Talk:Altair

Altair has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 11, 2009	Good article nominee	Listed

Motion

Is it not the case that Altair has very fast proper motion? I believe I have read somewhere that its apparent motion relative to us is ca. 1 degree per 5000 years. Also, I seem to have read that Altair is Arabic for eagle: it isn't. It means 'the flying'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.94.86 (talk) 22:18, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Age citation

The age citation lists both an arxiv preprint and the resulting published ApJ article. The preprint claims the authors derived a model age of 630 Myr for Altair, but this has been removed from the final published article. Is there a better citation for Altair's age? DAnuu (talk) 21:15, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OtherUses template

Please change the article to use Template:OtherUses instead of Template:otheruses it currently uses. The OtherUses template has information about the contents of the article.

For a sample use of this template refer to the articles Alabama or Algiers--—The preceding unsigned comment was added by DuKot (talk • contribs) .

Note that that functionality is now at {{otheruses1}}. {{OtherUses}} redirects to {{otheruses}}, and is deprecated.--Srleffler 18:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This can't be correct

"The whiter spot at the pole and the deeper blue at the equatorial regions are manifestations of the polar temperature increase & equatorial temperature decrease due to Altair's rapid rotation."

Altair would actually be brighter and hotter--thus bluer--at its poles and whiter at its equator given Stefan-Boltzmann law and Wien law. A star or region of a star that radiates more blue light is hotter than that which radiates white light (actually a balance of red and blue light). This is apparent on the Sun as limb darkening, whereby the edge appears redder (cooler and dimmer) than the centre of the solar disc.

Thus, Altair radiates more intensely at its poles. At its equator, it radiates less, so it would appear 'redder'; in this case, white.

An astrophysicist can and should review this article, but it's basic astronomy that blue stars are always hotter than white stars. The error may stem from the fact that we generally consider cooler things to be blue and warmer ones red. It's the reverse for stellar radiation, though! 68Kustom (talk) 23:12, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The colors in question refer to the image Image:Altair PR image6.jpg. This is not a true-color image of the star. Rather, it is an interferometrically observed infrared image of the star which has been processed so that regions which radiate less intensely appear bluer and regions which radiate more intensely appear white. So, the statement in the article is correct. See [1] (Imaging the Surface of Altair, John D. Monnier et al., Science 317, #5836 (20 July 2007), pp. 342–345, doi:10.1126/science.1143205.) Spacepotato (talk) 04:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Not A Forum

reminder - the TP's are not a Forum to discuss whatever drivel happens to pop into your minds ...

Planets

Is there any knowledge of whether Altair has planets? -RadicalOne•^{Contact Me}•_{Chase My Tail} 03:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you ask? Because of the fourth one? flarn2006 [u t c] 05:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently not. Some effort was made from what I gather in the latest period, but there appears to be a conventional wisdom that the youth and rotational characteristics make it unlikely/interesting for planet formation but should be addressed in article. 72.228.189.184 (talk) 23:50, 7 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the extrasolar planets that have been found so far, have been with relatively large planets around relatively small stars. Altair is about the size of the sun, and if there are any Earth-sized planets orbiting in Altair's habitable zone, we don't yet have the facility to detect them. Kortoso (talk) 17:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-type_main-sequence_star#Planets

"Surveys indicate massive planets commonly form around class A stars although these planets are difficult to detect using the Doppler spectroscopy method. This is because class A stars typically rotate very quickly, which makes it very difficult to measure the small Doppler shifts induced by orbiting planets since the spectral lines are very broad." Kortoso (talk) 17:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Castlevania

I'm not sure if this is notable enough to be put in, but Altair is also the name of the eagle enemies throughout the Castlevania video game series. 98.239.184.6 (talk) 17:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a star names in fiction article which is usually the best place to start for things like this. Lithopsian (talk) 13:11, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling

Altair is misspelt Atair on the constellation map! - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 21:36, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've just noticed that Atair is given in the text as an alternative but surely Altair is far the commonest spelling? - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 18:31, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Atair is pretty obscure. I've removed it from the lead and replaced the chart with one that uses the more common spelling. The chart is more complex though, so not as clear in the thumbnail. Lithopsian (talk) 13:12, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Visual companions

"The A-type main sequence star..." This refers to Altair, doesn't it? Altair is represented by A in this paragraph, right? I will edit for clarity as soon as I have confirmation. Kortoso (talk) 21:33, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear citation style?

Inline citations seem like the preferred style. Too many? Not enough? Poor quality sources? Problem with footnotes? I'd like to help but I don't see a problem. Lithopsian (talk) 13:21, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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