Portal talk:Astronomy/Archive/1

This is an archive of past discussions about Portal:Astronomy. 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.

Wikiportal name

Discussion moved from Wikipedia:Wikiportal.

What about changing this one to Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Space? Mgm|^(talk) 14:18, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
Why should we? r3m0t 21:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It's a slightly broader topic, so you can include planets, nebulas, and moons within the portal too. Would be a waste not to merge those. Aren't portals supposed to be for large subjects? Mgm|^(talk) 08:59, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
Because Astronomy can be thought of as the study of Space and all that is in it, I would call Astronomy the larger topic. 'Space' is only what lies between the planets and other objects. —Mike 17:33, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, but space could also include space exploration. Ausir 19:19, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
If I'm going to believe space (outer space) and astronomy I'd tend to prefer astronomy as they define space as just the emptiness between all that stuff out there, but then Category:Astronomy is in Category:Space. It's very confusing --Sketchee 20:58, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
How about Cosmology? - UtherSRG 22:07, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I would just like to point out that nothing says you have to only have one portal that covers all the cosmos. There is plenty of information to go around. In addition to Astronomy (which may focus on the planetary and cosmological science), there could also be one (called 'Space', or whatever) that covers space flight and other non-Astronomy topics. —Mike 04:11, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. Not everyone is well-versed enough in space terminology to see the difference and if you split things up too much, it'll be too much the same to WikiProjects. By defenition Portals should cover a large subject area. But since astronomy can cover everything in space, I'm fine with name now. It doesn't need changing after all. Mgm|^(talk) 14:20, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

I think that there should be a portal just about planets and asteroids.

This discussion seems confused. Astronomy is a well-defined discipline in science, and that's what this portal is about. A portal for space might be useful for space exploration and space technology, e.g. GPS satellites, and is surly distinct from this portal. I would agree to open a new portal for the Space subject, and not to confuse things unnecessarily. Awolf002 21:21, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I propose a Portal:Space to encompass the different disciplines regarding space, including Astronomy, Space Exploration, Space Colonization (possibly as a sub-Portal of Exploration), and other sciences as Interdisciplinary Portals (Aerospace Engineering, etc). All study of the science of Space should be kept under Astronomy, including Astronomical Objects, Star formation, etc. --Exodio 02:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Since not much happened over the last weeks, I went ahead and "seeded" the Portal:Space Exploration, which can capture all space technology related articles that do not fit in Portal:Astronomy. Please, give feed back or help out with starting it up. Awolf002 23:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Astronomy COTW?

Previously posted this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects, thought I would post it here as well:

It seems to me that there are lots of astronomy articles which are currently quite short and stubby, which could easily be developed into featured articles - for example Orion Nebula,globular cluster, open cluster - a wealth of images are available, and these are important and well-studied objects. So, I was thinking that maybe an astronomy collaboration of the week could be started. Not sure at all how one goes about setting up a COTW, or whether there would be enough interest in an astronomy one to justify it, so I thought I would float the idea here. Any thoughts or suggestions, anyone? Worldtraveller 12:58, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think that there should be a portal just about planets and asteroids.

The Wikipedia:Collaborations page pretty much covers the process. I'm not sure how much interest it would generate. Some of the CotW pages show very little life. But I do agree there are some important astronomy topics that need further development. — RJH (talk) 02:08, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Updating

I've been altering this page over the last couple of days, updating various boxes and tinkering slightly with the layout. The main thing I've changed is making it automatically update the featured article and image at the start of each calendar month. I've lined up featured articles and images for the next 6 months, see Template:Wikiportal:Astronomy/Picture and Template:Wikiportal:Astronomy/Featured, but feel free to change anything if you disagree with what I've scheduled.

Once a month is not very often for a change, but once a day is definitely too often given the small pool of astronomy featured articles and pictures. However, there's loads of excellent astronomy pictures around, so perhaps we should start a list of astronomy pics that can be featured on this portal? Then that at least could be updated every day. Or, if anyone knows any simple way of making the featured pic and article change every week or 2 weeks, say, that would be really good. Worldtraveller 21:13, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sky Tours

I've completed an audio program about M13 The Globular Cluster in Hercules. It is short and not too professional. However, it is certainly suitable for listening while viewing the object in one's telescope. (This is my intent.)

http://home.comcast.net/~john_norris_test/m13/audio_tour_m13.ogg http://home.comcast.net/~john_norris_test/m13/audio_tour_m13.txt

I would like to place it where others can improve upon it, as well as create similar audio programs. I am thinking of the wikipedia and commons, where I would post both the text and audio file. It is written/produced from a different perspective than a "typical" wikipedia article. It is meant to be used wile viewing the opject

I would like advice on copyright issues (the music was obtained under a creative commons license,) where would be a good community based site to do this project, and critiques of the program itself.

The whole podcasting phenomenon got me thinking about using these ideas for astronomy.

--John No 14:22, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Dual occurrence of portal pages

Could someone explain the dual occurrence of the pages:

Do we need both versions?--Commander Keane 23:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Any maintainers?

This portal appears to be in reasonable shape, so I'm just wondering if anyone would like to step forward and identify themselves as a maintainer. I ran across Portal:Mars and it's not in such good shape. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 20:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I think User:Worldtraveller generally looks after this Portal, but he is away for while. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I am helping out with this page for a couple of months, now. Mostly just checking its state, and updating the news items and monthly list of astronomical events. Awolf002 16:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I just now cleared all the vandalism done by 62.171.194.11, reverting this portal to the last version before it. This page certainly needs more maintainers and updaters.

I'm back from travelling now and will get more involved in the running of this portal again. Worldtraveller 12:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Help needed: can you identify these instruments?

Hi. I've just uploaded a few photos I took of instruments at the Beijing Ancient Observatory (which sadly doesn't have an article... yet!). They're on this page: commons:北京古观象台. I would appreciate it if anyone who might know anything about them could add that information to the image description pages, or just that gallery page. Thank you! pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

A scientific peer review has been started and we're looking for Wikipedians who are members of the scientific academic community to run for the board. If you want to give it a shot come over and post a little about yourself. New nominations are being accepted until the 00:00 on the 17th March.

The project aims to combine existing peer review mechanisms (Wikipedia peer review, featured article candidate discussion, article assessment, &c.) which focus on compliance to manual of style and referencing policy with a more conventional peer review by members of the scientific academic community. It is hoped that this will raise science-based articles to their highest possible standards. Article quality and factual validity is now Wikipedia's most important goal. Having as many errors as Britannica is not good–we must raise our standards above this. --Oldak Quill 18:16, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorting numbered objects

See Category talk:Messier objects for a discussion on how to sort categories with named and numbered articles. You input would be appreciated, since I'm not an astronomy expert. SeventyThree^(Talk) 14:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

black holes

i want to know if there's a limiting value or something like it for a black hole

Limiting how? By mass? There is thought to be a limit to the size of a black hole that can be generated by a stellar collapse, in that it requires a star three or more times the mass of the Sun. (C.f. stellar black hole.) Also a micro black hole may undergo rapid evaporation, so it can vanish after a finite time period. Did that help any? — RJH (talk) 02:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

There was some minor Vandalism (affecting the titles of the section on the page). I changed the section titles back to what I guessed they were. If this is not correct please could someone rectify? Thanks.

rainbowpants

There's some mention of "our [paiya]]" in the article of the month. it looks very very much like vandalism to me, but i have no idea what to revert it to.

-erw

Citation needed in Milky Way

Could somebody look in sourcing this, which is tagge with {{citation needed}}: We are presently about 1/8 of an orbit before perigalacticon (the sun's closest approach to the center).? Circeus 02:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find a definitive technical journal reference on the topic. About the closest I found was an excerpt from an astronomy encyclopedia. It almost seems more like an oft-repeated rumor. Call me slightly skeptical. :-) — RJH (talk) 20:30, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't even know if "perigalacticon" was a word, though its similar to perigee. -- Riffsyphon1024 05:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  - I have removed the sentence in the meantime. Circeus 20:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

the 10th plaent

The "Did you know" about the 10th planet is no longer valid, or needs to be rephrased

Something to keep an eye on

Colonization of Ceres - there's been a bit of an edit war here (with myself as a participant). Others may wish to give their opinion on the matter. I see no reason why Mars is given special status while the Moon and the cloudtops of Venus are not considered. I would prefer that none of them even be referenced in the first sentence as all of that is speculation anyway. Thoughts? Mithridates 20:45, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Portal merger

although it seems like a lot of work, i'd be in favour of merging Portal:Astronomy, Portal:Space exploration, and Portal:Spaceflight into one big Portal:Space (which is currently pretty close to empty). We could use tabs to separate content, as they do in some german portals, like de:Portal:Raumfahrt (spaceflight).

Tabs seem like a great idea for portals, especially for us.. there is such a large overlap of content between these three portals, that merging into Portal:Space would be extremely beneficial to all three. Not to mention to the fact that Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals has suggested to us to merge, since in their opinion, one big great portal is a lot better than three separate satisfactory portals. Mlm42 11:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

What are your criteria for this proposal? In my book, we should have a portal for all article categories that have a large enough article set to fill a portal page, and that are logically separate from each other. Combining Astronomy with all other Space related topics is not a good idea in regards to category. It "muddies" the waters in regards that Astronomy is a physcial science, and Space has all kinds of other focusses. I think we do have enough articles to have (at least) two portals. Also, you gave the de:Portal:Raumfahrt as an example, but there is a de:Portal:Astronomie. These are separate! So I'm inclined to object to a merge.

The "Tab" idea is interesting. However, it only is used to increase "portal space" it does not switch topics! I think this is a good principle to follow in order to not confuse the readers, if we decide to introduce "tabs". Awolf002 12:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the purpose of a big portal is that at the moment, each of the three Portal:Astronomy, Portal:Spaceflight, and Portal:Space exploration are trying to grow, and are infringing on each others 'territories' by doing so. there is a good amount of overlap in the content, like selected biography and selected images; one could separate things with a razor sharp knife, but readers interested in one, will most likely be interested in the others - and that's the reason for merging.

I haven't thought out what the tabs could be too carefully, but something like an "Images" tab, with multiple selected images, possibly with different areas of focus; an "Articles" tab with multiple selected articles, with different focused topics (like spaceflight, or astronomy..); maybe a "News" tab, with recent and future astronomical events, as well as spaceflight information.

The point is that I feel these subjects are too closely related to warrant separate portals; I feel it is best for the readers to have a single unified portal. Mlm42 18:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Linking astronomical coordinates to interactive celestial map

Dear members and visitors of the Astronomy Portal,

We would like to have your opinion on the discussion about linking astronomical coordinates with the interactive celestial map. Please visit our discussion pages: User_talk:Glen_S#WIKISKY.ORG_deleted.3F and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects#Unilateral_infobox_changes_by_Friendlystar.

Thanks. Kostya30 01:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Update

Can anyone update the articles in the portal? --Meno25 14:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? 'can' = 'capable' or 'can' = 'allowed'? Both is true :-), though you should follow the already setup structure and add/change them in the right places. Add new 'articles of the month' underneath Portal:Astronomy/Featured and change 'did you know' at Portal:Astronomy/Did_you_know. Hope this helps... Awolf002 17:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Can somebody help the Pismis 24 cluster?

User:Fra1ft dropped two rather unwikified (and probably machine-translated) articles PISMIS and Pismis 24-1 into our article space (as well as some related images with insufficent source and license info). As they are they should be WP:PRODded but perhaps somebody can make one nice little article out of this? A bio-stub about Paris Pismis [1] wouldn't hurt either (that one I can start, if there are no better volunteers) --Pjacobi 20:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Astronomy Events

I'm new to editing wikipedia, but I would like to contribute to the astronomy portal by updating the astronomy events a bit. This page: Portal:Astronomy/Events/2007

I notice the astronomy events are a bit lacking in detail, for example this March there are barely any events listed, and things such as the partial solar eclipse of March 19 or the Moon-Saturn Conjunction of March 28 are not listed. I was thinking of putting down all of the events from this list: http://www.seasky.org/astronomy/astronomy_calendar_2007.html

Let me know if I have permission to edit this article. Also, let me know if you guys can suggest some other event lists.

Thanks! Draimondi 00:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No need to ask for "permission", just go ahead and add April with the items you think are notable enough to be listed. Just follow a similar list style for easy readability. We all will take a look once you're done and will give you feedback. Happy editing! Awolf002 01:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

History - picture of the week

Is there any log or history of all chosen weekly pictures? --80.74.102.50 08:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, go to More featured pictures and you will see a calendar like list at the bottom. Awolf002 12:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Review requested...

Per various press, I have created SN 2006gy for the apparent pair instability hypernova in NGC1820 late last year. This is not my area of core competency; expert review and improvement sought... Georgewilliamherbert 20:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

NASA flight controller biographies

I recently added Don Puddy to WP as a mere stub and a humble one at that. Just wondering if there is interest in creating something more for WP in terms of biographies on flight controllers at NASA? —Gaff ^ταλκ 06:38, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

BD Catalogue

Is there no article on the BD Catalogue? JFPerry 14:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

No, not currently. It is described in the article Durchmusterung. Awolf002 16:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I think BD, SD, CD, CPD and BD-supplement, as when using the browsers search on "durchmusterung" in the I catalogue set of VizieR are so complementary that they should be collected altogether in the article Durchmusterung. That article needs cleanup, and the READMEs of the I catalogue set is a good start to get a clear overview of their history. Said: Rursus ☻ 11:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Help: review Gamow factor

Wrote an article Gamow factor regarding a quantum mechanical correction to nuclei overwinning the Coulomb Barrier. But I don't understand physics formulae (only mathematical ones), so the Gamow factor stub might need a formula. Said: Rursus ☻ 11:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Needs to be updated

I am not glad about this portal.