Talk:Jodrell Bank Observatory

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Good article Jodrell Bank Observatory has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
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Assessment Report

  1. Some expansion is needed.
  2. References and Citations are crucial for wikipedia, and so these must be added as the article is expanded. Make sure that as many as possible are "in-line" citations.(See WP:References, WP:V, and WP:CITE for guidance.)

Peter I. Vardy 15:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of whether it's nearer Congleton or Macclesfield, the postal address of the place is Macclesfield. Anyway, if you have to say it's near anywhere, why not say Goostrey?! -- Arwel 21:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Trivia

As at the time Lovell and his team were on very limited finances, the 76m telescope was built using some salvaged parts and incorporated some turret rack and pinion components from the battlecruiser HMS Renown, which was being scrapped at the time. Ian Dunster 12:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually JBO's own website says they reused bits of the battleships HMS Revenge and Royal Sovereign, which is a bit surprising as Royal Sovereign was transferred to the Soviet Navy in 1944 as the Archangelsk, and scrapped by them in 1948. -- Arwel (talk) 14:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I see, she was only loaned to the Russians and they returned her in '48. -- Arwel (talk) 15:21, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
You're probably right - I was writing from memory and seem to remember it as being the Renown for some reason! Ian Dunster 22:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 50th Anniversary

Perhaps a note can be added about Jodrell Bank celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Lovell Telescope in 2007 though I have not seen a specific date designated for the anniversary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jmb (talk --jmb 09:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good article review

My comments:

  • All values and their units (e.g. 42ft) should be separated by non-breaking spaces, as per WP:UNITS so it ends up like 42 ft.
  • Mostly fixed; I'll sort out any I've missed in future edits (or please feel free to fix any I've missed...) Mike Peel 21:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Image:Jodrell Bank Observatory.Lovell telescope.jpg has a deprecated PD tag, needs to be fixed.
  • There's a large amount of seemingly trivial information in the lead (with, curiously, a single citation for the appointment of a previous director), I'd move it out of the lead to keep the lead brief and a useful overview of the article.
  • See WP:HEAD for heading style, so "Searchlight Telescope" should be "Searchlight telescope".
  • I've fixed this one, as "Searchlight Telescope" was never an official name (as far as I know), but the rest should be fine as they're the proper names. Mike Peel 21:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • It's now the standard thumbnail size. Mike Peel 21:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Why is Bank linked to a disambiguation page?
  • There doesn't seem to be a wikipedia page that properly describes a bank. The closest that I can see is "For a stream bed, river, or canal, a bank is the area of land closest to water found in a channel", which is on that disambiguation page. I've removed the link for now, though. Mike Peel 21:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "...(also see William Jauderell)" - why? Write some prose that naturally wikilinks to him or lose it.
  • Rewritten. Mike Peel 21:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "The new land included the site upon which the Mark I was sited." - what's a Mark I? No introduction to what it is means it's confusing to the non-expert reader.
  • British English should encourage Second World War rather than the US-sequel version WWII.
  • Changed. Mike Peel 21:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "A searchlight was loaned..." is this a telescope or a big light that stops PoW's escaping? Not clear to the non-expert.
  • "On 9 October and October 10, 1946", "11 March and June 12, 1960" - consistent date formats needed.
  • I think that you have your date preferences set to display dates in terms of "Month day, year", because I can't find either of those cases. It's an unfortunate shortcoming with the Mediawiki software that it can't deal with the autoformatting of date ranges. I've tried to keep with the convention of "Day month year" in this article. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Why is "(the echo rate is at a minimum at the radiant point, and a maximum at 90 degrees to it)" in parentheses?
  • It's now written into the prose. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Avoid single-sentence paragraphs such as "In early August 1947, the searchlight telescope, as well as other receivers on the site, was used to study auroral streamers.[11][12]"
  • This instance has been fixed, and the other single-sentence paragraphs should be sorted shortly. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • What are "auroral streamers"? Needs help for non-experts.
  • Why is Transit Telescope in italics?
  • It no longer is. That was a leftover from when that section was a seperate page. Mike Peel
  • What is "optical remnant"?
  • The remains of the supernovae in visible light, detectable by optical telescopes. I've hopefully clarified this on the article now. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "It discovered radio noise..." surely a person discovered it after the telescope detected it?
  • Clarified; "It was used to discover radio noise ..." Mike Peel 22:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "(it is now the third largest)." - nasty, use prose, not parenthesised commentary.
  • "(including the discovery of millisecond pulsars[26] and also discovered the first pulsar in a globular cluster)" - discovery, discovered... all a bit untidy.
  • Fixed by removing "also discovered" from the second part. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Second paragraph of Mark II and III telescopes section is uncited.
  • It is now referenced. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • General overuse of parenthesised statements. Why?
  • It was an artifact of my method of writing the article. Hopefully it is now fixed. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • MERLIN section uncited.
  • It is now referenced. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "Very Long Baseline Interferometry" is wikilinked on its second use, on its first use it's abbreviated, so wikilink the first and use the abbreviation in the second instance.
  • Fixed. Mike Peel 16:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Development Laboratories section has two single-sentence paragraphs.
  • Now fixed. Mike Peel 16:12, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Fictional references section could be written out as prose rather than a grim list.
  • I've done a first rewrite into prose rather than a list. I plan on going through the article rewriting it as necessary before requesting a rereview. Mike Peel 22:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "Jodrell Bank was mentioned twice in the book" - then there's a single quote. Seems a bit odd, either both quotes or neither?
  • Both quotes are now given. Mike Peel 22:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:DASH for page ranges in the references, i.e. use the en-dash to separate page numbers in a range.
  • Hopefully fixed. Mike Peel 22:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Some references to Story of Jodrell Bank are italicised, some aren't - be consistent.
  • They are now all italicised. Mike Peel 22:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Not sure why there's a Books section if the relevant citations are used in the References section.
  • As I (generally) refer to specific pages in the book, I thought it better if the books were listed afterwards rather than repeatedly giving the full reference. Would it be better if the sections were merged, i.e. so that the numbered references were followed directly by the full references with bullet points? Mike Peel 22:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

So, there's a lot to do. I'm going to fail it right now, but will happily re-review if requested in the future once the list above is dealt with. The Rambling Man 16:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe that I have now addressed all of the points above. Would you be willing to re-review the article, please? Mike Peel 16:12, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and I have. Re-reviewed and now passed to GA, great re-work and fabulous photo. Well done. The Rambling Man 16:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] update?

named The Jodcast.[53] The original visitors centre,
opened on 19 April 1971 by the Duke of Devonshire,[54]
was demolished in 2003; a new science centre is currently
being planned.[55]

I came here from Sundial#The_Optical_Sundial_-_The_Benoy_Dial looking to see if it was mentioned. I noticed the above, can it be bought up to date in anyway, 2003 seems a long time ago. Thanks, I left knowing something new. Edmund Patrick ( confer work) 10:08, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, it _is_ up to date. There's not been much (publicly available) progress since 2003, when the last visitor's centre was demolished.
By the way, I haven't seen a Benoy dial around at Jodrell at all; I'm checking into it to see if I can find what's happened to it. Mike Peel 22:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for checking, if it is in store somewhere the sundial site will need to be updated. Sad to hear about the visitor centre (or lack of it)! Edmund Patrick ( confer work) 20:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Correction: the visitor's centre was _mostly_ demolished. Part of it still remains. They are unaware of a Benoy sundial. Mike Peel (talk) 19:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


Looks like ref 57 has disappeared, gets a "no longer available" response. user Shoka, not logged in —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.212.29.179 (talk) 16:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)