Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 24

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects. 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.

Archive 20

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Archive 22

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NASTRO possible failures

I posted a comment on WP:NASTRO and I would be happy to see some input: Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(astronomical_objects)#NASTRO_possible_failures. Thanks! --cyclopia ^speak! 09:56, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi everyone, it would be nice to get some additional project editors involved in the aforementioned discussion. Frankly, it's been going on too long with essentially just 3 editors (including myself) rehashing the same (civil) arguments. I'd be pleased to see the opinions of others. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 18:06, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

C2011L4discovery.jpg

image:C2011L4discovery.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.181.39 (talk) 06:30, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposed update to Template:Starbox reference

I believe that the edit request at Template talk:Starbox reference#Edit request on 30 September 2013 is correct, but the template page asks for discussion here before making changes. Does anyone object to this one? --Stfg (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Looks sensible to me. Modest Genius ^talk 22:06, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Looks fine to me as well; if nobody objects within 24 hours, I'll go and implement it. StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:26, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, both. I've gone ahead and done it. More of our exoplanet articles seem to omit the NSTED parameter than use it, so it was a little difficult to test it, but I found two and it appears to work for those. --Stfg (talk) 16:49, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The same editor has found another -- see Template talk:Starbox reference#Edit request on 9 October 2013. This time I've just gone ahead and done it, since he's clearly right. Tested on Gliese 674 but I couldn't find any other articles using the ARICNS part of the template. (Though I did find one -- HD 85512 -- that uses the old URL directly in the External links section rather than via the template. This is a pity, as articles doing this don't benefit from URL updates made to the template. Is this problem widespread, do you think?) --Stfg (talk) 13:09, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I've never even heard of ARICNS, and their website claims it was last updated in 1998. As far as I can tell it doesn't contain anything that SIMBAD doesn't. I don't think it's necessary to include it at all. Modest Genius ^talk 13:45, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll defer to you on that. My only concern is the duff link. I wonder how many articles link to it -- it's not obvious how to find this out, is it? --Stfg (talk) 13:58, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

PSO J318.5-22

I couldn't find an article for this object, so I started one, I anticipate it will get more press than it already has at this point, and will have more follow-up observations. I'm not sure that I'm using the right infobox for this, and I'm a real hack at filling that stuff in. Anybody want to help build it up? It might be interesting to get it on the front page, as it's in the news as the first directly observed rogue planet. Also, advice on the use of the word "planet" would be nice. In reading the discovery paper, I think the author's were careful not to use the term, but all the press articles, including the IfA press release uses the term. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 00:13, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

IIRC, the IAU Exoplant Working Group recommended the term "sub-brown dwarf" for such objects. I was sure there's been others that have been directly observed... -- 76.65.131.217 (talk) 04:53, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The discovery paper states that its physical properties takes it out of the brown dwarf classification and make it more similar to exoplanets. I'll have to look into the literature on sub-brown dwarfs, though. In the paper, they call it an L-dwarf, which is probably the same thing. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 10:39, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Latin-letter Bayer designations

From the history at Y Centauri (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), it seems we might be losing latin-letter Bayer designation redirects through speedy deletion? If so, that seems a very bad outcome, since they are valid search terms, and if they are not to be redirects, they should atleast be set indices. -- 76.65.131.217 (talk) 09:21, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand. We're not trying to completely rid WP of all latin-letter Bayer designations. Instead, we're trying to avoid having redirects from R-Z to the lowercase latin-letter Bayer designations, as these designations are nearly exclusively used for variable stars. Letters A-Q are fine to use for the latin-letter Bayer designations. In the process, many stubs on non-notable variable stars with these R-Z designations have been created, and we are working to clean these up. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

No, we should not be ridding Wikipedia of these, they are perfectly acceptable. They are valid search terms for the stars, and the redirects function as they should. The technical restriction of Wikipedia treating all first letters the same regardless of case should not mean we make things harder to find. We can always have set index pages if you are so affected by Wikipedia's technical failings, but we already have lower case constellation-indicators on star names as redirects, and those are most definitely wrong, but allowed by {{R from typo}}. My personal opinion has been we should have latin-letter Bayer designations as set indices where ambiguous. Deleting these redirects are not helpful in looking for stars from whatever source documents someone is working from. Attempting to delete the redirect resulted in the creation of a stub article on the variable star. If you had just left the redirect there, then would the variable star article ever have been created? As a valid redirect, it works as it should have. -- 76.65.131.217 (talk) 22:24, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

But T Sco and tau Sco are different stars. The former should definitely *not* redirect to the latter. Same with H Cancri and eta Cancri. Of course Π Ori should redirect to π Ori as it's unambiguously the same thing, and the software ensures this, but A Cen (with a Latin A) should *not* redirect to alpha Cen - it's a different star, see SIMBAD. (However Α Cen, which uses the Greek capital alpha but looks identical at first glance, should redirect.) The Latin capital letters refer to different stars than the Greek lowercase letters. Modest Genius ^talk 23:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The issue is with latin-letter Bayer designations, not Greek-letter ones. "y Cen" and "Y Cen" are both latin-letter ones, neither of which is "γ Cen" . If we have a redirect, why shouldn't "y Cen" be accessible from typing in "y Cen" ? "A Cen" and "a Cen" are different stars, and further, "α Cen" is a third star, but "A Cen" and "a Cen" are latin-letter designated stars, so should be able to be reached either under that name, or through a redirect or hatnote. If we delete "y Cen" as indicated in the page history, through speedy deletion requests, then we cannot reach "y Centauri" through a redirect because it has been deleted. "y" here being a lower-case latin letter.

If the only article on Wikipedia is a greek-lettered star, then the redirect is inappropriate, and should deleted. But in this case, "y Cen", and perhaps several others, we have latin-lettered stars which will loose/have lost the redirects from their latin-lettered Bayer names. -- 76.65.131.217 (talk) 03:44, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'm afraid I don't follow you. I've tried reading that several times and I still can't work out what you're trying to say or where the problem is. a Cen does indeed redirect to A Centauri. I don't understand the particular case of Y Cen, because Bayer only used Latin letters up to Q... Modest Genius ^talk 21:01, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps someone is misreading "γ Centauri" as "y Centauri" due to similar appearance of the two letters. Jim.henderson (talk) 10:38, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of NCASTRO needed

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (astronomical objects)/Archive 1#Problems, relating to the proposed addition of exception clause to NCASTRO. Opinions are needed. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:29, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

FAR notification

I have nominated Binary star for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 18:53, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

list of supernovae by year

Hello, I've been working on the beginning of a project called list of supernovae by year. I created the first page of it, List of supernovae in 185, but I need a way to be able to navigate around the different lists, like possibly the minor planets navigator template, but with the list?

Thanks, exoplanetaryscience (talk) 15:35, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

That won't be necessary until you get into the late 20th century. They just weren't observable until you have telescopes, and then you'd need photographic plates to see them. Even then, you'd need large areas of coverage, meaning CCDs. I suggest you have a List of supernovae from the pretelescopic era instead of a by year list for that period, then a List of supernovae from the prephotographic era, List of supernovae from the pre-CCD era, and finally, decadal lists for the CCD era, with yearly lists for the 21st century. -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 23:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Theia (Planet)

I notice that the article on "Theia" has been recreated, previously, as Theia (planet) it was merged to giant impact hypothesis in 2009. Now at Talk:Theia (Planet), it has been proposed that this new version created in November also be merged to giant impact hypothesis. I will note that the new article is at the wrong title, it should be using a lower case "p". Because of that, I have asked for the new article to be histmerged into the existing redirect's history, so the discussion location may move when that's processed. -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 23:27, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Why doesn't a planetbox show a "Coordinates" link to wikisky, like starbox?

When I look at Rigel, I see a "Coordinates" link in the upper right corner above the starbox, to [1]

But on Kepler-78b, which also has RA and Dec in its Planetbox star template, I don't see a coordinates link, just plain text in the box itself. Can someone with more template-fu than I make the wikisky links show up for exoplanets also? People love it when I point out where in the sky cool exoplanets are. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 15:59, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Something in the starbox is emitting a {{sky}} template call, but not in planetbox. I can't work out where though... Modest Genius ^talk 14:55, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

WISE 1049-5319

59 Virginis b

Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy

Gamma2 Caeli

SN 2014J

The closest supernova in 20 years was discovered 2 days ago. I've just created an article at SN 2014J - more eyes would be welcome! Modest Genius ^talk 15:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Balbinot 1

Dear astronomy experts: This old abandoned Afc submission will soon be deleted as a stale draft. Is this a notable object, and should the article be preserved? —Anne Delong (talk) 01:10, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

No. Nothing in SIMBAD. The only Google results are Brazilian sites regurgitating the author's own press release. The original discovery paper has no citations at all , although admittedly it's only a year old. The only other source used in the article doesn't mention it at all - neither with that name or any object at those coordinates. Even if it did that wouldn't be enough to satisfy WP:NASTRO. Not notable, let it die. Modest Genius ^talk 01:56, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for checking that out. I have nominated it for deletion. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:35, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Gas giant

FYI, there's a notice at WT:PHYSICS about exoplanet -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 08:04, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Aten asteroid lists

I've noticed three newly created asteroid lists from this past year, Aten asteroids by size lists. They are very small, so I don't see why we'd need three separate lists, or why the main list List of Aten asteroids couldn't contain this information.

The lists are:

What should be done with them? Just delete them? Redirect them? Merge them to the main list? Keep them as is and expand them? Merge them together as List of Aten asteroids by semimajor axis ? Clearly they can't remain as they are, as they are already mispelt ("aten" instead of "Aten")

-- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 23:42, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

The main list is only for numbered asteroids, so the only option seems to be to delete. Ruslik_Zero 19:29, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Is someone going to nominate these for deletion? -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:52, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Double stars

I notice there are a lot of (presumably bot-generated) stub articles about double stars, such as HD_2942, which start "X is star in double system." I'm no astronomist but should this be "X is a star in a double system."? If so, it's presumably possible to correct it with a global change, but I don't know how...over to you. Dave.Dunford (talk) 18:16, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct. However, the HD 2942 article contains just a catalogue listing with a single source, and no indication of why it's notable. It clearly fails WP:NASTRO, so should be tagged for deletion as non-notable. Are there many of these? Are they being actively created, or is this just more clean-up work that needs to be done? Edit: actually that particular star has a HR number, so does just about qualify because it's (marginally at V=6.2) visible to the naked eye. But the article is still rubbish. Modest Genius ^talk 18:38, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't know how many there are, to be honest. They seem to all be in Category:Henry_Draper_Catalogue_objects. Dave.Dunford (talk) 19:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

There's more in Category:Objects named with variable star designations too. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

@Modest Genius:. I've already gone through his articles (before this discussion) and PRODed/AfDd the ones with no indication of notability, so I think that's already dealt with. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Modest Genius ^talk 11:25, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

That article and many like it was created by user:CarloscomB, a user who was banned for making crappy articles and nor responding to queries about the articles he created. He made many many articles with incorrect information that form-copied data across articles, with his own personal formatting, placing information after references sections, and not conforming with other star articles, making new star articles for stars that already had articles because he didn't bother to check out the other star designations. I'd personally take a chainsaw to all his articles. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 05:50, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's worth it to just delete all his/her articles; it would be much more beneficial if instead of being deleted, the notable ones are expanded, or if nothing else, at least cleaned up and referenced. Just deleting them outright doesn't really seem to serve a purpose. I'd be willing to participate in such a project, since I'm nearing completion of the {{stars of xxx}} project. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I've started a page User:StringTheory11/CarloscomB cleanup so that we can systematically clean up the articles. If anyone is interested in helping out, it would be much appreciated. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:46, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

If it's a physical double star, I think all articles on those should be using "binary star" instead of "double star system", since historically, we have many "double stars" that are not physically related, but are a chance optical alignment instead. "double system" is about tape recording. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 05:54, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree 100%. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

"Proper names" for stars

FYI, there's a discussion going on at Talk:List_of_brightest_stars#Proper_name that may impact on usage of proper names of stars. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 04:59, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

"Jupiter Trojan"

Popular pages tool update

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74 Cancri

Anybody got any sources for this? It's unreferenced, and I can't actually find any reliable sources that refer to "74 Cancri". Not even SIMBAD has this designation. What to do... StringTheory11 (t • c) 19:52, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

This says it is HD 78347 (non-RS source). This shows observation of the star in 1862. This shows observation of the star in 1836. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 00:45, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Kostjuk 2002 in VizieR [2] has an entry for 74 Cnc in the main catalog table [3]. 77.56.99.23 (talk) 22:03, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 20:07, 12 March 2014 (UTC).

Nebula infoboxen

FYI, {{Infobox dark nebula}} and {{Infobox diffuse nebula}} have been proposed to be merged into {{Infobox nebula}}, see Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2014_February_18 -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

{{infobox emission nebula}} has also been nominated for merger -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 08:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

{{infobox nebula}} has been nominated for deletion -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 08:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Reference

Hello project,

Is this recent reference of interest to anybody here?

A photometric and spectroscopic survey of solar twin stars within 50 parsecs of the Sun: I. Atmospheric parameters and color similarity to the Sun

Praemonitus (talk) 03:01, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, could be useful for a List of solar twins, which should probably be created. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Did anyone notice that Template:Infobox galaxy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been inconsistent with the other galaxy infoboxes for over a year now? Someone deleted the infobox color, meaning some galaxies have standard infobox colors, and some have this one without coloration. It used to be green like the other galaxy infoboxes, until this edit [4] by the banned Br'er Rabbit (talk · contribs).

Can someone revert the change to reinstate standard colors across all galaxy articles? (the template is currently semiprotected) -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 12:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:52, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I do wonder whether this green is too bright though...I'm inclined to change it to a darker color. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:47, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

If we do change it, the corresponding galaxybox templates should also use the same color. The person who was maintaining these templates was RJHall (talk · contribs) (who seems to have retired) -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 07:10, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

HIP 13044 b

Does it really make sense to have such a large and detailed article about the planet HIP 13044 b? While it would have been a very interesting detection had it been supported, followup has shown that the planet does not exist. [5] - part of the reason appears to be the incorrect barycentric correction in the FEROS-DRS pipeline that also led to claims of planets around HIP 11952. I think HIP 13044 b should be deleted or turned into a redirect to HIP 13044, thoughts? 77.56.99.23 (talk) 08:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, there's absolutely no reason for retracted/uncomfirmed planets to have articles. A WP:BOLD merge is the way to go with these, I think. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:04, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:28, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Are discoverers of asteroids notable?

Category:Discoverers of asteroids seems to be mainly populated with people who are not notable - unless they can meet criterion 1 of PROF because discovering an asteroid is a "significant discovery". Is it? Has the notability of any of these people been tested by a deletion discussion? RockMagnetist (talk) 16:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

No. WP:NOTINHERIT applies. Even if the asteroid itself is notable (most are not), that does not necessarily mean that their discoverers are. Discovering a single asteroid is definitely not 'significant' in the sense of WP:PROF. Oh, and the same applies to comets. Modest Genius ^talk 19:41, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

No, they are certainly not notable. I have no idea what WP's obsession with minor planets in general stems from, when there are a ton of more useful and just as repetitive articles to be created. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:25, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I looked at past AfD's and decided that it was worth discussing notability of these articles at WT:Notability (academics)#Discoverers of asteroids and other astronomical bodies. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:52, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

List of miscellaneous minor planet discoverers

The List of miscellaneous minor planet discoverers has the selection criterion "no other claim to fame", which is arguably not verifiable; and it seems to be an excuse to collect information on people who would be just as well served by mentions on the asteroid pages. It might be better to create a List of minor planet discoverers with a selection criterion of (say) 100 discoveries or more. This is verifiable, since the IAU list of minor planet discoverers in order of number of discoveries can be used as a source. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:56, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

The unreferenced entries should be deleted immediately per WP:BLP ; and someone famous like David H. Levy has only discovered 42, so 100 discoveries seems extreme. -- 70.24.250.235 (talk) 07:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I think Levy is an exception, being famous for other things. A more typical article for that number of discoveries is Giovanni de Sanctis. There are about 200 people who have discovered 42 or more asteroids. RockMagnetist (talk) 14:35, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, that whole list should be taken to AfD. No way it can ever be verifiable. It's also non-notable. If these people don't qualify for an article themselves, they shouldn't be getting one by the back door of a 'list' (which is mostly prose anyway). Modest Genius ^talk 11:09, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

"If these people don't qualify for an article themselves, they shouldn't be getting one by the back door of a list" is not accurate. If the discovers of minor planets are notable as a group, they do not need to be individually notable to have a list. See LISTN. That said, there is certainly a case for removing "miscellaneous" from the title of that list.James500 (talk) 21:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the list contain all discoverers? That would probably be o.k. if only the number of discoveries was given, but would be far too long if a table of asteroids was provided for each person. RockMagnetist (talk) 03:32, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

My preference would be for a list of all discoverers. I am under the impression that we don't use "miscellaneous" as a selection criteria. If an individual has discovered lots of these things (ie to many to include in the parent list), LISTN allows us to spin off a daughter list of his discoveries without regard to notability. James500 (talk) 16:04, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

You can remove the word "miscellaneous", but that's still what it is. For that reason alone, this article should be deleted along with any other articles that cannot pass WP:NASTRO, WP:NOTABILITY, WP:LISTN, WP:NOT, many of which bear Astronomical Object Project Banners. All you've done by removing the word "miscellaneous" is to mask this problem. Chrisrus (talk) 05:13, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

We don't delete lists just because they are incomplete. See WP:IMPERFECT. This is something that can be fixed by editing. James500 (talk) 16:04, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

We do delete lists though when they simply replicate content found elsewhere. In this case, the content already is in List of minor planets's sublists under each asteroid (and if any is missing, that is the correct place to add it). I don't see a reason at all for a separate list of discoverers, if the asteroids is the sole reason that they even get a mention on WP. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:10, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

This list does not, as far as I can see, replicate the list of minor planets. James500 (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The only thing the list does is display the list of minor planets by discoverer instead of by number. If we want to include even a short blurb on each discoverer (as you seem to be implying by saying that it does not replicate the other lists), then the list would get exponentially large as it is completed, even larger than the current lists of minor planets, which is no good. Without this, it simply is a duplicate list in a different order. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:02, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

The list of minor planets is not sortable by discoverer. There is therefore no duplication. James500 (talk) 21:10, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

If someone wanted to find out how many minor planets were discovered by someone like Roy A. Tucker, it would be a daunting task looking through all those lists. However, over 140,000 have been identified by LINEAR alone, so a list of discoverers would be MUCH shorter. The IAU list of minor planet discoverers in order of number of discoveries could be the source for a manageable list that satisfies WP:LISTN, especially if we used a common selection criterion and included only the notable discoverers. But I agree that it would not be feasible to include much information about each discoverer. RockMagnetist (talk) 04:13, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

As I have said earlier, above, this list should not exist because it violates standards. Delete this and all other articles that this project has its banner on which violate WP:NASTRO, WP:NOTABILITY, WP:LISTN, WP:NOT regardless of any opposition within the astro community to conforming to the same rules the rest of us labor under. Chrisrus (talk) 05:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if you have noticed, but we are discussing more than one possible alternative list. For List of minor planet discoverers, I have identified a source that would satisfy LISTN. If you think it would still violate some guideline, you need to explain how instead of copying and pasting your alphabet soup. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:02, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

We should not have a list of miscellaneous minor planet discoverers for the same reason we don't have a list of miscellaneous explorers, authors, scientists, artists, rock bands, dogs, places, and so on. This holds true whether you've deleted the word "miscellaneous" from the title or not. This project has to stop creating articles that fail WP:NASTRO and other notability standards. Even lists, which have a lower standard of notability, should be of important, famous, noteworthy, or remarkable items. Chrisrus (talk) 07:15, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

If you read my comments, you'll see that is exactly what I am proposing - a list of the notable planet discoverers. Such lists do not generally have "notable" in the title, but the first sentence lays out the selection criteria. RockMagnetist (talk) 14:05, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

My preference is for a complete list of all discoverers, based on the IAU source (which satisfies LISTN), without extensive annotations for each discoverer (which will make the list easily manageable). I am not in favour of applying CSC, because the selection criteria is OR (because Wikipedia notability is MADEUP) and CIRCULAR and ought to have been deprecated some time ago. James500 (talk) 21:04, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Now that I look into this, we do have a number of lists whose titles begin with "list of miscellaneous". James500 (talk) 23:11, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I had forgotten that one of the common selection criteria is that every item fails the notability criteria. For this list, an easily verifiable criterion would be that the number of discoveries is between 1 and N for some N. This could be complemented by a List of leading discoverers of minor planets. Still, any list that includes all the non-notable discoverers would be long: there are a couple of thousand names in IAU list of minor planet discoverers. Of course, that goes for the complete list as well. RockMagnetist (talk) 00:38, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

We have many lists that are much longer than a couple of thousand entries. James500 (talk) 01:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

True, but they are slow to load and a pain to edit. But I don't have strong feelings about this. RockMagnetist (talk) 01:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

That can be dealt with by splitting the list into a number of daughter lists. James500 (talk) 00:09, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

RockMagnetist makes some good points here. I think his idea about a selective list of discoverers (say, those who have discovered over 10 asteroids) is a good idea as a middle ground. Including every discoverer makes the list unbearably long, but cutting it down substantially this way would find the balance between making the list both manageable and fairly comprehensive. Of coruse, providing a blurb on each person, along with each asteroid discovered, would still be a problem, as the list would need to be constantly updated, on a level similar to, if not greater than, the current minor planet lists, and the blurbs would still make the list extremely long and cumbersome. However, I'm open to the idea of a condensed list with the ~10-asteroid condition. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:23, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

There is no such thing as unbearably long. See NOTPAPER. If the list had a billion entries, it would not be a problem if they were correctly organised into sublists. Including extensive annotations would be innefficient though. James500 (talk) 00:09, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

A reasonable amount of detail for a list of scientists can be seen in List of geophysicists. Most of the lists in Category:Lists of scientists look somewhat like this. RockMagnetist (talk) 02:37, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I would think that all discoverers that predate astrophotography would be listed, and possibly all discoverers of discoveries made without the aid of photography. -- 70.24.250.235 (talk) 04:49, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I would think that only discoverers of interest to outside experts be listed, that is all. Who has researched and written and published about these discoverers? Lists and articles under the purview of this project should following the same rules as the rest of us. If authors have not been interested enough to remark on any of these discoverers, they don't belong on Wikipedia, they should go on some other project. Chrisrus (talk) 03:42, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Chrisrus, in all fairness, the IAU source satisfies LISTN. You could also try searching for "asteroid hunters" and "asteroid discoverers" in GBooks. There do seem to be sources discussing them as a group. James500 (talk) 04:03, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Image:PIA18003-NASA-WISE-StarsNearSun-20140425-2.png

File:PIA18003-NASA-WISE-StarsNearSun-20140425-2.png (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

PIA18003-NASA-WISE-StarsNearSun-20140425-2.png appears to be in error. It says that Alpha Centauri was "discovered" in 1839. Instead, it's been known since antiquity/prehistory. 1839 was when its parallax, and hence distance, was measured. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 04:58, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Done - image caption and text has now been updated - Please see several relevant comments in more detail at => Talk:WISE 0855–0714#Image:PIA18003-NASA-WISE-StarsNearSun-20140425-2.png - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 12:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Horse and Rider

The article Mizar and Alcor has a merge request template dating from October 2013 suggesting that the Horse and Rider article is merged in. In fact the talk page of the latter article shows that this merge had been suggested back in 2011. It seems like an eminently sensible proposition to me, thoughts? 77.57.25.250 (talk) 15:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, these should be merged. Modest Genius ^talk 16:59, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Done - most of the content was duplicated anyway. Now just awaiting someone armed with an automated editing tool to revert the conversion by an anonymous user of the Horse and Rider article into a redirect... 77.57.25.250 (talk) 10:44, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Fake Bayer designations in Camelopardalis?

Talk:HD 49878#Requested move mentions D Camelopardalis, H Camelopardalis, M Camelopardalis, and N Camelopardalis. They are described as Bayer designations, but that appears to be incorrect. Also appearing (in this table) are A, B, C, K, and L.

Camelopardalis was not covered in Bayer's Uranometria (see the index on image 4). The constellation was not conceived until 1613. Camelopardalis is covered in Flamsteed's star charts, Atlas Cœlestis (see image 39), but the stars all appear to be unlabeled. Then, in Éphémérides des mouvemens célestes, vol. 8 (which is where the Flamsteed numbers actually come from), on this page and the following one, the column for Bayer designations is blank throughout Camelopardalis. This makes me wonder where α, β, and γ come from also, but at least those are more plausible as Bayer designations.

I cannot find D, H, etc. in modern databases such as SIMBAD or the HD-DM-GC-HR-HIP-Bayer-Flamsteed Cross Index (although I have noticed some inconsistencies there). The letter identifiers do not seem to be mentioned in any of the references or external links that came with the Wikipedia articles.

I am thinking that the creator of those articles made up the names as an ad hoc system or extension of Bayer designations (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy/Archive 10#Re: Mu Canis Majoris). They may have been in good faith, but if the designations are original research, all mention of them (including redirects) should be removed from the encyclopedia. I could be wrong, and these might have a long history in more obscure publications. Does anyone know of any reliable sources where these letters have been used? Ardric47 (talk) 21:25, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I've noticed that modern databases frequently are missing many of the latin-letter Bayer designations. So they are not necessarily fake. And if a later letter in the latin sequence is used and documented, then all the preceding letters would presumably have already been used. Though considering the author of the articles, being on notice for lacking rigour in creating articles, and not caring (see User_talk:Benkenobi18#Stars); Benkenobi18 (talk · contribs) star articles should be examined. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 01:22, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I looked all the way back to the supposed original source (Bayer), and they're definitely not listed there. I find this to be strange either way. Ardric47 (talk) 05:09, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

The problem with that is that with Bayer designations, Johann Bayer wasn't the only one assigning them... later astronomers added to the list of stars with Bayer designations. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 08:35, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Who else assigned them? Maybe we can look up their work and see if Camelopardalis shows up. Ardric47 (talk) 13:36, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

That's a good question. I never researched the matter of who else added to the list, other than that others did add to the list. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 05:16, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

HVGC-1

I've created a draft at DRAFT:HVGC-1. Anyone think it is ready for rollout? -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 05:35, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Looks like a decent stub, which could be moved to article space as soon as you like. The RA entry is incorrect (187 hours?). Is there an image which could be used? Modest Genius ^talk 16:56, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I took it directly from the discovery paper, so it is sourced, whatever it's actual accuracy. The object doesn't seem to be in SIMBAD or NED yet.

“

The J2000 decimal coordinates are (R.A.,Dec.) = (187.72791,+12.68295). It is located 17.6 0 north of M87, a projected distance of 84 kpc if the object has the same distance as M87 (we adopt 16.5 Mpc for consistency with Strader et al. 2011a).

”

-- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 04:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Note decimal coordinates. They just need converting into sexagesimal. Modest Genius ^talk 03:38, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

187.72791 deg -> 12.515194h -> 12h30m54.6978s ? Or is my conversion incorrect? -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 05:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Sounds correct, although there's no need for four decimal places ;) I got 12h30m54s.70 Modest Genius ^talk 19:10, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Article is now live at HVGC-1 -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 03:50, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

List of most massive black holes

Does it seem like this list has too many "reported for comparison" entries? The currently listed "for comparison" entries outnumbers the actual entries. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 07:57, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The tables should probably be merged. Ruslik_Zero 03:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

With so many "reference" entries, and so few actual entries, we wouldn't be able to tell what was being listed if the two tables are merged. If we colored the rows, then most of the table would be colored, also, washing out what is the ostensible purpose of the article. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 06:25, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Surely the list just needs better selection criteria, so the need for comparison entries goes away? Modest Genius ^talk 19:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I've cut down the comparison entries somewhat. If you think the section is still too long, feel free to remove more, or re-add any I removed if you think they should still be there for some reason. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:55, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

List of red-links for creation?

Hello, I wonder if there is some kind of wikiproject page for "red-linked astronomical articles for creation" or somesuch somewhere? If so, I'd like to add GU Piscium there. Cheers, ^walk victor falk^talk 01:25, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:Requested articles/Natural_sciences#Astronomy_and_cosmology has a list. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 07:59, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Talk:HD_20782#Requested_move_01_May_2014

In this move discussion, a split has been proposed that, if I understand things correctly, would result in three articles "HD 20782", "HD 20781", and "HD 20781 and HD 20782". Is this warranted? Would a single merged article provide a better coverage? Why or why not? ^walk victor falk^talk 04:45, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Sigma Draconis

Hi, I wonder if someone here could take a look at Sigma Draconis, I've ended up in a dispute with an editor who seems to be remarkably intolerant to any changes to the article's promotion of the claim that there is a planet here. I don't feel my edits are misrepresenting the source but the user appears to consider it vandalism, so a third opinion would be welcome. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 16:02, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I feel your last edit was mostly correct. You were wrong at first in removing the information altogether, in my humble opinion, since it is of interest that a planet search is running and that has generated a strong unconfirmed signal. But your paragraph is correctly cautious and yet still informative. I reverted the other editor.--cyclopia ^speak! 18:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree 100% with the IP's second version and Cyclopia's version, which avoid placing undue weight on the exoplanet hypothesis, yet also mention it strongly as something of interest about the star. I notice that the other IP has yet again undone the edit, providing basically the same explanation. I've reverted him or her again, acting on the consensus that we've shown here. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:04, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. As regards my earlier removal I guess I've seen enough cases of promising candidates that never materialised, and the issues with actual discovery announcements of planets around Gliese 581 and 667C that ended up becoming controversial soon after their announcement that I tend to err on the side of not mentioning such preliminary results. Probably these exoplanet existence controversies will become more common as RV gets down to levels where stellar jitter and such become major effects in the interpretation. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 21:10, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

The Green Bean Galaxies.

The Green Bean Galaxies article has been recently updated, but it still needs a lot more. Any feedback would be welcome.Richard Nowell (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Thorne–Żytkow object

Wjfox2005 just updated the article to say that HV 2112 has been confirmed as a TZO (and I subsequently updated the table to show that) but from my reading of the press releases, this is a candidate, and not confirmed. The discovery paper [6] was just published. The press release [7] certainly doesn't seem to make this "confirmed". Is this a confirmed discovery, or just a discovery that is yet to be confirmed? -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 13:36, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

People's stars

Star or star? Seems to be a fairly even split (5/4) based on the articles listed at Stars named after people#Openly named stars:

I'm more used to the lower case form myself, but thought I'd bring it up here before creating a move request. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 21:07, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Since the names are proper nouns, it would make grammatical sense to use capitals, as is done in stuff like New York City. StringTheory11 (t • c) 00:51, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with ST11, use capital letters. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 08:26, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Thing is it isn't entirely clear that they are always used as proper nouns. E.g. quick survey of the SIMBAD names and the usage in paper titles as listed there shows a rather strong preference for the lowercase form, i.e. these are not actually being used as proper nouns. This still makes sense grammatically, in the same way it is grammatically correct to speak of "Alice's cat" or "Bob's house".

Person's	Star (paper titles)	star (paper titles)	SIMBAD names
Barnard's	0	2	BARNARD STAR, Barnard's star
Cayrel's	0	0
Innes'	0	0	Innes' star
Kapteyn's	1	3	Kapteyn's star
Luyten's	0	0	Luyten's star
Plaskett's	0	18	PLASKETT STAR
Przybylski's	0	13	PRZYBYLSKI'S STAR
Teegarden's	0	0	Teegarden's star
Van Maanen's	0	2	VAN MAANEN STAR, VAN MAANEN'S STAR

77.57.25.250 (talk) 20:51, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

MACHO-LMC-5

MACHO-LMC-5 should be deleted or rewritten, by someone more sure of their facts than I am. It's completely confused factually.

It was written in 2008 by an editor who has been banned since later in that same year. Despite several edits since then, the allegedly factual parts of the article look about the same now.

The infobox says "Right ascension 17h 45m 50.34s Declination -22° 40' 58.1"'" That would put the object in the constellation of Sagittarius, very close to Ophiuchus. But the infobox says it's in Dorado, which is nowhere near. The name MACHO-LMC-5, and everything else I read about it, says it has some kind of association with the LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud), which is in Dorado and Mensa.

Exactly what association? Apparently an LMC star was measured using a relatively close object as a gravitational lens (thus both objects should be in the same direction and constellation). But is MACHO-LMC-5 the name of the LMC star, the relatively close object, or the encounter during which the objects were lined up with the Earth? The article says it's a "red dwarf in our galaxy", but then why is LMC in the name? Why would its permanent name be chosen for how it was used to measure an LMC star in 1993/94?

Apparent magnitude, 5.687. If it's faintly visible to the naked eye, then why isn't there more information about it?

Distance, 1.8 light years. But I thought the nearest star was 4 light years away.

Its listing at List of stars in Dorado is completely inconsistent: MACHO-LMC-5; 05h 16m 41.1s −70° 29′ 18″; visual magnitude 21.15; 160000 light years; in LMC; gravitationally-lensed by red dwarf. While I'm at it, according to this map that location is in Mensa, not Dorado, just across the line, although lines can be confused by precession etc. This website also says it's in Mensa. Art LaPella (talk) 23:48, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I was the one who listed it on the list article. The info in that article is correct, although according to VizieR it should be in Mensa; that was my error. The objects is listed in SIMBAD here, which states that the designation actually refers to the microlensing event, and not one of the stars. Looking at the papers below, it seems as though the entire lens event is referred to by this designation, and thus the article written by CarloscomB is inaccurate. The distance of 160000 ly comes from the distance to the LMC itself. We can't give two distances in the list due to its format, unfortunately, but 1.8 ly is so obviously wrong anyways, so 160000 seems to be the only one worth listing. All CarloscomB articles should be checked for inaccuracies though; in fact, I had started a list of all his articles at User:StringTheory11/CarloscomB cleanup after a similar incident involving another article of his. In the meantime, I've moved the entry to the Mensa list. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I also tagged the page for speedy deletion; although it may not meet any of the criteria, per WP:IAR it is clearly in WP's best interest to get rid of this article as soon as possible and the rules just hinder that. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:40, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

MACHO-98-BLG-35: another error by the same author. I've managed to fix this one without deletion though; it was nowhere near as bad. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:27, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

And I made a redirect, which I believe is better than leaving a redlink in that article. Art LaPella (talk) 01:50, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject Astronomical Objects At Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 17:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I've created a leaflet at the linked page. If anyone has any improvements to make, feel free to just do them without contacting me. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:57, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

PSR B1259-63

PSR B1259-63 has been proposed to be renamed to PSR B1259-63/LS 2883, a title with a slash in it. For the discussion, see Talk:PSR B1259-63 -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 06:31, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Be X-ray binaries

I have requested a move of the article Be X-ray binaries at Talk:Be X-ray binaries#Requested move 13 July 2014. Main issue that has been raised is the use of a slash in the proposed destination page Be/X-ray binary, would appreciate some further input on the subject. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 12:31, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Renaming stars to lowercase latin-letter Bayer designations

See WP:RM June 17 and 16 for several stars that are proposed to be renamed to the lowercase latin letter Bayer designations from other designations.

See Talk:PP Carinae and Talk:HD 84810 and Talk:HD 84810

-- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 06:33, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

For the third link, I think you meant Talk:V357 Carinae. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:23, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Oops, yeah, thanks for the correction. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 04:48, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

3 Arietis

3 Arietis is nominated for renaming, see talk:3 Arietis -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 08:40, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorting in Category:Periodic comets

Hi WikiProject Astronomical objects. I notice there is inconsistent sorting within Category:Periodic comets - some articles are sorted by number (e.g. 102P/Shoemaker is listed under "1") whereas others are sorted by name (e.g. 177P/Barnard is listed under "B") - is there a preference for one or the other? Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 06:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

My personal opinion would be to sort the number title by number, and sort the comet-X title by name (ie. "1P/Halley" is "0001", while "Comet Halley" is "Halley";) if the comet article is located at some other name, sort that by lowercase name (ie. "Halley's Comet" sorts to "halley"). Create redirects if they are missing for sorting purposes. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 07:05, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

"Gliese 581 d"

To do list...

List moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Worklist Solar system 06 Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:48, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Casliber (talk • contribs) 03:46, 6 August 2014‎ (UTC)

To do what exactly? As some are FA-class, it isn't to bring them to FA-status... -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 05:40, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I was more thinking of a table as it shows what's been done and what is still to improve (I guess). Seems a lot easier to quantify when it is laid out in a table. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:47, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

That would be a lot of articles to list, there being some 27k articles currently tagged. Wouldn't the toolserver pages linked to Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Astronomical Objects articles by quality statistics be what you're looking for? -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 05:27, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, I should put together some sort of list of every star article's quality...that would take a lot of time though... StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:10, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

We can just keep adding to this one...not sure where to put it though. Iwonder which will be the first stub.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:45, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm running Anomie's linkclassifier.js, which shows that, fortunately, nothing on list of brightest stars is a stub. StringTheory11 (t • c) 05:52, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects/stars_listing ? Leaving it here would be a hindrance to other discussion, especially considering how big it will grow (and possibly crash people's browsers due to lack of memory) -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 07:25, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah - will just check existing pages as well to see if any is a good location. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:36, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

We can find the order of brightness for all stars by checking this query, as long as the V-mag column is enabled in list display in the SIMBAD settings. I'd bet the first stub is some bright star in Argo Navis with no Greek Bayer designation. StringTheory11 (t • c) 05:47, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Important articles missing

I just started the article 68 Cygni in January of this year and from what I've found it's an incredibly interesting and important star. That got me wondering; how many other mid-importance or higher stars do we currently not have articles on? If this one never got an article, I'm worried that the number may be higher than we think. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:47, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd say it's likely that we're missing such articles. Considering that every time I look at a planetary system's star article, it is rated as "mid" importance, there are likely many missing stars for planetary systems. (I don't particularly agree with rating exoplanet and planetary systems as mid-importance all the time) -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 07:10, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, well there's something for me to do now; those certainly are not mid-importance. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:40, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

...and this is going to be a big job. After just checking the GA-class articles, there's going to be a lot of work to do... StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:51, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I created a worklist of the most-studied astronomical objects, and let's just say it's not pretty to look at. It shows how atrocious our coverage of galaxies and nebulae is compared to stars. Thus, I will no longer work on star articles unless I see something blatant, and will instead work on galaxy and nebula articles. StringTheory11 (t • c) 23:45, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

One of the reasons I've been ploughing through constellation articles is that it is a good way of reviewing alot of the objects located within the constellation's borders and seeing what needs including/creating/improving. Agree - have seen numerous stubby stubby object articles - some nebulae would make good DYK pictiures too. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:35, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Per redlink OriNebCl*, we have a subtopic of that Orion OB1 Association, and the supertopic Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, so it isn't entirely missing.

Per redlink TauMolCldCmplx, we have a subtopic of that Taurus Molecular Cloud 1

for redlink 3C345, be aware of the unrelated redirect Hércules B (as this is radio object Hercules B)

-- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 07:27, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, for topics as important as these, only having a super- or sub-topic article isn't adequate. The object in question needs to have an article. I notice that WP is especially lacking in coverage of active galaxies and star-forming regions, which are incredibly important. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:26, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I've used {{Virgo}} as a prototype for a new constellation navbox which contains all objects in a constellation, not just stars. Thoughts? StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:07, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Gliese 581 images

Hi, wonder if anyone here would be able to help out with images for the Gliese 581 article: it would be great to have a diagram of the 3-planet orbital solution, and also if it's possible to get an image of the debris disc that was resolved by Herschel (would it be possible to use [8]?). 77.57.25.250 (talk) 18:14, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability from February 2012

Please discuss this at WT:AST#Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability from February 2012 to avoid unnecessary duplication. Modest Genius ^talk 17:34, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hello, there are numerous articles on asteroids (hundreds, if not thousands, in the above category - they have been tagged for notability (Wikipedia:Notability (astronomical objects)) for two and a half years. Many of them will be notable but it's hard for a non-specialist to establish this. Can anyone help? Thanks, Boleyn (talk) 17:04, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

We've been discussing this issue for years. A,B,C,D ; and a similar issue, concering exoplanets, now that there are thousands known E ; the latest discussion occurred earlier this month at WT:AST -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Supercluster"

We should probably expand the article to cover the various ways to define superclusters (such as how concentration of clusters was used previously, evolution from Zeldovich pancakes, and the new determinations by peculiar motion for Shapely, Laniakea, Perseus-Pisces, Lepus)

Should VirSC et al now part of Laniakea be treated as "former superclusters" [9] or remain in the current superclusters list [10] ?
Should the list be split off to List of superclusters ?

-- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 08:33, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Disambuigation page for Local Supercluster and renaming Virgo Supercluster

I think it must have a disambuigation page, telling LSC may refer either to Virgo or Laniakea. That may avoid confusion, I think. As for Virgo SC, now just a part of Laniakea, it may be renamed. I think Virgo Galaxy Lobe since it is only a lobe of Laniakea. Don't forget also the Hydra-Centaurus Superclusters. Just commenting... SkyFlubbler (talk) 09:24, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

We are already discssing "Local Supercluster" in a section above, see #Local Supercluster -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:01, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Subdivisions of superclusters above cluster have been called "clouds" before... so it might be in the future (and only in the future, as in, we have to wait for it to shake out) these structures may be called "superclouds" or "subsuperclusters" or something. But we will have to wait and see what happens. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:39, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:NOR/WP:V Please do not add unreferenced material such as "Virgo Galaxy Lobe" to articles, as you did here [11] . What sources do you have that use the name "Virgo Galaxy Lobe" ? WP:V, the name must be verifable. WP:OR if the name is not used outside of Wikipedia, it is not something that Wikipedia can use. WP:RS the name must be used in reliable sources. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:01, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Local Supercluster

Should "Local Supercluster" (and variants) become a disambiguation page, keep pointing to Virgo Supercluster, or be repointed to Laniakea ?

The problem is that most published material up until this point treat Hya-Cen and Vir as separate structures, and LSC refers to only VirSC

-- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 12:12, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I would go with a dab page for the moment - as you say, most previous material actually refers to Virgo. This new claim has only just been published and has not been verified by other groups yet. Modest Genius ^talk 12:48, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

In fact I just did it. Modest Genius ^talk 12:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The page has been tagged with a cleanup notice by a bot. We need to check and correct incoming links. Most will likely need to be repointed to VirgoSC -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 07:53, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately the tools for fixing this have been shut down by the WMF, apparently in a short-sighting and ideologically-driven dispute with the user who operates them (part of the fallout from shutting down the Tool Server and dispute over the way software is deployed here). Without the standard tools I'm unwilling to do all the work manually. Modest Genius ^talk 11:15, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Reverted for now per WP:BRD. Per WP:TWODABS, a two-link disambiguation page is not required to perform the navigational function where one topic can be deemed primary, as this function can be accomplished with a hatnote. A disambiguation page should not be made for the sake of having one; these get in the way of readers finding what they are looking for. It should only be made where the topics are too ambiguous or too numerous to be addressed in a hatnote. bd2412 T 13:43, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

There is the possibility of covering the idea of a "local supercluster", and how that idea evolved, through the period prior to defining the VirSC, then VirSC, to now, with Laniakea. There are implications to living in a supercluster, versus strung out on a filament or in a void cluster. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 05:21, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough, but which is primary? Until this week the Virgo Supercluster was definitely the one, but the (many) publications since then have all used it to mean Laniakea - try a Google News search for "local supercluster". I don't think there's a clear-cut primary meaning at this time. Modest Genius ^talk 13:56, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

"Until this week" suggests a high level of WP:RECENTISM. We can't tell whether that trend will settle in a few more weeks, but when we evaluate for primacy, we look just to the usage of the term across its entire existence, not just in recent days (compare Avatar). No reader will be astonished to find this link leading to Virgo Supercluster, and any reader who was looking for the other meaning would find it in the hatnote, which is about as direct as sending them to a disambiguation page would be. In mathematical terms, readers are almost never looking to land on a disambiguation page, so if 51% are looking for one meaning and 49% are looking for the other, having them land on the first satisfies 51% and leaves 49% one click away from what they were looking for; having them land on a disambiguation page leaves ~100% on the wrong page, and still one click away from what they are looking for. bd2412 T 14:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Recentism might be a problem with popular culture things, but with new scientific discoveries it's less likely to go away. However, I'm not particularly bothered so hatnotes are fine. Modest Genius ^talk 15:39, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

By the way, despite the toolserver issue, AWB still works just fine, and is the fastest tool to clean up large numbers of links. bd2412 T 14:28, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Interesting, but it's not supported on my operating system and I don't particularly want to start installing extra software on several different machines. It also seems like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The toolserver worked, I don't understand why it needed to be broken. Modest Genius ^talk 15:39, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

"Recentism might be a problem with popular culture things, but with new scientific discoveries it's less likely to go away." - Recentism is as much in issue in science as it is in popular culture. New discoveries need to be independently confirmed, then confirmed again. Zyxwv99 (talk) 17:10, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

P Doradus

"P Doradus", the Bayer designation for the variable star known under Variable star designation as R Doradus, has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.171.225 (talk) 05:44, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The page has been kept. -- 65.94.171.225 (talk) 06:24, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Category:Distant galaxies

I noticed this beast. There's no description in the category, so I have no idea what the inclusion criteria are. It seems odd to create such a category without describing what it means. "distant" has different meanings to different people / in different fields. Is this a useful categorization, and if it is, how should it be defined? -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 11:21, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's useless without a definition. There isn't a scientifically defined one, so I don't see any reason to keep this. Modest Genius ^talk 12:48, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Object naming convention

I've started a discussion in the astronomy portal about object naming conventions, after I noticed there are various ways to use spaces and dashes in names (e.g. M82 X-1, M82X-1, M82-X1, etc...).

83.84.60.13 (talk) 15:14, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Expert attention

This is a notice about Category:Astronomical objects articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. Iceblock (talk) 20:25, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

What's the point of creating this category? The field is "astronomy", and Category:Astronomy articles needing expert attention already exists, and is not filled to the brim needing subcategorizing. Is this supposed to be populated by |attention=yes from the WikiProjectBanner? -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 22:05, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I created this category because other editors have tagged its member articles with {{Expert-subject|Astronomical objects}}. The category is not populated by attention=yes. Personally, I don't see a problem with few members is categories for expert attention, unless there are lots of related categories with few members in each; the goal is to get the member count to zero. And the category should be kept even after it's emptied, so that future requests for expert attention is recorded in the category. Iceblock (talk) 01:17, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

3/4ths of "Category:Astronomy articles needing expert attention" are articles on astronomical objects.

Where does |attention=yes categorize its articles? If they don't categorize into the same categories, then there seems to be a duplicate category tree needing merging for all "|attention=yes" categories (or lack thereof, if it doesn't categorize, it should categorize into the same categories as this schema). -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 03:19, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

-- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 03:19, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I have now moved the four articles from Category:Astronomical objects articles needing expert attention into Category:Astronomy articles needing expert attention. I do not know about categorizing articles by using attention=yes. The categorizing into Category:Astronomy articles needing expert attention is made by adding the template {{Expert-subject|Astronomy}} at the top of the page or at the top of a section. Iceblock (talk) 03:47, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

CarloscomB articles

As most regulars here are no doubt aware, in 2008 there was an incident in which CarloscomB (talk · contribs) created many unsourced, inaccurate, and badly-formatted astronomy stubs. Although the most egregious errors seem to have been fixed, there are still many errors, and every article he created needs to be checked for accuracy. For the past few months, I have been actively working on cleaning up all his articles, one by one, but the sheer number makes it so that even if I do one per day, it will take over a year to clean up all of them, and I have far less free time at the moment than I used to.

Therefore, I'm asking for help in this cleanup effort. At User:StringTheory11/CarloscomB cleanup, there is a list of all articles he created, plus instructions on what to do to clean them up. If anyone here wants to help me with this, it would be hugely appreciated. Pinging @Ruslik0: and @Kheider:, who appear to be the only two editors who commented on discussions involving him in 2008 (when he was active) who are still active now. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:51, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I will try to help. Ruslik_Zero 19:34, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, will try and clear a few as well. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:40, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Majority of them are not notable and should be deleted. Ruslik_Zero 19:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I think "majority" might be an overstatement, but certainly a sizable amount are non-notable. I think I've dealt with all non-notable stars of his already, but there's still plenty of deep-sky objects and stellar remnants that need checking for notability. StringTheory11 (t • c) 19:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@Ruslik0:, there's a few more now with expired PRODs. I can't delete them myself, though, since I'm the one who PRODded them, unless we want to play WP:IAR in this cleanup effort. StringTheory11 (t • c) 00:00, 20 October 2014 (UTC)