Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects

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[edit] Draft notability guidelines

For the purpose of discussion, I put together a draft document regarding the notability of astronomical objects:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects/notability

As an arbitrary example, I believe these guidelines would exclude 985 Rosina because it satisfies none of the listed criteria. That asteroid does get 636 ghits, but most of those appear to be just general lists of asteroids, including those on wikipedia.

Your comments would be appreciated. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 19:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't any potential dwarf planet, subject of only trivial publications, be considered as notable? Or all supernovae, novae, dwarf novae, red novae, GRBs, SXRs, RRATs, pulsars, quasars, blazars, BL-Lacs, LBVs, hypergiants, free-floating planemo, superclusters ? 132.205.44.5 (talk) 23:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Just to pick one of your examples for the sake of discussion... The Supernova article states "Professional and amateur astronomers find several hundred supernovae per year (in recent years: 367 in 2005 and 551 in 2006)." If we were to work backwards and create articles on all of the supernovae that have ever been discovered it would be an unmanagable task. Most of these are not even considered important enough by astronomers to write a paper on, which leaves us with a lack of reliable sources to create articles. It makes sense to me that there should be some notability guidelines. --mikeu (talk) 00:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
How about basing it on quantity of information - an article on an object requires that at least a paragraph of information (say 4-6 facts) is known about it, this would exclude very minor things, where only a name and an orbit or date of discovery is known. Also have guidelines about merging to next level of classification up rather than deleting per secheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:41, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately the quantity argument doesn't hold much water in the AfD discussions. I've seen pages with an extensive amount of work done get summarily flushed. But yes some text about performing a merge rather than a delete (for valid information) is often a good idea.—RJH (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Often notability criteria are not useful—they're a solution to a non-problem—and this one doesn't seem to be an exception. Spacepotato (talk) 02:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Notability criteria are frequently brought up during AfD discussions, so they are useful. If a page can be shown to meet a consensus notability criteria, that can save a lot of hand waving arguments that often get shot down by experienced deletionists. The criteria are also useful for clarifying specific areas for page improvement.—RJH (talk) 17:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
This cuts both ways—a notability criterion can be used to argue for deletion ("delete, it's non-notable") as well as keeping ("keep, it's notable".) At any rate, astronomical object deletionism doesn't seem to be a big problem at the moment. Spacepotato (talk) 23:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Astronomy collaboration of the week

Hi. I've noticed that the astronomy collaboration of the week, currently under the jurisdiction of this project, has had the same collaboration since July 2006. I am therefore proposing that it be expanded to cover space as a general topic, and be moved to the jurisdiction of the space WikiProject. Please discuss this proposal on the collaboration talk page. Thanks. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 23:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

That has now occurred. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 10:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Star formation

What happened to the star formation page and the template box? Last year it had much more information? The information relating to PMS, Class 0-III are now difficult to find, if existing in Wikipedia. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 08:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I reverted the template back to the 1 January 2008 and left a note on Template talk:PhysicsNavigation#The collapsed subsections look terrible as I couldn't see how to make all the navlinks visible. -Wikianon (talk) 22:32, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An acticle that needs attention

The article for J Centauri requires someone to look at an edit of an IP user to figure if it even makes sense. I came across the article via randon article and in looking at the history, I am unsure if this [1] edit is correct or even reasonable. I do not know anything about space and stars and figured this would be a good place to post the request.

Also, on the same article, I an unsure of why there is a link to HD 102776 with the notice "For j Centauri, see..." which is the name of the current article. The data on the two pages are different, so I don't know if it is some naming issue, factually incorrect or some other issue. Thanks. --Jordan 1972 (talk) 21:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Both uppercase and lowercase, and greek characters are used in naming stars in the Bayer designation scheme, so "alpha x", "A x" and "a x" are three different stars. A quick skim of the simbad results seems to hold up what's there. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 23:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
There was however an obvious typo in the B-V color, which was already fixed earlier (on 6 Jan). I do not know why the magnitude range (+6.16 to +6.27) and magnitudes (~4.45 for both B & V) disagree, however; this still appears to be an error? Wwheaton (talk) 08:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of asteroids/7201–7300 at AFD

List of asteroids/7201–7300 is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of asteroids/7201–7300 because it is a directory (see WP:NOT). 132.205.44.5 (talk) 22:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sirius peer review

Hi all, I am working up the Dog Star for FAC sometime soon and feel reasonably happy with content. Don't mind too much about modern pop cult refs at bottom, what I can't ref will go. The rest of the article I'd be happy to see what folks thought of it. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Sirius became a featured article on Feb. 1st. Congratulations to the editors!—RJH (talk) 20:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Aw..gee thanks, couldn't a' done it without a lot of ground work from alot of folks more knowledgeable than me though...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ganymede

The article has been nominated for peer review. Please, participate. Ruslik (talk) 19:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There's also a peer review underway for Triton (moon) that could use some more eyes. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 20:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Astronomy versus Astrophysics

Please come join the discussion about Astronomy vs Astrophysics articles here. WilliamKF (talk) 16:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Binary asteroids up for renaming to Category:Asteroids with moons

Category:Binary asteroids is up for renaming at WP:CFD. Note that there also exists Category:Asteroid satellites 132.205.44.5 (talk) 22:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The discussion is here. Spacepotato (talk) 23:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ganymede's FA

The article is now FA candidate. Please, participate. Ruslik (talk) 14:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TfD on Template:Moons of Neptune

Template:Moons of Neptune has been nominated for deletion, because of redundancy with Template:Neptune. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 20:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The decision was to keep. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 February 18.—RJH (talk) 21:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox Planet

The {{Infobox Planet}} template includes several temporary categories that have apparently been there since at least last October. These are showing up on nearly every planet and moon article that is using this template, and they don't appear to be serving a useful purpose.

  • Temp test category for InfoboxPlanet
  • Temp category InfoboxPlanet-magnitude

Is there any objection to removing these "temporary" categories?—RJH (talk) 21:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox Planet - move proposal

User:Sardanaphalus has proposed moving Template:Infobox Planet to Template:Infobox Nonstellar body (or some other generic term). Please join the discussion at Template talk:Infobox Planet#Template's name. --Ckatzchatspy 05:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of named asteroids

Cross-posted from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Solar System#Notability_of_named_asteroids.

Naerii has asked for the red links on the following pages to be filled in with relevant information. I have created several of these stubs, but recently someone has asked me about the notability of these rocks. And, before continuing creating these stubs, I would like know whether or not these are notable and whether or not they should have articles. The lists of pages is as follows:

Thanks for your time. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 06:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

There has been discussion of asteroid notability before, but there was no consensus. (See also "Draft notability guidelines" above.) I think a reasonable case can be made for perhaps a few hundred or thousand of them, but the problem (as always) is where you draw the line. Only listing the etymology, discovery date/site and orbital elements doesn't seem like enough to demonstrate notability. It needs something more: historical importance; composition; flyby photos; published papers; radar mapping, or some such.
Regarding the red links, I'm not sure I'd want to tackle that monster. The lunar crater articles were enough of a bear. ;-)—RJH (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
The mind boggles that this discussion was felt to be sufficient to determine consensus for creating tens of thousands of asteroid stubs. However, created they have been, and with no useful categorisation. Anyone have any idea as to how to subdivide these for stub-sorting purposes? Alai (talk) 03:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] AfD on Moonlet

Moonlet has been nominated for deletion. 70.51.8.110 (talk) 05:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The result was "keep".—RJH (talk) 16:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PR on Cygnus X-1

The Cygnus X-1 article is up for peer review. Please take a look and post your comments. Thanks!—RJH (talk) 19:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GRB 080319B

GRB 080319B is a gamma ray burst, and I hope that it is correct to use the Supernova infobox for it. However, what do we put in the distance field? I'm not at all sure about this. As of now we only have the info that the Light tool 7.5e9 years from the event to here. -- Sverdrup (talk) 14:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The redshift z was measured as 0.97, from which the distance can be estimated. There are subtleties about the definitions and cosmological models that make this calculation complex and ambiguous for z larger than a few tenths however; see [2] Ned Wright's Cosmology calculator for details. Wwheaton (talk) 17:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I mispoke, it is z=0.937, according to the VLT; see the GRB 080319B & ref [3]. Wwheaton (talk) 20:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't calculate anything myself, so I put it in what we have, 7.5 billion ly LTD (light travel distance) diff, linking to the appropriate article. -- Sverdrup (talk) 01:45, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nebular hypothesis

The article has been nominated for peer review. Please, participate. Ruslik (talk) 09:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] AfD on Radio Source

radio source has been nominated for deletion. 70.51.9.57 (talk) 05:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

... and was speedily kept. Mike Peel (talk) 10:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] merge proposed on interstellar cloud and nebula

Interstellar cloud and nebula appear at WP:PM as a proposed merge. 70.55.84.42 (talk) 04:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Probably not a bad idea. Otherwise I'm not sure how we'd distinguish between the two.—RJH (talk) 16:12, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I would think that nebula would have a historical background that deserves a separate article (ie, things like galaxies), aside from that, modern nebulae are a subcategory of clouds, and I'm not clear on whether extra/intergalactic / extra/intercluster clouds are also classed as interstellar clouds. 70.55.84.42 (talk) 08:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Snickers (galaxy)

Snickers (galaxy) needs cleanup. It was built using data 30 years old. I don't know what this object is actually referred to in literature, so I've had no luck looking it up. 70.55.84.42 (talk) 08:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The discovery article is available here. The paper has 20 citations, [4], which are probably worth looking through. Mike Peel (talk) 08:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Even before its identification as a supershell, the ACS or rather the region toward the Galactic anticenter was observed to be extraordinary. A jet near l = 197°, b = +2° with an associated extension toward lower Galactic longitudes and LSR velocities between −50 and −150 km s−1 was discovered by Weaver (1970, 1974). These were interpreted by Davies (1972) and Verschuur (1973) as a spiral arm and by Simonson (1975, 1993) as a tidally stripped external galaxy. Burton & Moore (1979) used associations between the high-velocity gas (HVG) and deficiencies in the low-velocity H i to argue that the jet and streams were local. Giovanelli (1980) discovered a stream of gas stretching between l = 140°, b = −5° and l = 190°, b = −20°, that has a nearly constant velocity of −115 km s−1. Tamanaha (1994) isolated intermediate-velocity filaments within the ACS that appeared to delineate a spherical shape.

According to the above excerpt from DOI: 10.1086/312975 The Anticenter Shell and the Anticenter Chain 1997ApJS..109..139T 1.000 03/1997 it's not a galaxy, but a supershell. Shall we delete the article? 70.55.84.42 (talk) 05:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

It may be worth merging it into Superbubble (apparently another name for a supershell), perhaps something like "Some supershells were originally misinterpreted, for example the "Snickers" galaxy, which was ...". I'd then have Snickers (galaxy) redirect to that page to make sure that anyone looking for that galaxy name in the future can find the superbubble article. Of course, this is assuming that this superbubble isn't worth an article on its own. Mike Peel (talk) 07:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Merge tag attached. I've stripped out the "nearest galaxy" bit, since even if it were a galaxy, it would not the the nearest (1/3 of a century leads to other discoveries). I've also rewritten it a bit with the above extract/reference... but the pagename is now inappropriate. 70.55.85.225 (talk) 06:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I see no reason to merge, it is a notable object in its own right. --George100 (talk) 12:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Does this object have a name (other than "Snickers")? Why not just rename the article? --George100 (talk) 04:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
It's called the anti-center shell in some papers. 70.55.87.10 (talk) 12:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I have renamed the article Anticenter shell, the non-hyphenated term seems to be the most common. --George100 (talk) 12:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CarloscomB

We seem to be having a growing problem with user CarloscomB inserting astronomy images that do not have a valid copyright status. See:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/User_talk:CarloscomB

These are getting regularly tagged for removal and the user is doing nothing to address the issue. Perhaps it's not a concern if the images will all be deleted, but meanwhile that results in a lot of cleanup of the modified pages.—RJH (talk) 16:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

This user has had about 70 astronomy images challenged (and probably deleted) since November 2007, however I see that these are only a (fairly) small fraction of his contributions. So it appears that he is well-intentioned. I have put a level 1 improper image template on his talk page with some words explaining the problem, and followed it with the welcomeg template. Let's keep an eye on it and see how he does, he seems very energetic. Wwheaton (talk) 17:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I looked at a number of his recent contributions, but none of them showed a valid copyright status tag. All such will undoubtedly be challenged at some point; by a bot if nothing else.—RJH (talk) 17:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 7001 Noether

Hello, astronomy people. I'm currently working to bring Emmy Noether up to FA status, and I've come across the asteroid 7001 Noether. According to Meanings of asteroid names (7001-7500), it's definitely named for her and not her father Max Noether (who was also a noteworthy mathematician). However, the source listed as a reference has lots of info about the asteroid, but doesn't indicate Emmy or Max. I wonder if anyone can help me out. Thanks! – Scartol • Tok 23:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Try the Wiki article on Emmy Noether. She is a famous mathematical physicist of the first half of the 20th century, known for Noether's Theorem, which I think says that whenever you have a symmetry in physics, there is a corresponding conservation law. Examples are invariance of physics against (shift in time origin) <=> (conservation of energy), (space origin) <=> (linear momentum conservation), (invarience under rotation) <=> (angular momentum conservation), etc. Wwheaton (talk) 00:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
As Scartol (talk · contribs) is working on that article, I think they already know all that... :)
There should be something in the Minor Planet Bulletin from when the asteroid was named, which should explain who it was named after, but I can't find it online... Mike Peel (talk) 06:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I think so too, duh....  :)  :) Wwheaton (talk) 06:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you all for the responses, and – yes – I have stumbled across a few things about Frl. Noether while writing her biography. =) I'll see if I can track down the Minor Planet Bulletin from the time of its naming. Thanks again! – Scartol • Tok 11:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
PS: The reconstructed article is being built on my drawing board, in case anyone wants to make comments or offer other feedback. (I've not reached the math/physics part yet, but I expect to require great mounds of help on that.) – Scartol • Tok 11:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
According to the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, 5e, 7001 Noether is named after Emmy, not Max. (p. 570, Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Lutz D. Schmadel, 5th revised and enlarged edition, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-540-00238-3.) Spacepotato (talk) 01:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Fantastic. You just saved me a trip to the library. Thanks so much, Spacepotato! – Scartol • Tok 23:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Asteroid/Minor Planet merge

In order to facilitate bring the asteroid article up to FA at some point into the future, I was "bold" and took the initiative to merge the asteroid and minor planet articles. The majority of the minor planet article concerned "asteroid groups", so that has been moved into a separate article, asteroid group. What little remained was heavily redundant with the asteroid article and I saw little reason to keep them separate. But the content can be readily moved to the minor planet page, if that is the preferred direction. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 19:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Since the IAU made minor planet deprecated, it's probably the way it should go. Small solar system body would be the other hcoice. 70.55.89.134 (talk) 06:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks.—RJH (talk) 19:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BY Dra var

Category:BY Dra variables has been proposed to be merged with Category:BY Draconis variables. 70.55.89.134 (talk) 07:14, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mercury Featured Article Review

Mercury (planet) 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. Kaldari (talk) 21:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] M-100

At Wikipedia:WikiProject_Rocketry, there is discussion on moving M-100 (rocket) on top of M-100 at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rocketry/Titles. 70.55.85.177 (talk) 05:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright violation in Gliese 570 article dating back to 2006

Hello, it looks like the Gliese 570 article contains lots of copy+paste of SolStation - the copying was apparently done in 2006 by a user called "Hurricane Devon". 131.111.8.103 (talk) 10:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Hurricane Devon left alot of copyvios around... 70.55.84.13 (talk) 06:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nebular hypothesis

I have nominated this article to featured article. Ruslik (talk) 10:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed change on starboxes

Template:Starbox begin and others says that I shall discuss template changes here first. I'll increase the "padding" from 0 to about 3px. Nobody would have realized anything have changed, if I had said nothing. If discontent with what you see, please revert. Said: Rursus 10:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Checked. If anyone can see anything, please report! Said: Rursus 10:55, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cygnus X-1 FAC

The Cygnus X-1 is up for FAC. Please take a look and leave a comment if you have an interest. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It was just promoted last week. Thank you to those who provided feedback.—RJH (talk) 22:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where should minor planet redirect?

At present, minor planet redirects to asteroid group. The IAU is going with the term Small Solar System body.[5] I wanted to get input before taking action. Novangelis (talk) 14:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually it redirects to Asteroid. A redirect to Small Solar System body works for me.—RJH (talk) 01:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
To me, the term small solar system body is ugly and shouldn't be used at all except to record the IAU definition. I interpret minor planet as referring to all bodies going around the Sun other than the eight major planets, so perhaps it should be a disambiguation-type article listing the different articles we have on these bodies. The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 01:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
When I posted, it redirected to asteroid group, apparently due to a merge. It was changed since. I, too, hate SSSB, but it is the current term. A disambiguation page with pre- and post-2006 meanings might be of use, since SSSB is not a strict synonym. I almost suggested it at first, but was trying to avert unnecessary expansion. Perhaps it is necessary. Novangelis (talk) 02:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
The history of this page is as follows:
  1. Merges between Asteroid and Minor planet were discussed in the past at Talk:Asteroid and Talk:Minor planet, but there was no consensus.
  2. On April 11, 2008, User:RJHall merged Asteroid and Minor planet. As one would expect, he redirected Minor planet to Asteroid. He also moved most of the material in Minor planet to a new article, Asteroid group.
  3. On April 19, 2008, administrator User:Bryan Derksen was dissatisfied because the history for the text in Asteroid group was at Minor planet. He therefore performed a history merge between Asteroid group and Minor planet.
  4. A side-effect of the history merge was that Minor planet was redirected to Asteroid group, which made no sense. Therefore, I restored the status quo of April 11 by re-redirecting Minor planet to Asteroid.

As for where the redirect should point, the IAU has introduced the terms dwarf planet and small solar system body, but it has not changed the definition of asteroid or minor planet. The terms minor planet and small solar system body do not mean the same thing. Ceres is a minor planet but not a SSSB; comets are SSSBs but not minor planets. Minor planet and asteroid on the other hand are approximately synonymous.[6][7][8] Therefore, minor planet should continue to point to asteroid. ("Asteroid" may or may not exclude TNOs and other distant objects, but this can be discussed at asteroid.) Spacepotato (talk) 06:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I've replaced minor planet with a summary/index article. I think this is more useful. The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 07:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I like what you wrote. To be encyclopedic, I've added SSSB to the see also section, even if it is about as inelegent a term as is possible. Thank you. Novangelis (talk) 14:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
That works for me as well.—RJH (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Astronomy day

May 10th is the 2008 Astronomy day. It's too bad we didn't nominate an astronomy FA for that date. Maybe next year...

Note also that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy.—RJH (talk) 01:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Circumstellar discs" category

Membership in Category:Circumstellar discs category currently imposes a restriction that the star not have a planet. However, this limitation seems arbitrary. Removing this restriction would allow a viewer to go to one category to find all stars with debris disks, rather than also having to search all the stars with planets for disks. (An example of a star that would be included is Epsilon Eridani.) What do you think?—RJH (talk) 16:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Perhaps a subcategory Protoplanetary discs which contains stars with dics and planets? 70.51.9.170 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    • "Protoplanetary" implies that the disc is in the process of, or at least is capable of forming planets, but not all circumstellar discs are of this nature, particularly around older stars such as the planet host HD 69830. Collisions between objects in asteroid belts can also produce discs... would anyone seriously want to call the dust associated with our own solar system's asteroid or Kuiper belts "protoplanetary"? 131.111.8.97 (talk) 09:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Possibly there could be a cross-categorization of 'Stars with planets and belts', or some such appropriate name. But adding that sub-category under the 'Circumstellar discs' category would still require lifting the restriction. So I'd like to know if somebody has a good reason not to eliminate it. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 20:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
      • The text of the category reads "It is assumed that stars with planets will still have debris discs of some sort." - this is unproven speculation, in fact studies seem to suggest there is no correlation between (massive) planets and circumstellar discs (see, e.g. [9]). The rationale for not including systems with planets thus seems to be flawed. 131.111.8.103 (talk) 01:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
        • It is not an unreasonable speculation, since it should be impossible to incorporate every single gas atom/molecule or dust grain into planets. The Sun has such a debris disc, it's even visible, see Zodiacal light. 70.55.88.176 (talk) 06:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Who said that the grains would have to be incorporated into the planets? Actually there are processes which remove dust particles on short timescales compared to the lifetime of the system (e.g. Poynting-Robertson drag), which means there has to be a source for production of the dust grains in the system. While our system has asteroid and Kuiper belts in which collisions between SSSBs produce dust, it is not clear that such belts are a feature of all mature planetary systems. Observationally there is no evidence for such a correlation, so we shouldn't assume there is one. 131.111.8.96 (talk) 12:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
            • But planets themselves are sources of debris. Assuming that a close interaction with a passing star strips the Kuiper disc and Oort cloud of the star having planets, the planets themselves will generate gas and dust in their orbital plane. Hence, not every grain of dust or atom of gas will be incorporated into planets. The bombardment of the solar wind on a planet's surface or atmosphere will produce such. 70.55.88.176 (talk) 10:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
        • My sense on this is that the category is for stars where a circumstellar disk has been detected, which would mean that the disk has a sufficient density and distribution to make detection possible. Not all stars with a planetary system have had a debris disk detected, and I would prefer to make detection the criteria for inclusion, rather than excluding planetary systems based on conjecture.—RJH (talk) 16:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
          • I was "bold" and changed the selection criteria, also leaving a note on the talk page. Hope that's okay.—RJH (talk) 17:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

A related issue: circumstellar disc should NOT redirect to protoplanetary disc, since not all circumstellar discs are protoplanetary. 131.111.8.96 (talk) 02:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I redirected it to debris disk, although perhaps that is also not the best solution. Would it make sense to merge debris disk and protoplanetary disc into a single, over-arching article on the topic? Neither is especially large at present.—RJH (talk) 17:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of Mercury-crossing asteroids was prodded then unprodded

List of Mercury-crossing asteroids was prodded by user:Jeepday after an exact-phrase search did not turn up "Mercury-crossing asteroid". Cited WP:OR, WP:N, and WP:V. It was then deprodded by user:Phil Bridger because an exact-phrase search was unreasonable way to search for the topic. 70.55.88.176 (talk) 09:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of quasars

See also: Talk:List of quasars

List of quasars was PRODded, I deprodded it, though it could use some inclusion criteria. 70.55.86.17 (talk) 08:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I proposed it for deletion. Without any guidelines for inclusion, it just appears to be a random list of objects that someone bothered to make a stub-page for. There are >100,000 quasars known (>1,000,000 if we include photometric identifications), and none of them are "common knowledge". People have generally heard of galaxies, planets and asteroids, but very few have heard of quasars. If the page is to serve a purpose, we need a clear rationale for why a given quasar should be included (or not). - Parejkoj (talk) 12:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The current list provides no information beyond what is already in the Quasar category. It doesn't even include red links. If it were a list of high red-shift quasars or the most active quasars, then perhaps it would make sense to keep it. Even a list of historically important quasars would seem more useful. Otherwise, I suspect an AfD of the current would result in deletion.—RJH (talk) 17:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I thought it could be useful if there were some comments annotating the entries, or some criteria stated at the head of the list for inclusion. A move to "List of notable quasars" might help. Anyhow, I commented 3C48 & 3C273 (? Though I thought 3C48 was the first, spectrum by Greenstein?, about 1963? The history could be improved in those two articles....) Wwheaton (talk) 17:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
What constitutes high redshift? Maybe the few that are above z~6.2? If someone wants to propose some "notability" guidelines on the talk page, we can try and come up with something. We should probably remove most of the "random" quasars, and their respective pages. Wwheaton: what's wrong with the 3c273 article? I'm tweaking the 3c48 article somewhat: see if it is better. - Parejkoj (talk) 22:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Probably nothing, I just couldn't quite recall the historical sequence involving Schmidt, Greenstein, & Bev Oke. I had thought 3C48 was the first, then 3C273, but now I'm guessing that Jesse Greenstein got a weird spectrum for 3C48, but didn't identify the redshift until Schmidt & Oke got it for 3C273? I assume they were all talking in the halls excitedly at the time. (If I recall, the accurate position for one or the other of them was associated with a lunar occultation? If so, it must have been 3C273, or maybe the Crab, as 3C48 doesn't occult.) Wwheaton (talk) 23:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems to depend on the source. Various sites use z>4, 5 or 6. The highest measured quasar redshift is z = 6.4.—RJH (talk) 18:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I think it can't be redshift alone, because we cant really exclude 3C273, etc, unless we want to call it "High redshift quasars"—which would not be unreasonable I guess. I would think z > 5 or 6 might be OK to keep the numbers manageable, until JWST pushes us much deeper. Of course if we claim to be complete, all quasars with z greater than anything, we'll be in trouble pretty quick, so it still has to be "selected quasars" or some such. Wwheaton (talk) 18:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
True, but there's no reason it couldn't have different sections for historically important quasars, high Z quasars, &c.—RJH (talk) 21:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First supernova seen exploding

News alert: SN 2008D is the first supernova seen while its explosion began. -- SEWilco (talk) 02:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Astronomical coordinates?

The {{coord}} template is being used for geographical coordinates, with one effect being the ability to view those locations on Google Earth. So I was wondering if there is a similar template for astronomical coordinates and a crosslink to tools such as Google Sky? -- SEWilco (talk) 18:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

There used to be a variant for lunar coordinates (globe:Moon). However the site that was supporting it never responded to requests for addressing known problems. So I have become a little dubious about the whole concept.—RJH (talk) 21:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please can you claim these pages?!

Hi, a few days ago, User:Keeper76 kindly began helping me with a small project to hopefully improve content - starting to offload the list of pages on Wikipedia that are not being watched by anybody. This means not only are they prime targets for vandalism, but they are also unlikely to improve. In the course of the first couple of dozens articles, I found these, which are tagged as being within your scope:

10004 Igormakarov 10007 Malytheatre 10009 Hirosetanso 10021 Henja 10024 Marthahazen 10029 Hiramperkins 10034 Birlan

Could some people from this wikiproject please watchlist these, as I am currently the only person watching them! Also,I hope to be able to continue this work in a few weeks, and I expect that the early stuff will include a lot of asteroids, etc. Can I ask if I am able to continue trying to offload these onto you? Best wishes Fritzpoll (talk) 22:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I have watchlisted them for you. I am a member of this project and will keep them watchlisted. Cheers, Razorflame 14:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks very much! Fritzpoll (talk) 14:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
As to your second question, I am unsure about this. I am not one of the main users that edit this Wikiproject, but I guess that we can allow you to continue offloading. Cheers, Razorflame 16:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I got 'em too, with some more general thoughts on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy. Cheers, B Wwheaton (talk) 16:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] International Year of Astronomy 2009

2009 has been proclaimed as the International Year of Astronomy. It would be great to tie in with this, both to help with the aims of the international year and to spur extra improvements to Wikipedia's coverage of astronomy. I've started a thread about this over at WikiProject Astronomy; please have a look and join in with the conversation. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:36, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Asteroid articles

I've just copied this fromthe Project Astronomy talk page, as it surely belongs here aleo. Wwheaton (talk) 02:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Captain panda has been creating thousands of stubs on named asteroids, see Special:Contributions/Captain_panda. There's some discussion above about this, but can we reach a definite consensus? I'd think the lists like List of named asteroids (A-C) could be tables containing the information currently in these stubs. Having 10s of thousands of stubs about asteroids seems like an invitation to vandalism to me. Is anyone really going to watchlist all of these articles? I'd be OK with keeping them as redirects into the right line of a table in one of the "list of" articles, but keeping each one as an "article" seems well on the other side of pointless (to me). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I volunteered to watch a few, with some misgivings, under the hope that they would seldom change and not take much effort, but I really do think it is madness. Where do we stop? There are excellent tables at JPL and the Minor Planet Center that are maintained by professionals (and constantly updated by funded computer systems!), and how can or should we compete with those manually when tens of thousands of objects are at stake, and hundreds of thousands are obviously in store due to the NEO and LSST programs? We would not try to do this for stars. For asteroids, let us have some minimal criteria of notability, beyond being an entry in a catalog. If we just limit it to objects that require some words describing why they are interesting, and a reference or two, I think that will give us all the articles we need, and likely more than we can handle. I am sorry to undercut user:Captain panda's enthusiasm, but I really think it is necessary. Wwheaton (talk) 02:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The kind of table I'm suggesting would look like this (the exact content in the table is of course subject to discussion):

Name Alternate name Group Discovery date Discoverer More information
20813 Aakashshah 2000 SB274 Main-belt 2000-09-28 Lincoln Laboratory JPL Small Body Database
677 Aaltje 1909 FR Main-belt 1909-01-18 August Kopff JPL Small Body Database
2676 Aarhus 1933 QV Main-belt 1933-08-25 Karl Reinmuth JPL Small Body Database

Which includes anchors for each line, so links like #20813 Aakashshah, #677 Aaltje, #2676 Aarhus would work (meaning the articles could be redirects). With this format, in cases where there is substantially more information available than "this is an asteroid" the name could be a link to a non-stub article (to show the format, I've made the first entry such a link). The concept here is that the bulk of the thousands and thousands of stubs would be redirects into a table like this, without eliminating the possibility for articles to be developed about individual asteroids. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

What defines having an article being in the proposed table or being an article? I can still add infoboxes and things like that to the articles that I have created in order to add more information to them. I do not want the articles I have written to be deleted and I am willing to improve each and every one of them if it prevents them from being deleted. Captain panda 20:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
While I believe that we might be taking it a little too far, I also agree with Captain Panda that articles like this that are created have the potential (however slim it may be) to be expanded. They should not be deleted, as all of them are named. If I remember from the List of asteroids (the big one), it said that only 24,000 or so of all asteroids that have been discovered are named. What if we were to create the notability criteria that they have to be named asteroids in order to get them to stay on here? Would that work? Cheers, Razorflame 21:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
The last ten of these that were created are: 14834 Isaev, 14812 Rosario, 14104 Delpino, 14077 Volfango, 14032 Mego, 13643 Takushi, 13477 Utkin, 13176 Kobedaitenken, 12999 Toruń, 12838 Adamsmith which all say:
<insert name here> is a main belt asteroid with an orbital period of <insert period in days here> days (<insert period in years here> years).
The asteroid was discovered on <insert date here>.
References
<link to JPL Small Body database here>
The only content here is the name, the group (main belt), the period, the discovery date, and the link to JPL - all of which could be included in a tabular format. I'm suggesting changing articles like these ten to be redirects to such a table (not deleting them). The redirects would be replaced with articles for any asteroids about which an article could be written. Facts recited from a database, even with an infobox replicating all the information in the database, does not an article make. What's the problem with including the information content in tabular form? -- Rick Block (talk) 22:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I like the table a lot, but I would like it even more if some additional data were given. Of course there is a column space problem, if it gets too wide. My personal favorite items to add would be semi-major axis a  (in AU), eccentricity e , inclination i , period (in years, but slightly redundant with a ), and either absolute magnitude or estimated size and albedo when IR data are available. I think the date of discovery might be reduced to just year, and the discoverer could be dropped, as the most famous ones will have a separate article anyhow. Also, the group (main-belt, etc) has some overlap with the orbit data, so maybe we would not need both, but spectral class would be nice. (For a complete definition of a Keplerian orbit, we would need six numbers: a , e , i , plus node, argument of perigee, & anomaly, all at some epoch time.) The "More information" link could be shortened to "JPL SBDB" or MPC, or even placed as a footnote if we do not need the option of both (but then to get the page or data for a particular object, we would have to put the link in the orbit data or somewhere else for that line).
Re notability, I believe asteroids get a number when the orbit is well-determined, before that they just have a year & letter code. Maybe a name is a reasonable criterion for a separate article. The the article could then at least tell the story of the name, which would seldom fit in a table. But I'm not really advocating mass deletion of the articles User:Captain panda has created. Even among the numbered ones (& maybe even some of the more famous pre-numbered variety), that have remarkable properties, or orbits, or appeared dangerous for a while, etc, whenever there is important information that does not fit into whatever table format we settle on, that would be a clue that a separate page may be called for. Also, if there is anyone in our project who has contacts at JPL or MPC, it might be a good idea to solicit input from them as to what would be most appropriate here in the light of what they are doing and their plans for the future.
This latter is an important consideration, I think, as what with the NEO concerns and the LSST on the way, there really will be an explosion in numbers that will likely tax our ability to keep tabs and maintain the information correct and up-to-date if we are not thoughtful. For example, I believe there is some provision at MPC for computer maintenance of the tables, including updating orbit computations based on recently submitted observations, with minimal human intervention. Even keeping the table current could be a chore in the worse case scenarios. (NB there may be copyright restrictions on actually reading external data automatically and putting it into our table.) Wwheaton (talk) 23:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there's any reasonable way to include a,e,i,etc. without making the table overly wide or using a show/hide sort of approach. Using show/hide, this might look like the following (note there are 2 physical lines per entry since show/hide seems to introduce a 2nd line):
Name Alternate
name
Group Discovery date Discoverer Orbital/physical characteristics More information
20813 Aakashshah 2000 SB274 Main-belt 2000-09-28 Lincoln Laboratory JPL SBDB
677 Aaltje 1909 FR Main-belt 1909-01-18 August Kopff JPL SBDB
2676 Aarhus 1933 QV Main-belt 1933-08-25 Karl Reinmuth JPL SBDB
I'd be willing to write some code to construct tables like this (based on the data at JPL or some other available source). -- Rick Block (talk) 01:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


Here's my cut at a table, for the same three objects Rick Block has done above:

No. / Name Alt. Name Year H a e i Node Arg Peri Anom. M Epoch TJD Full data
20813 Aakashshah 2000 SB274 2000 14.4 2.6767409 0.1117672 2.98933 196.60418 307.92848 164.07487 3871.4664786 JPL SBD
677 Aaltje 1909 FR 1909 9.70 2.9548394 0.0497858 8.48963 272.90478 280.18136 123.27949 3965.1872566 JPL SBD
2676 Aarhus 1933 QV 1933 12.8 2.4032459 0.1263205 4.55345 289.75298 45.51728 12.54766 4553.0696866 JPL SBD

I have included the absolute magnitude H, and the six principle orbital elements. In order for the orbital elements to be meaningful, it is also necessary to give the epoch time when they apply, since M changes rapidly and the others may also change, though usually very slowly. In order to save column space I have given this as Julian Date - 2450000.00. The choice of 2450000 will work for epochs from around 1995 to ~2023. (I am just guessing all the data at JPL have been generated for epochs since 1995, but there might be a few with no recent observations that are earlier.) There would need to be an explanatory header at the beginning defining all these, or a footnote at the bottom.

I have just copied the values from the JPL pages, but I actually am in doubt whether we need to have quite so many digits. Anybody doing high precision work is likely to go to the JPL tables directly anyhow, and I suspect we could get by with about 6 digits for the six primary orbital elements, and 7 or 8 for the epoch. This would save ~12 to 15 spaces. I have omitted the nominal size and albedo because these are not available for the newer objects, since they need photometric observations in visual and IR. We could add them if we think we have the space, and don't mind leaving them blank when unavailable.

The orbital period is redundant with a, but so useful I think it might be added also, in years to say, 3 digit accuracy. It seems to me we have the space if we reduce the accuracy on the orbit elements a bit. I dropped Group as largely redundant with the orbital elements; if we want to re-instate it I think I would put it in as a 2 or 3 character code, (eg, "M-B"), with an explanation decoding it in the footnote. Spectral class could be treated in the same way; it is not available for most objects. I reduced date of discovery to just Year, since it seems to me that it really only tells us if an object may have lots of (likely lower-precision) earlier observations or not. I also thought the discoverer was of marginal scientific interest, and therefore punted that.

My goal here has been to put the data in a form that can be used quickly by anyone looking for moderately accurate information about the main properties, in a format that could be read by computer for some statistical purposes, or even to generate rough (arc minute?) ephemermis info, but not good enough for high-precision positional work. Anything that drastically breaks the table format we choose -- whatever it is -- should likely have an article with the details in any case.

Being unfamiliar with the coding, I have given no consideration to the difficulties in generating a table, for thousands of objects, in this format. It may be impractical, in which case I bow to the necessities of the case. Anyway, let me know what you think. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 16:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

A possibility for group is to have the lists be by group, in which case it would not be needed. I'm not an astronomer so don't really have any basis to comment on the information content - although truncating digits doesn't seem like a great idea. I've revised the show/hide table above to include the same content (in a data table that appears if you click "show"). I guess the question is what would be the intended use for these tables? Is anyone likely to want to print the tables for reference, or search for an asteroid with (say) some specific eccentricity? If yes, making the data always visible is probably a good idea. My goal is to obviate the need for most of the stub articles - in which case I think the content in the table entry should match or exceed the content included in these stubs. Another consideration is the accessibility of the wikisource. The show/hide version is considerably more wikisource (and fairly complex wikisource as well).
Regarding generating these tables - I don't think any well defined format would be significantly easier or harder than any other. Truncating digits would be slightly more difficult than not, computing epoch differences relative to some Julian offset would be slightly more difficult than not (and, unless this is very commonly done I'd think we probably shouldn't) - but overall neither of these would make a significant difference in the coding effort.
I think regardless of whether we change most of the stubs to be redirects it would be worthwhile creating data tables. Let's agree on a format and see where it goes. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Not much comment from others, let's wait a bit more on the format issues. I am working in astronomy, though not on asteroids. It would be nice to get some other experienced opinion. I do think it would be good if we could have the table(s) computer readable, so people could do searches and statistics. I think the full precision of the best determined orbits would only be necessary for someone doing long-term high-precision orbit calculations, as for collision prediction, and that requires such complex orbit extrapolation programs that anybody doing it will go to the horse's mouth for data anyhow. Truncation of Julian dates is widespread for convenience, the main question being what is the actual range of epoch times that occurs. I may ask David Morrison, Steve Ostro, or some of other experts to render an opinion if we don't get some more input here.
Anyhow, what about the issue of Captain Panda's 10,000 stubs? How do they get updated as new observations come in (and how do our tables, for that matter) and protected against vandalism? I think the tables should maybe be semi-protected, to restrain mischievous junior high students (bless them, of course), but I have no idea about the problems of doing that for so many articles. Otherwise I think I would be in favor of letting them be; some truly are notable, and will get filled out, others will perhaps wither unless we can figure out a way to update the data. I must say, I hope more than four people are thinking about this! Wwheaton (talk) 05:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm no asteroid expert, but I think the table looks fine. As for my asteroids, I am in the process of adding infoboxes to each of them, but I suppose that it will take a few months or longer to complete adding of the infoboxes for each article that I wrote. I've only written 1,000 (as opposed to 10,000) so it can be done. If necessary, I can add the articles that I have written to my watchlist and keep an eye on them for vandalism. The articles don't get edited much so it wouldn't be much of an inconvenience. Captain panda 12:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be pretty easy to build a wiki template that links an asteroid name (on the list of asteroids pages) to the JPL Small Body Database entry, for those cases where an article doesn't already exist. That should be sufficient for 99.999% of the asteroids discovered.—RJH (talk) 18:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear. I was already in quiet despair about the over 10k of these that had already been created, I believe mainly by a run of CobiBot_II. Those were bad enough, but these seem to be seriously content-free. I can't see what purpose they serve as articles, and from a stub-sorting point of view they seriously swamp the much smaller number of stubs-with-possibilities, and what's more seem to be effectively "unsortable": lacking data like spectral type, there's basically no way to split these up into more manageable chunks, at least that I can see. (If someone has any ideas on this that are workable, I'll be their friend for life and biggest fan.) Put me down as being in favour of merging to some better-integrated format, though I have no strong opinions as to what that should be. I might also be able to help out on the automation front, once it's clearer what's required there. Alai (talk) 17:44, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I have been passively thinking about this and can not think of a great solution. But I think it is kind of pointless to have 10k+ form letters for asteroids. These form letters will not have current orbital data and are no match for the JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine. We still have major asteroids like 451 Patientia that still do not have an infobox.

When I start an asteroid article I do it like I did for 2007 VL305, 2004 VN112, 14827 Hypnos, and (137108) 1999 AN10. They are more useful than a form letter. -- Kheider (talk) 18:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

As just some dude who came hunting for this discussion after hitting one too many asteroids on random, I have to say that the proposed solution by Rick Block (or something very similar) is almost exactly what I had in mind when I stumbled in here. Whatever drawbacks this proposal has, I'm 100% sure it beats letting things go on as they have been. I am very pleased to see that this matter is getting the attention it deserves, and will be keeping an eye on this discussion. J293339 (talk) 21:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pluto → Pluto (dwarf planet)

User:Electrical Experiment is proposing to rename the former planet, Pluto to Pluto (dwarf planet). 70.51.9.216 (talk) 08:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Since Pluto is no longer a planet, I would have to agree that Pluto should be renamed to something else, but to what is what I am not sure of. Cheers, Razorflame 21:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Even as a dwarf planet, it still could be the most notable Pluto. Just because an object is reclassified doesn't mean it loses any notability or status. Besides which, this discussion has happened before, and the current situation is the consensus result. shaggy (talk) 21:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh God, not again. What is wrong with the current title? --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 21:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I guess that my comment above was kind of thin, and the comments that you guys have brought up is making me believe that I was wrong to have it renamed. I don't see any reason why it should be renamed. Cheers, Razorflame 21:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Where is the main discussion for this? it seems to be answered by the Pluto article talk page. I'll be happy to oppose renaming the article.—RJH (talk) 17:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Discussion on Pluto talk page has been archived, but consensus was against. Wwheaton (talk) 20:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minimum mass has been prodded

Minimum mass has been placed at WP:PROD. This article is about exoplanet minimum estimated detected mass. 70.51.11.156 (talk) 04:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rings of Uranus

I submitted this article for a peer review. You can comment here. Ruslik (talk) 08:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Greek language and/or transliteration?

We're having a discussion at Talk:Mercury_(planet)#Greek_letters about whether the original Greek word should be included in the Mercury article if a transliteration is available. Several other astronomy articles include both, so I'd like to find out if there are any good reasons to continue with that policy. Please contribute if you have an opinion on the subject. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 19:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] B1359+154 → QSO B1359+154

I have initiated a request to move B1359+154 to QSO B1359+154 because a set of raw coordinates makes no sense, especially considering that this quasar is gravitationally lensed, and therefore, four other galaxies share the same coordinates. Bare coordinates should never be used as an article title. 70.51.9.191 (talk) 09:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:QSO objects

Is Category:QSO objects really necessary? Every quasar is a QSO object, and could be categorized there. Instead perhaps it should be Category:Quasars known by their coordinates instead of a catalogue or survey entry or somesuch... if at all subcategorized. Right now it just categorizes the prefered article name that uses QSO. If we keep this, will we be making Category:PSR objects next for pulsars which have articles preferentially named with PSR and a sky coordinate? 70.51.9.191 (talk) 09:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User:CarloscomB

We need to examine CarloscomB's categories. I've just tried to correct several that claim to be stub-type categories, and claim to be populated by {{star-stub}}, which is totally wrong, and they're singular and not plural. I've also noticed that he inserts random copied sentences into his articles that make no sense out of context of wherever he copied them from. 70.55.86.37 (talk) 14:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

An example (and uncorrected) of one of these screwed up categories that CarloscomB makes is Cat:Ellipsoidal variables 70.55.86.37 (talk) 14:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

CarloscomB has made a category Cat:X-ray source... what do we do with it? It needs to be pluralized, and placed somewhere in the heirarchy... 70.55.86.37 (talk) 14:13, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Ofcourse, an X-ray machine is also an X-ray source, as is radium... so a rename is in order. 70.51.8.196 (talk) 05:45, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

CarloscomB also seems to be duplicating categories. I've sent Cat:RS CVn variables to WP:CFD because it duplicates the older by three years Cat:RS Canum Venaticorum variables category. 70.55.86.37 (talk) 14:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

And again with Category:Eclipsing binary of Algol type of the two years older Category:Algol variables 70.55.86.37 (talk) 14:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

CarloscomB has created Cat:Radio source Stars... which is badly named. I suppose it should be called Cat:Radio stars, if we choose to keep it... 70.55.86.37 (talk) 14:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps not radio stars... thinking about pre-TV age stars of home entertainment... 70.51.8.196 (talk) 06:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

We should examine CarloscomB's new-creation articles, since they are named shorthand, and we've been using longhand names as article names. ie. EQ Vir and FL Vir should be EQ Virginis and FL Virginis. Most of them also need to be wikified, and corrected for proper english grammar. 70.51.8.196 (talk) 06:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

17 Lep should be renamed to 17 Leporis... 70.51.8.196 (talk) 06:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I think CarloscomB is a portuguese speaker, judging from the number of pt interlang links in his articles, and that pt:User:CarloscomB has temp pages. And his non-English grammar.70.55.90.22 (talk) 14:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PSR J1951+1123

Can someone rename PSR J1951 plus 1123 to PSR J1951+1123? It uses the format used before WikiMedia was upgraded to support the "+" sign in article titles. 70.51.8.196 (talk) 06:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:DQ Herculis variables

Should we keep the name Category:DQ Herculis variables or rename it to match the article Intermediate polar? 70.55.86.37 (talk) 15:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PSR 1829-10

I have issues with the PSR 1829-10 article. CarloscomB has inserted information into it to make it appear at a glance to have a planet. However the claim for there being a planet was retracted. I have removed the categories associated with there being an actual planet but I have left the table. If this is how CarloscomB has been inserting information, then there may be alot of corrections necessary. I think that the planet table should be deleted, along with the entire planet section as it exists now (a blank section with a table).

I'd like to know what project members say about leaving such misleading information but accurate to what was an incorrect claim and historically significant. 70.51.8.196 (talk) 06:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

In cases where the information is dubious, I sometimes just move it wholesale to the article's talk page and ask for clarification and/or better citations.—RJH (talk) 15:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I've excised the planet box that places undue emphasis on a incorrect claim and at a superficial glance makes it appear as though the pulsar has a planet, and moved it to the talk page. It now looks similar to what the article looked like before CarloscomB added the planetbox. 70.55.87.49 (talk) 04:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1806-20

Star cluster 1806-20 should be renamed, as of now, it is just a sky coordinate, so could refer to LBV 1806-20 or SGR 1806-20 or anything else located at that patch of sky. 70.51.8.196 (talk) 06:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

But neither of those suggestions are star cluster names, LBV 1806-20 being a star, and SGR 1806-20 a soft gamma-ray repeater, or burst source, both probably associated with sources in the cluster. The cluster is visible in the NIR, bright at 2 microns in 2MASS. We should not change the name until we know a correct name for the cluster, I think. Wwheaton (talk) 16:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I didn't suggest a name to move the cluster to, I just said that two other objects share the same sky coordinates, and have articles. If I had a name to suggest, I would have placed it on WP:RM and asked people here to discuss my proposal. As of now, I'm trawling for a good name. Star cluster 1806-20 doesn't have the best ring to it. 70.55.87.49 (talk) 04:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Mira Cet variables

I've proposed merging this newly created duplicate category into the pre-existing category for the same subject, Category:Mira variables. Discussion is here. Spacepotato (talk) 07:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Insertion of spaces into XO, WASP, HATNet exoplanet designations

User:Metapsyche has been adding spaces to various exoplanet designations such as those from XO, HATNet and WASP to make them, e.g. "XO-3 b", "WASP-4 b", etc. when almost universally in the literature they are rendered without the space between the star designation and the "b", i.e. "XO-3b", "WASP-4b"... I tried discussing this matter with Metapsyche but he/she has not responded and has instead reverted back to the nonstandard designations claiming that the designations that the discoverers are using are the "wrong naming convention". I'd fix it but I can't move the articles back, and in any case at this point if I fixed it it would probably count as a revert war. 131.111.8.102 (talk) 10:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You can bring it up at WP:ANI.
Well... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=Metapsyche&month=&year= that's quite alot of page moves... 70.55.87.10 (talk) 11:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Orange-red giants

Should we use Category:Orange-red giants? It's another one of CarloscomB's categories, and as such is not one of the categories previously determined by this wikiproject for the organization scheme worked out, um about 2 years ago, IIRC. 70.55.84.105 (talk) 05:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we use something consistent with the consensus at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects/Archive_5#Star_spectral_class_article_renames, although I hate to think we'll have "K IV", "K III", "K II", ... articles. So perhaps just "K giant stars"? It looks like we currently have Category:Type-K stars, Category:Giant stars and Category:Orange-red giants. Confusingly, we also have Category:Yellow dwarfs and Category:White dwarfs, for example. So the categories may need a cleanup/overhaul.—RJH (talk) 15:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Should we use a category organizational structure like the following?

  • Stars by spectral type
    • ...
    • Type-G stars
    • Type-K stars
      • Type-K giants
    • ...
  • Stars by luminosity class
    • ...
    • Bright giants
    • Giant stars
      • Type-K giants
    • Main sequence stars
    • White dwarf stars
    • ...

RJH (talk) 16:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

For basic categorization, we would require spectral types and luminosity classes. Since all stars are cross classified into these two schemes, this would be the minimum required. As stars are also frequently associated with locations on the Hertzsprung Russell diagram (beyond luminosity classes), the classifications from that (ie. Asymptotic Giant Branch) should also be included. "K IV" is Type-K Class-IV, and we have categories for both K and IV, but we don't have category K2IV, or other more fine-grained divisions of spectral type or luminosity class. So it would probably be a good idea not to subdivide these too much. Might we K-IV consider an undesirable intersection, and overcategorization, were it a separate category? 70.55.87.49 (talk) 04:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I certainly think "Orange-red Giants" is generally quite undesirable, except possibly as an informal description in casual talk. It has no status as a generally recognized type, I believe.
Furthermore, I think it may be a mistake to have 2-parameter spectral categories at all, eg, not "G V", but rather "G star" and "Main sequence dwarf star", separately. That saves us endless obsessive-compulsive trouble, categories with no stars in them, etc, etc. Note also that a lot of spectral subtypes are not even defined (eg, G1 I think) in the main classification systems, so don't go too far in fine-graining these.
Also, try to keep observational classes, like spectral type, distinct from physical or theoretical classes, like "AGB star" (which is burning He in its core). Sometimes there is a clear one-to-one correlation between observed categories and theoretical categories, but often not. Wwheaton (talk) 08:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] some more catalogue cats?

From (Sky&Telescope article), it seems to me that we should add a category for another astronomical catalogue... Category:MOL objects for Master List of Nonstellar Optical Astronomical Objects (MOL) by Robert S. Dixon and George Sonneborn (Ohio State University Press, 1980) 70.55.86.142 (talk) 11:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

There are countless catalogs in the astronomical literature, almost all going back to one or more publications by some author or authors. Many of these have been superceded by later, more inclusive catalogs, and are mostly of historical interest. I think it would be a mistake to include them unselectively, without some notability criteria in mind. It would be a good idea to include the reasoning in the article talk page if the grounds for notability are not apparent in the article itself. I think we should strive to be complete in Wikipedia only for the larger, newer catalogs that are currently in active use, plus older catalogs that are currently widely recognized in names (eg, M13, NGC 4151, HD163588, etc). Wwheaton (talk) 17:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
It should be noted that CarloscomB has been adding categories for several catalogues and surveys, and even discoverers' self-named objects. We have Category:ESO objects (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) and Category:LEDA objects (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) by CarloscomB that were recently created. Though without a description in ESO objects, I'm not sure which ESO survey/catalogue CarloscomB is referring to (unless its just "ESO ###").
I brought up MOL because of the amateur astronomy angle, as it's the only catalogue from the first portion article that we don't categorize with, that was recommended as targets for amateur astronomers. (we have UGC, NGC/IC, and Messier, that only leaves MOL)
As for major catalogues, we have UGC, NGC/IC, Messier, Henry Draper, 3C, Hipparcos, Arp, PGC, Abell, and some others categorized. (though they need have articles populating them more)
We do not categorize for SDSS, 2MASS, GSC, and several other fairly commonly encountered catalogues, at the moment.
70.55.87.49 (talk) 04:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CarloscomB's quasars

CarloscomB's quasar articles all claim to be the first quasar discovered , so it appears that all his infobox edits should be examined 70.51.9.251 (talk) 07:07, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

A second problem is that any AGN seems to be a quasar, according to CarloscomB... so these articles are also otherwise problematic, if we use the classical definition of quasar, and not the "all AGNs are quasars" definition. We seem to have been using the more restricted definition of quasar to categorize things so far...70.51.9.251 (talk) 08:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] QSO B0040+517

QSO B0040+517 or 3C20/3C 20 or 4C 51.02, what's the most appropriate name to use for this object? 70.51.9.251 (talk) 07:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] QSO B0104+321

QSO B0104+321, NGC 383, NGC 384, UGC 689, LEDA 3982 ; what's the most appropriate name for this object? 70.51.9.251 (talk) 07:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] QSO B0109+492

QSO B0109+492, 4C 49.04, 3C 35/3C35 - what's the most appropriate name for this object? 70.51.9.251 (talk) 07:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 3C 47 & QSO B0133+20

CarloscomB is duplicating his own articles, not just other existing articles... with slightly different content, these two were created within a day of each other. And both list each other as an alternate name. 70.51.9.251 (talk) 07:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] QSO B0307+169

QSO B0307+169, LEDA 1524618, 3C 79/3C79, 4C 16.07, PGC 1524618 - what's the most appropriate name for this object? 70.51.9.251 (talk) 07:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] QSO B0316+413

Can someone go over this article? It's actually referring to Perseus A, of which we've had a longstanding and pretty good article for... do we need to merge anything? The articles conflict, since CarloscomB claims this is a quasar, while the NGC 1275 article uses the more restricted definition of quasar (ie. does not include Seyferts) 70.51.9.251 (talk) 08:07, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] QSO B0410+110

QSO B0410+110, 3C 109/3C109, 4C 11.18 - what's the best name for this article? 70.51.9.251 (talk) 08:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)