on the astronomer side. As they worked strictly with collection and analysis of positional data, I can see their point. Lord Rutherford's famous comment notwithstanding, one can be a solid practicing scientist doing fundamentally important work without being a physicist. BSVulturis 23:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Scientific citations

Would your WikiProject like to endorse Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines? If so, please let those editors at that guideline know. --ScienceApologist 19:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Merger with WikiProject Astronomical objects

A discussion has started at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects on merging these two WikiProjects. This project seems mostly inactive. However, if anyone here would like to comment on a potential merger, please do so at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects. Dr. Submillimeter 20:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Stellar classification - (LeDrew)

Migrated here from WP:AO

In the Stellar classification page, their are several sentences under the O-M class stars that have the (LeDrew) phrase. They been there for a while. I deleted the G star phrase and put citation for the phrase that (LeDrew) left. I think that the information if valid, but no citation is on it.

• [[1]] - is the date that I removed one of them.

Thanks, CarpD 09/12/06

Perhaps it was intended as a citation? But I don't see a reference by LeDrew at the bottom of the page. The revision was made 2/8/2006 by anonymous user 69.152.226.14, if that's any help. — RJH (talk) 15:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Supernova

This page has received a number of edits and inline citations over the past couple of months. It's just been given GA status and it's in the queue for SCotW. I think that now it's fairly complete, if not a tad bloated. I'd appreciate it if some subject matter experts from the Astronomy projects could give it a review and see if there is anything missing or erroneous. It would be good if the page can be brought up to FA, but I suspect they'll want the size reduced. To do that there would probably need to be separate pages for Type Ia and Type II supernovae. Any thoughts? Thank you! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RJHall (talk • contribs) 21:40, 18 December 2006 (UTC).

I think separate articles on Type Ia, Ib, Ic, and II supernovae is warranted. Also, the article should describe more about the use of supernovae for distance measurements. Otherwise, it looked fine when I glanced over it. Dr. Submillimeter 22:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. — RJH (talk) 23:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Jupiter, Universe and Black hole AC&ID

FYI—These astronomy articles are up for an Article Creation and Improvement Drive nominations. — RJH (talk) 23:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Since this post includes a specific object (Jupiter), could you please cross-post this to Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects)? Thank you, Dr. Submillimeter 10:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector is now FAC

Hi, I just nominated Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector to be a Featured article candidate. Hopefully, you all think that the article is excellent and can support it. ;) But if not, please offer constructive criticisms on how it might be improved, which will be much appreciated. Thanks very much for your help! Willow 10:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Science Collaboration of the Month

Supernova is the new Science Collaboration of the Month. Good work! NCurse _work 06:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Renaming astro-stub to astronomy-stub

I have proposed that Template:astro-stub be renamed to Template:astronomy-stub. Please comment at Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2007/January/7. Thanks. Mike Peel 10:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Worklist

There's a draft worklist available for the project. I attempted to prioritize pages in a reasonable manner, but opinions will undoubtedly vary so it will require some alteration (and expansion). — RJH (talk) 20:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I've just been discussing with Dr. Submillimeter about setting up a system like Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Physics articles by quality for this project, and sub-projects. Is there sufficient interest in getting a system like that up and running here? Mike Peel 20:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

There appears to be a lot of redundancy with Astronomy topics. Would you just adopt the Physics article ratings where they appear? I could imagine there may be some discrepancy in priorities. — RJH (talk) 20:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:WPAstronomy

I've set up Template:WPAstronomy, which can be placed on the talk pages of astronomy articles using {{WPAstronomy}}. An article can be marked as an astronomical object by using {{WPAstronomy|object=yes}}. Note that all articles marked as objects will appear as being part of WP Astronomy and WP Astronomical Objects, which I thought would be the best approach; if not, I can create a seperate template for astronomical objects. Ratings can be done as described at Template:WPAstronomy/usage.

Additionally, I've added an astrophysics parameter to the template, so that only one template is needed on pages covering astrophysics subjects, which currently fall under both WP:Astronomy and WP:Physics.

The following pages list the articles tagged with the template:

• Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Astronomical Objects articles by quality, with log and statistics pages.
• Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Astronomy articles by quality, with log and statistics pages.

These pages will be automatically kept up to date by a bot (updating approx every 24 hours).

I operate a different bot, Peelbot, which should be able to do automated tagging of article talk pages with this new template, if people want. I need to put in two requests if people want me to do this; one to update the software I'm using so that it can support the object tag, and another to get approval to do the tagging using a bot. I would then need a list of categories and/or pages that need tagging. Mike Peel 22:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest simply tagging everything under Category:Astronomy (including the subcategories and their contents) with Template:WPAstronomy. That should be simple enough (hopefully). Dr. Submillimeter 02:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The Category:Astronomy is probably in need of some cleanup, with many of the pages being moved to appropriate sub-categories. Also the subcategories are sorted oddly. — RJH (talk) 22:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I do this occasionally. I still do not know what to do with some of the articles. Many discuss coordinate systems. I see that a lot of the Moon-related gobbledygook that irritates Lunokhod is also creeping into the category; I will attempt to diffuse that stuff. Dr. Submillimeter 22:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps an Astrometry sub-category would serve as a place to dump the coordinate systems articles, as well as topics like proper motion? — RJH (talk) 19:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I have occasionally tried to make sense of Category:Spherical astronomy and its subcategories, but I get confused. I just want to dump everything into a "Category:Astronomical coordinate systems" and forget about it all. Dr. Submillimeter 23:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I have started using this. I notice that this template does not include an importance field. Why? Dr. Submillimeter 13:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't think it was needed. It's on the physics tag, but I've always been concerned that people will get upset if their pet pages are rated as low importance. If people want it, it's easy enough for me to add it. Mike Peel 14:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Priorities should probably be indicated through project pages. I am happy with leaving importance out of the template. Dr. Submillimeter 14:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Planet Infoboxes TfD's

Please see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 January 11. Mike Peel 20:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Astronomy articles by quality

I've noticed that the article quality categories are getting populated by astronomy articles on individual objects. (I.e. within the domain of WP:Astronomical Objects.) In particular the Category:B-Class Astronomy articles category contains a number of individual galaxies and planets. So mayhap we need to reconsider a merge again? Also does anybody why are there duplicate columns in the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Astronomy articles by quality statistics table? Thanks. — RJH (talk) 23:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The table was designed to have different importance ratings across the top. As we don't (currently) use importance ratings, all articles have an importance of "None". Mike Peel 23:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Telescopes

I plan on merging Wikipedia:WikiProject Telescopes into this WikiProject in a week's time, as that project doesn't seem very active (apart from me), and it seems pointless to have it separate from this one. Please let me know if you have any objections to this. Thanks. Mike Peel 09:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. Dr. Submillimeter 14:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

No objections here, other than a hope that the main WP page doesn't get too bloated. Perhaps there should be a link to sub-topic page to cover the telescope templates? Thanks. — RJH (talk) 20:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. There are still some links to WikiProject Telescopes around Wikipedia; I aim to remove these over the next few days. Mike Peel 14:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Astronomical templates

I've tried to collate all astronomical templates into three categories: Category:Astronomical templates and its' subcategories, Category:Astronomical infobox templates and Category:Astronomical navigation templates. I've also put together a list of all astronomical infoboxes at Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Infoboxes. If I've missed any, please add them to the categories/lists. Thanks. Mike Peel 16:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Citation systems

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects#Citation systems. This has major implications for everyone, including RJHall and his work on galaxy. Dr. Submillimeter 08:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyright

Unfortunately, a site called Famous Astrophysicists have been copying Wikipedia articles in violation of the GFDL, Wikipedia's license. In fact, they haven't even cited Wikipedia as the source of their content. We've tried contacting them about this, but they've done nothing. I would be grateful if contributors to any of the astrophysics biographies at http://www.famous-astrophysicists.com/index.html (make sure you contributed before the article was copied) would help out with this. Only contributors to these articles can officially act. What I'd like you to do is send a DMCA notice to their ISP. There is contact information at Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Def#Famous-astrophysicists.com. If you have questions, please ask; this would really be quite helpful. Superm401 - Talk 04:51, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Ugly format

Here we go again. The main project page looks plain hideous now. Did we reach a consensus on the appearance chance, or was it updated by fiat? — RJH (talk) 17:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

That was me. I switched it to match the appearance of Portal:Astronomy. It can easily be modified; any suggestions? Mike Peel 17:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

We need to relegate some of the information to subpages. The "pages needing attention" box, for example, looks too long, especially compared to the length of the rest of the page. Dr. Submillimeter 17:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I almost never visit the Portal:Astronomy, but I guess I would have the same issues there. My preference would be to just keep what's necessary and eliminate the boxes. When the browser is below a certain width the alignment pushes many of the more interesting boxes too far down the page, and the alignment looks positively hideous. (As does the drab, cool-hued colors.) I'd just like to see the frequently updated stuff near the top so I can check it at a glance. No offense intended. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 17:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll work on it some more. Would something more like Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics be better? Or are you really insistent on not wanting boxes? Mike Peel 18:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

As a suggestion, something like Portal:Science would be really nice, in both the aestetic sense and from the point of view of functionality. I.e. using tabs rather than multi-column display (for the most part). Would that be acceptible? — RJH (talk) 18:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be possible, but I would have thought we'd need a significant amount more stuff on the page to need something like that. As it stands, templates can easily be moved to another page; once the featured articles section builds up, so can that. Same with the list of members. Pages needing attention is now significantly smaller than it was, so I think that's fine on the main page. Mike Peel 19:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

At this point I've ceased to care. Bye. — RJH (talk) 21:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, would people have a use for a box like the "Current activity" one on Wikiproject Physics? Mike Peel 19:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

50000 Quaoar - GA work

I've nominated 50000 Quaoar as Good Article, and have received a review noting various things that should be done to bring it up to GA status. Help on improving it would be much appreciated. Thanks! - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 21:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Comet Hyakutake

Comet Hyakutake has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are hereJeffpw 09:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Jupiter

The suggested Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism for the slow shrinking is not mentioned in several papers about the formation of Jupiter! Is this a true statement or a hoax or something new?

• W. B. Hubbard (1977). "The Jovian surface condition and cooling rate". Icarus 30 (2): 305-310. DOI:10.1016/0019-1035(77)90164-6. 
• S. S. Kumar (1974). "On the formation of Jupiter and Saturn". Astrophysics and Space Science 28 (1): 173-176. DOI:10.1007/BF00642246. 
• H. C., Jr. Graboske, R. J. Olness, J. B. Pollack, and A. S. Grossman (1975). "The structure and evolution of Jupiter - The fluid contraction stage". The Astrophysical Journal 199 (1): 265. DOI:10.1086/153689. 
• W.B. Hubbard, T. Guillot, M.S. Marley, A. Burrows, J.I. Lunine, D.S. Saumon (1998). "Comparative Evolution of Jupiter and Saturn". Astrophysics, abstract. 

--Stone 17:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Three of the above references are ancient; they predate the Voyager missions (and one of them predates me). I would not count on them to be reliable references on Jupiter, especially given the dramatic advances in technology since the mid-1970's.

Having said that, it appears that these articles are describing something similar to what is described in Wikipedia as the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism, even if they do not mention it by that name. I could not find any references to a "Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism" in any of my books, although I did find a reference to a "Kelvin-Helmholtz time scale" that effectively describes the same phenomena.

The references that you are using are very specific modeling papers aimed at professionals who already have experience in the field and who do not need the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism explained to them (or at least named as such). You may want to look up a few high-level undergraduate or graduate-level stellarastrophysics books instead; they will probably explain the phenomena in more pedagogical terms. Dr. Submillimeter 18:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The papers are quite good and if the "Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism" is a undergraduate model to describe a phenomenon, it is perfectly OK with me. The strange thing for me is that nobody mentiones it in any literature I have. If somebody with a specific astronomy knowledge knows what is written there the article is OK.--Stone 08:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Carl Sagan is a featured article candidate

Carl Sagan is also being reviewed as a featured article candidate. (I have now tagged the talk page with the WPAstronomy template so that people will think to talk to us about the article.) Dr. Submillimeter 00:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

This message is incorrect - see below. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Carl Sagan FAR

The message above is incorrect - Carl Sagan is not a featured article candidate.

Carl Sagan has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary

Might I suggest that one of the tasks for this WikiProject be to add definitions to Wiktionary? 70.55.85.124 11:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Astrobox templates

I have nominated the Astroboxes for deletion; please see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 January 28. Thanks. Mike Peel 22:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible Astronomy Featured Topic

(This message copied to WP:Astronomical objects, WP:Space, and WP:Astronomy)

Hey! I was looking around for groups of articles to nominate as a Featured Topic, and I came across Upsilon Andromedae, b, c, and d. All four of these articles are GA class, and together fulfill every requirement of a FT, except that none of them are Featured Articles themselves. If one of them, preferably Upsilon Andromedae itself, was promoted to Featured Article, then the Topic as a whole would most likely pass FTC. So, if anyone wants to shoot for that, have at it! Also, if any members of this Wikiproject know of a group of articles that fits the criteria, then please nominate them! Thank you! --PresN 18:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

It is nearly 11 months since we established this review process as a minimal process after we failed to reach consensus about a number of matters. During that time it has been largely left alone with nobody really keeping a close watch on it. A couple days ago I cleaned everything up. I archived old reviews, corrected the tags on talk pages and made minimal changes to the process based on what I had learnt. I also reviewed how it had operated. There were some reasonable reviews and some that attracted no interest what so ever, but I guess that is the case even with Wikipedia:Peer review. Some entries may have missed some attention since they were not properly formatted, or had no tag on the article's talk page and hence did not appear in the category. See Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer review for my review and report on the clean up.

Of course, in hindsight, I wonder whether we, and particularly I, could have done better a year ago. In hindsight, does anyone have ideas how we progress this review process. To be worthwhile, it must attract reviews that perhaps would not go elsewhere such as Wikipedia:Peer review and it must attract expert reviewers to add to what might be achieved by the general Wikipedia:Peer review. If it can not do either, perhaps we should close it down and just encourage articles to go to Wikipedia:Peer review. Articles for review are listed on the science WikiProjects such as this one, but they are transcluded in so changes do not appear on watchlists. I have also added recent reviews to Wikipedia:Peer review in the same way that WikiProject reviews such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry/Peer review are added. In this way both review pages refer to the same page for the review discussion and hopefully more editors will be attracted. The key point is attracting expert reviewers who might look at Wikipedia:Scientific peer review but not look at Wikipedia:Peer review.

If you have any ideas on this, please add your views at Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer review. --Bduke 02:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Andromeda-Milky Way collision nominated for deletion

Andromeda-Milky Way collision has been nominated for deletion. Please go comment. Dr. Submillimeter 23:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was keep.--mikeu 16:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

List of possible articles

I've tried to find any relevant redirects for my list of missing astronomy topics but could anyone have a look at it? - Skysmith 12:32, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Some of those proposed articles look like things that I would hesitate to include in Wikipedia. However, it is clear that some of the other items need articles. Are you open to the removal of items from your list? Also, I noticed several typos or capitalization problems (such as for Lick Observatory); I will fix these when I see them. Dr. Submillimeter 14:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, that's what I'm asking. I'd like to remove the unsuitable topics myself to keep track of the progress but could you mark them? - Skysmith 16:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I corrected two of the entries under exoplanets which now point to existing wp articles. I can't find anything for "Ophiuchi 1622" - where did you see this mentioned?--mikeu 04:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There have been a number of papers written on planetary mass objects in the sigma orionis star cluster. In addition to S Ori 52 (on your list) there are also references to S Ori 56 and S Ori 60 [2]. Then there is S Ori 68 [3] and S Ori 70 [4]. Some astronomners dispute the planetary nature of these objects [5]. Since very little is known about these objects it might be better to create a subsection in Sigma Orionis until more is learned about them.--mikeu 16:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think mikeu misunderstood the question; Ophiuchi 1622 is not Sigma Orionis. I found some information on Ophiuchi 1622 at the ADS Abstract Service. Unfortunately, the only information on this exoplanet candidate appears to come from preprints, not refereed scinetific articles. Maybe we should wait on creating an article until one of the papers is published. Dr. Submillimeter 16:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm just working through Skysmith's list of exoplanets. My Sigma Orinis post was not related to Ophiuchi 1622.--mikeu 17:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I did not read the signatures closely enough. My mistake. Dr. Submillimeter 10:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the Tatooine (exoplanet) entry on the list, this 'kinda-sorta' refers to HD 188753 Ab. But it is not even a nickname (and certainly not a proposed name.) There are some references [6] to HD 188753 Ab as being similar to the fictional namesake in that there would be three stars seen in the sky. There is a brief mention at Tatooine#Tatooine in Science which incorrectly inplies that this planet is named Tatooine.--mikeu 18:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I picked those names during a astronomy lecture of the latest exoplanet finds and (apparently mistakenly) assumed that the papers had already been published. The best course could be to wait until they are. - Skysmith 06:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Tatooine may be one to strike out of the list. Dr. Submillimeter 10:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The existence of HD 188753 Ab is now in dispute. See article. --mikeu 23:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Solar System

There is a request for Solar system to appear as a Today's featured article--mikeu 19:39, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

University of Illinois Observatory

Hi all. There is an article I am working on, and have been, the University of Illinois Astronomical Observatory, that I think could benefit from some input from this project, though it's probably only partially related. There is a lot of information in the article pertaining to stellar magnitude and photometry, while I maintain more than a passing interest in astronomy I simply lack the expertise to ensure that the text in the section: 'Astronomical Significance' and beyond is fully accurate, and correctly written (so as not to contradict itself). I was hoping someone(s) would be able to look at it from this project and help me out. I really appreciate it and thanks ahead of time. : ) A mcmurray 12:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Black hole

This vital article was demoted as a featured article in Nov. and failed a GA nom in Jan. It is now a candidate for Wikipedia:Article_Creation_and_Improvement_Drive#Black_hole and has nearly enough votes to place it at the top of the list...--mikeu 00:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Pulsar vs Rotation-powered pulsar (and X-ray pulsar)

Pulsar and Rotation-powered pulsar are a mess. Anyone interested in merging these properly? —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-02-26 03:21Z

They should not be merged, but properly separated. Pulsar should be a general overview article, as there are other types of pulsars besides rotation-powered pulsars... 70.51.8.217 06:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I understand that rotation-powered pulsars are a subset of pulsars, but the majority of the article Rotation-powered pulsar is a duplication of the Pulsar article, so after that duplication is removed there isn't much left. X-ray pulsar also is only a stub article. A single article addressing both kinds of pulsars would be much better organization. If the Pulsar article eventually grows too large, it would make sense to split it out again, but we're a long ways from that. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-02-28 06:01Z

There is no merge template on accretion powered pulsar, you should add that to the article if you wish to discuss that. As it stands, the suggestion is to merge rotation powered puslar with puslar, which is not a good idea, considering the existence of the x-ray pulsar article. Given that the article radio-pulsar/rotation-powered pulsar is fairly large and comprehensive, it should exist separately. If you wish to merge all the pulsar articles together, that's an altogether different proposal from what you initially suggested here. Please note that we have a magnetar article, and other pulsar classes/potential classes (RRAT, short duration GRB, etc) 70.55.84.248 05:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I have added the {{mergeto}} tag to X-ray pulsar. I am indeed now suggesting merging the two to Pulsar. Merge tags aren't somehow necessary to create an "official" merge proposal though - I've merged hundreds of articles without adding merge tags; we're not a bureaucracy here. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-01 07:05Z

Merge tags are mostly useless. Go ahead and merge the articles. Dr. Submillimeter 10:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge tags serve to inform people that you wish to merge things. Otherwise people would not know you want to merge things. For something the size of radio pulsar, a merge tag is certainly "A Good Thing"(tm). 70.51.8.30 05:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Aspects of Mars

Hi, I contested a prod on the Aspects of Mars page, and have asked for a discussion here, is this info worth saving? regards sbandrews 11:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Ephemerides

Found these, several of them have been prodded. 70.51.8.30 06:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

• Aspects of Mars
• Aspects of 1 Ceres
• Aspects of 2 Pallas
• Aspects of 3 Juno
• Aspects of 4 Vesta
• Aspects of Jupiter
• Aspects of Saturn
• Aspects of Uranus
• Aspects of Neptune
• Aspects of Pluto

Exploded Planet Hypothesis

Exploded Planet Hypothesis has been AfD'd. 70.55.84.23 06:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Conversion templates

Hello! This is to announce that several templates for automatic convertion between metric and imperial units and for displaying consistently formatted output have been created: {{km to mi}}, {{mi to km}}, {{m to ft}}, {{ft to m}}, {{km2 to mi2}}, {{mi2 to km2}}, {{m2 to ft2}}, and {{ft2 to m2}}. Hopefully, they will be useful to the participants of this WikiProject. The templates are all documented, provide parameters to fine-tune the output, and can be substituted if necessary.

Any suggestions, requests for improvement/features, or bug reports are welcome.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Bastille Day event

During my work on Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Articles I came across this article. Obviously I'll do my best to improve it, but it could use some tender loving care from people who know more about the subject than I do. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Cassini–Huygens

I think it would be better if we split articles on spacecraft and their missions. For example this would mean that we would have an article on Cassini orbiter, Huygens probe (these two may be one article) and Cassini mission -- Cat ^chi? 15:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Most missions are performed by single spacecraft/landers/probes, so splitting the mission from the discussion on the spacecraft would make little sense. For example, it makes little sense to discuss the Voyager 2 spacecraft on a separate page from the Voyager 2 mission. Hence, such splits should not be applied to space missions in general.

In the case of the Cassini-Huygens Mission, however, detailed articles on the two spacecraft and an overview article of the mission would be warranted. The mission page should provide a higher-level overview of the mission as a whole including a broad, undetailed overviews of the technical aspects of each spacecraft component and the science performed by each component. The articles on the probe and the orbiter can discuss the technical aspects of the components and the specific science performed by each component in more detail. Note that Huygens probe already exists as a separate page. Cassini orbiter should be written with a similar level of detail. Dr. Submillimeter 16:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Dr. Submillimeter. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-08 21:57Z

Voyager 2 almost has no information on spacecrafts instruments. We do have a Voyager program which should have more info on the hardware of the spacecraft. Hence you have two mission articles and one hardware article. -- Cat ^chi? 19:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, Voyager 2 was a bad example. Stardust (spacecraft) is a better example of where the mission and the spacecraft should not be split into separate articles. Dr. Submillimeter 19:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Alright, perhaps. Still my proposal is sane. Articles are often too large because of the jungle of info about the hardware and mission. -- Cat ^chi? 04:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be apprpriate to place information about specific instruments on separate pages. This is the way information on spacecraft and telescopes are organized by professionals as well. See, for example, the page on [WFPC2]], which is an instrument of the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Submillimeter 07:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Spacecraft names

(Also, should "probe" and "orbiter" begin with capital letters? Can someone check?) Dr. Submillimeter 16:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I checked: no one is consistent about it, not even NASA itself, which sometimes uses "(the) Huygens probe" and sometimes "Huygens Probe" in the same page (the official web page for the probe) [7]. I suppose, pedantically, there is "the probe" associated with the Cassini–Huygens mission, named after Mr. Huygens, so it's "the Huygens probe", just like if there is only one apple or only one famous apple associated with Newton one could say "the Newton apple" (not to be confused with the Apple Newton). But then the probe also happens to have the title-cased proper name "Huygens Probe". —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-08 22:04Z

Note that professional organizations capitalize the first letters in the words "observatory" and "telescope" (e.g. Spitzer Space Telescope). Maybe we should do the same for probes, spacecraft, and orbiters if the words "probe", "spacecraft", or "orbiter" are parts of the full official name. (Voyager 2, for example, may be referred to as such without the word "spacecraft".) Also, I have noticed that European astronomers do not capitalize some words as often as American astronomers. Is the same true for people who do or do not capitalize "probe" and "orbiter"? Dr. Submillimeter 22:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I just realized that the proper name seems to be "Huygens". My hypothesis is that the use of "probe" started as a real-world disambiguation suffix that gradually became widely used. For many spacecraft, disambiguation is necessary to distinguish from the name of the mission ("Magellan spacecraft"/"Magellan probe"/"Magellan orbiter" vs "Magellan mission"), from the eponym ("Huygens landed on Titan? I thought he died 300 years ago"), and other non-aerospace things. If the spacecraft has a number then it usually doesn't need disambiguation ("Voyager 2" is unambiguous). The Huygens probe article, which benefits from the use of italic type, also just uses "Huygens" throughout the article. How about Huygens (spacecraft)? Some articles are already disambiguated this way, e.g. Galileo (spacecraft), Genesis (spacecraft). Some mission articles could be renamed too, e.g. Viking program to Viking (space mission) or Viking (NASA program) etc. (To be my own devil's advocate, there's also the question of If everyone in the real world disambiguates "Huygens" to "Huygens probe", should we also? For Huygens, everyone uses the same disambiguation, though that's not true for other spacecraft and missions.) —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-08 23:54Z

Huygens should be called a "probe" and not a "spacecraft" because it landed on Titan. Similarly, things that land on other solid bodies and stay on those other bodies should also be referred to as "landers" or "probes" and not "spacecraft". Viking program should not be renamed as it consists of a program comprised of two missions. In general, Wikipedia should attempt to use the term most commonly used outside of Wikipedia; if Huygens is referred to as a probe, then "Huygens probe" should be used. Dr. Submillimeter 20:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It would make sense to have a redirect for every alternative way to referance the craft. -- Cat ^chi? 04:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'm fine with the heuristic of naming the article "Huygens probe" because that's how most people disambiguate it in real life, but are you sure about the rule to name a spacecraft as "probe" iff it lands on another solid body and stays there? Pioneer 6, 7, 8 and 9 are described as "space probes" but haven't landed anywhere. Ulysses probe is not a probe by that definition. The space probe article defines it as "an unmanned, usually telerobotic space mission in which a spacecraft leaves Earth's orbit" -- nothing about having to land elsewhere. So I'm not sure there's a hard distinction in the use of the word "probe" vs "spacecraft", at least not one that's universally followed. Also that rule has the disadvantage of creating unstable names as the status could change after a spacecraft lands (perhaps crashes; and hypothetically if it ever leaves in the future). "Lander" is reasonable as a term for spacecraft that land somewhere, though sometimes "lander" seems to be used to refer to the component of a spacecraft responsible for landing, and using that criterion for naming the article may be goofier than just using the most common colloquial name. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-10 10:39Z