Template:Did you know nominations/RR Telescopii

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by PFHLai (talk) 05:34, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

RR Telescopii

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~~... that RR Telescopii, designated "Nova Telescopium 1948", did most of its rise in brightness in 1944?~~

Comment: copied from user sandbox to mainspace 9 Sep 2013

Created by BSVulturis (talk). Self nominated at 20:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC).

Looks good. Two comments. 1. Would it be good to mention what a "Nova Telescopium 1948" is in the hook? Maybe you think that is the hook - then fine. 2. I searched three references for the phrase "1944" to source the hook fact but I wasn't sure if I had the correct ref. Could you make the hook ref more obvious? Cheers Victuallers (talk) 11:32, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Generally, all reviews should be accompanied by an icon; I think this would be the appropriate one, instead of , but please correct me if I'm wrong. I think it would be worth mentioning in the hook that this is a star. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:33, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

IMO Its not a review and I wouldn't claim it to be one. Are you sure this isnt just creating a new level of rules BlueMoonset? If the project doesnt want comments then I could place these on the articles talk page. If I was forced to add a pictogram then I guess it would be "

" What type of logo should this comment have? Victuallers (talk) 12:47, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying your intentions, Victuallers. If you are only planning to comment, then it would help to start with a Comment; otherwise, potential reviewers will see your entry, think that you have started a review (even if you did omit the icon), and pass it by. You're right: an icon wouldn't be appropriate for a non-review comment, unless it's a comment that, for example, points out a problem in an already approved nomination that should keep it from being promoted or otherwise affects the latest icon status given. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:09, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Full review needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:09, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment: If I understand the comments above, it sounds like the hook should explain each of what a nova was, that Telescopium is a faint southern constellation, and that novae are designated by the combination of constellation in which they occur and year in which they are discovered? Sounds like an insuperable set of requirements for the brief one-liner that a DYK hook is supposed to be. BSVulturis (talk) 22:13, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't think the hook needs to explain all that stuff. But a bit more is needed in the hook to give the reader a clue what this is. A way to do this might be to add either "symbiotic nova" or "the star" before "RR Telescopii"—I just found the term "symbiotic nova" in the article, and it made me very curious to find out more. The second part of the hook, "did most of its rise in brightness in 1944", is problematic in two ways. First, the only place this is stated is in the article's lede (up to magnitude 6.6 from the 12s), where it is not sourced. Next, the place in the article's body where the brightening from magnitude 12 or less to single digits is noted gives data points in late 1946 (7.4), and early and mid-1948 (7.0 and 6.0); certainly not a 6.6 from 1944 (or indeed any magnitude from 1944; it says the period variations broke off in late 1944, but that was a 12 to 16 range), which would indicate a dimming between a very rapid brightening in 1944 and the reported peak here of 6.0 in 1948 (which, I gather, is just bright enough to be seen by the naked eye). For this part of the hook to fly, there needs to be a data point from 1944 that shows a great increase in brightness (do sources really make this claim. Second, while I think it's certainly possible that people will think that its name indicates that it was discovered in 1948, the wording there is odd: "most of its rise in brightness" isn't as direct or clear as it could be. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:59, 13 October 2013 (UTC) [icon added at 00:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)]

ALT1: ... that the star RR Telescopii unusually and notably increased in brightness in 1944?

This explains what RR Telescopii is and the factoid is taken from the references. Victuallers (talk) 09:50, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to hear from the creator before this goes any further. I don't believe a great deal of revision is necessary, but there needs to be something done to reconcile the lede, which states "In late 1944 it brightened by about 8 magnitudes" (cited to FN1), and the second paragraph of the "Pre-eruption and outburst" section, which states "RR Tel brightened by more than 7 magnitudes over the course of about four years, starting about mpg 14 in late 1944" (cited to FN2 and FN4). There's a big difference between it all happening in late 1944, and happening over four years. Looking at FN1, I don't see how the lede is supported: the graph, in late 1944, shows a rapid increase starting from a magnitude of about 14, but the only 1944 data points go up rapidly to 9.x, and the next data points are a cluster, in 1945, in the 7.x area.

For the newly proposed alt hook, the phrase "unusually and notably" does not appear in the article at all (nor any similar sentiments), so I don't see how it can be used in a hook. For the original hook, there is no citation for the name "Nova Telescopium 1948" in the article, which it needs to have. Another issue with the article is that the second paragraph of the "Physical model" does not have any inline source citation; I'm sure one could easily be incorporated per DYK rules. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:38, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Well I thought its change in brightness was being mentioned because it was unusual and notable ... so

ALT2: ... that the star RR Telescopii increased in brightness by several magnitudes in the 1940s?

OK ... my last try. Victuallers (talk) 19:58, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment: It seems to me that some of the confusion occurs because of differences in the dates for when things were observed and when they actually happened. Kock's observations were reported in 1948, then Mayall retrospectively examined survey data to get an idea of when the changes had occurred. The data isn't continuous or complete. Is it possible to connect these two ideas into one possibly more interesting hook, or does that fact that they are given separate (but adjacent) citations cause problems? Mayall does mention Kock's report, so she could be a citation for the second part of the hook as well as the first. (Forgive my newness to the process.)
- ALT3: ... that the star RR Telescopii increased in brightness by several magnitudes beginning around 1944, but the increase was not noticed until 1948? Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 15:57, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment: First, apologies to Victuallers, BlueMoonset, and Mary Mark Ockerbloom, and everyone helping here (other than myself) while I went dark ... got busy in Real Life (it happens when I have to start giving and grading exams). The oddity that led me to the DYK nomination is that, as mentioned above, RR Tel's brightening from ~14th magnitude was recorded on survey plates through the period 1944-48, but a human being did not notice the star itself until de Kock et al. in 1948. Based on the 1948 discovery, easily confirmed without recourse to the survey plates, the star was given the "Nova Tel" designation in 1948 and the year of that discovery is part of the designation that the star retains "forever". Mayall went through the Harvard plate stacks after that designation and published her recap of the pre-outburst observational history of the star shortly thereafter — that sort of thing is exactly why survey plate programs are carried out. The original hook lies with the oddity of something called "Nova 1948" actually having done the major portion of its outburst in 1944 and nobody noticed until the star reached the threshold of naked-eye brightness (maybe there was a war going on or something). A delay between outburst and discovery was a common situation in astronomical survey work (and I am an over-the-hill professional astronomer, so this context is obvious to me but not to most other people), something that has to some extent faded away with the advent of robotic surveys with active, real-time alert capacity (which I think started in the 1990s with the MACHO and OGLE gravitational microlensing search programs). That RR Tel got so much brighter and stayed that way for so long a time was extraordinary. I'll make another hack at the article text to try making all this clearer.

I like the second alt hook by Mary Mark Ockerbloom, though I would consider adding " when it was designated Nova Telescopium 1948" to the end of it:

- ALT4: ... that the star RR Telescopii increased in brightness by several magnitudes beginning around 1944, but the increase was not noticed until 1948, when it was designated Nova Telescopium 1948? BSVulturis (talk) 17:54, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Comment: I have numbered the various alts above per the usual style, as it's getting confusing which one we're talking about! We haven't actually done a full review of this yet, but the article has received 11 edits in the last 2 days (which is great for its improvement), so it would be great if BSVulturis could post the dykagain red arrow icon below when the article is stable and we can get this moving nearer the main page. (Also please strike through the original hook + ALT2 if you are happy for the review to be done against ALT3/ALT4, it will save time for the reviewer not to have to review extra hooks.) Baldy Bill (sharpen the razor|see my reflection) 19:06, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment: I've about run out of gas with edits on the article, and I am about to get busy in real life again, so I will take my hands off for a while and hope we get closure here, hence I think the right thing to do now is …

Full review needed. BSVulturis (talk) 18:20, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Review of RR Telescopii:-

Length well clear of minimum, new in mainspace on nom day.

QPQ - first dyk so not required.

Copyvio check clean. Citations from specialist journals for all but one para, I have added one for that para published by NASA.

Both hooks are correct format, short enough, facts are in article and cited, AGF as I cannot get the bibcode link to show me a copy of the sources.

Article is now improved with major concerns addressed, quite technical but nonetheless understandable to a non-expert (i.e. me), both ALT3 and ALT4 hooks are fine so will leave to promoter which fits best on page. Good to go! Baldy Bill (sharpen the razor|see my reflection) 21:24, 25 October 2013 (UTC)