Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/New solar system in a making

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[edit] New solar systems in a making

Reason

Just think about this! We are witnessing the birth of new solar systems! A great educational image of a wonderful star. Btw Mira is named after the Latin word for "wonderful" .

Proposed caption

Mira A is a red giant variable star in the constellation Cetus. This ultraviolet-wavelength image mosaic, taken by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, shows a comet-like "tail" stretching 13 Light-years across space. The "tail" consists of hydrogen gas blown off of the star, with the material at the furthest end of the "tail" having been emitted about 30,000 years ago. The tail-like configuration of the emitted material appears to result from Mira's uncommonly high speed relative to the Milky Way galaxy's ambient gas-- about 130 kilometers per second.Mira itself is seen as a small white dot inside a blue bulb. You could also see many stars and galaxies at the image. Please click for more images and information http://www.galex.caltech.edu/MEDIA/2007-04/images.html

Articles this image appears in

Mira

Creator

NASA

• Support edit 3 as nominator Mbz1 21:27, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. Why display this photograph vertically? Displaying it horizontally might make it easier to put it in articles. Caption needs work too. Spikebrennan 00:34, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Agree. When I first saw the picture at NASA site, it was horizontal. I'm not sure why the original uploader has changed the orientation. I just down sampled his image. Anyway I've changed it again and it is horizontal now. Could you, please, give me some hints about the caption. Thank you. --Mbz1 01:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Okay, how about the following (add links to taste):

"Mira is a red giant star in the constellation Cetus. This ultraviolet-wavelength image mosaic, taken by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, shows a comet-like "tail" stretching 13 light-years across space. The "tail" consists of hydrogen gas blown off of the star, with the material at the furthest end of the "tail" having been emitted about 30,000 years ago. The tail-like configuration of the emitted material appears to result from Mira's uncommonly high speed relative to the Milky Way galaxy's ambient gas-- about 130 kilometers per second." (a lot of this caption is nicked from here). The more I read, the more I realize that this star is a pretty weird and unique object. Spikebrennan 02:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the caption and she is an amazing star. I still left something from my original caption. In my opinion it is important to stress that Mira is a variable star. If you see problems with my English, please, correct them. Thank you.--Mbz1 03:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. What's with the black triangle sticking in the side? Unschool 01:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • The image is a mosaic. Sometimes it misses a part for some reason. All images of the tail I've seen have it. I'll try to contact somebody from NASA to ask how it came about.--Mbz1 02:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Don't bother writing NASA - the triangle is from the mosaic. de Bivort 05:01, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Weak support downsampled, rotated version Edit 3 - I don't like the smoothing - I would rather have a noisy 3k x 700px image that could be further downsampled than a filtered image like this one. tsk NASA. That said, very enc. de Bivort 05:01, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Original version (10.1 MB tiff), see also http://www.galex.caltech.edu/MEDIA/2007-04/images.html. MER-C 09:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Thank you for the link. Should we use the original tiff image? In any case I'm adding the link to the caption.--Mbz1 13:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - The way the image is in the article isn't the best right now, could someone do something about it? It just seems to not fit in there so well - otherwise great image. --84.90.46.116 18:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Thank you for the comment. I believe we'll see, if any image gets promoted and change the article later. If none gets promoted, I'll probably post horizontal version there.--Mbz1 18:55, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Cool, thanks for addressing my concern - much appreciated. --84.90.46.116 20:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Very grainy and nasty looking, just not impressive sorry --ffroth 03:33, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • There's nothing to be sorry about. It is me, who should be sorry that I could not find the right words to explain how impressive, unique and encyclopedic the imafe is.--Mbz1 17:53, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support (Edit 3) Very cool. Double check the orientation of the horizontal; on the Caltech website] the image goes the other way around. Double check the punctuation on the caption, I'm not sure whether that needs to be an emdash or how to code that in markup. Always insert a space after a Full stop. The caltech website also mentions that "It dims and brightens by a factor of 1,500 every 332 days, and will become bright enough to see with the naked eye in mid-November 2007." So we can keep an eye out for it! The caltech website has a few other images of Myra, including a UV and Visible comparison, which is interesting. Consider cropping the image so that the unrelated star (again see the caltech website for explanation) is out of the way, because it is confusing, and is not related to Myra at all. Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 05:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I've cropped the image a little bit, I've changed the orientation to correct one. To tell you the truth I do not feel comfortable changing NASA images. I just hope, that, if the image is to pass, people, who are interested in the subject would click at the original images links.

I had a different strategy in mind for the cropping. OK to leave the background stars, but the large bright star in the image has nothing to do with Mira but could be confused as being part of it. This star has nothing to do with Mira, so it shouldn't compete for viewer attention. Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 02:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Jeff, you are right, sometimes you could see Mira with a naked eye as I did last year . Of course it looks just as another star in the sky, but when you'd think about the magnificent tail, I hope you will not get disappointed. Thank you.

84.90.46.116, I've changed lay out of the article. Do you believe it is better now? Thank you.--Mbz1 15:45, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support, although it's not one of my favourite pictures of our universe, it is a very encylopaedic and unique picture with acceptable quality. --Aqwis 23:02, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Support edit 3, this kind of picture needs to be accurate - removing or adding anything from it makes it less accurate. --Aqwis 19:40, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
    • In this case I feel cropping actually makes the image more accurate, since Mira is not composed of two stars. Of course, keeping background stars are totally fine because they wouldn't be confused with Mira, but the original image gives the wrong idea about this celestial object. Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 20:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
      • You're very right - for some reason i thought the star had been cloned out of the image. I'll change my vote then. --Aqwis 13:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
        • I've changed my vote too. Thank you, Jeff.--Mbz1 03:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Umm, which version? Please reference a specific version in your supports. MER-C 06:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

• Support Edit 3]]] Spikebrennan 22:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Looks like the last edit by Jeff has more supports. --Mbz1 13:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. The concept behind the picture is certainly impressive, but IMO the picture itself is much less so. The picture is uninformative--just a blur of dots--and there is no sense of scale or size. Are the dots stars? galaxies? dust particles? I think even looking closely, this picture could be mistaken for a comet, and for me, that makes it unenc. And why is there a triangle of completely blank darkness on the lower left edge? The dark triangle on the lower left edge is also a minor problem for me. --Malachirality 22:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Promoted Image:Mira the star-by Nasa alt crop.jpg MER-C 03:35, 5 November 2007 (UTC)