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Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall

A magazine page of the College of Charleston released last November 03, 2014 has made me very confused. To its name alone, Hakkila stated its abbreviation as "HCB Great Wall". But my proposed abbreviation is "Her–CrB GW". Plus, Hakkila stated that it "occupied several constellations", which absolutely means it covers more than the Hercules and Corona Borealis region. On the map I've produced it covers the Hercules and Corona Borealis region, plus Cygnus, Lyra, Aquila, Vulpecula, Sagitta, Ophiuchus, Libra, Serpens Caput, Serpens Cauda, Böotes and parts of Virgo, Draco, Coma Berenices, Canes Venatici and Ursa Major. If I put all of them that would make "Hercules–Corona Borealis–Cygnus–Lyra–Aquila–Vulpecula–Sagitta–Ophiuchus–Libra–Serpens–Böotes–Virgo–Draco–Coma Berenices–Canes Venatici–Ursa Major Great Wall" which is a big stupid hell of a name. I may say if I named it as "NQ2–NQ3 Great Wall" ("NQ" for North Galactic Quadrant) which makes more sense. Honestly, even the name "Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall" is a bit shitty for me.

I need comments... Go! SkyFlubbler (talk) 22:47, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH -- why are you proposing an abbreviation? Why are you proposing new names? What WP:RS reliable sources do you have that use NQx or any other name?
WP:V -- aside from people copying your suggestion, is this used anywhere? Aside from HuffPost (not an very reliable source), and people's blogs copying HuffPost, I don't find reliable sources using this abbreviation.
Hakkila is one of the discoverers of this complex, he can call it anything he wants. Since it's his discovery, it's probably the better name to use. I can't find the article's title in the discovery paper. The article HuffPost references as its source doesn't uses Her-CrB either.
-- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 06:45, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Absolute magnitude

To save readers time calculating the absolute magnitude of a star, can we include an absolute magnitude field in the the star infobox template? 129.94.237.181 (talk) 04:52, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

This parameter already exists in the {{Starbox astrometry}} template as absmag_v (for visual magnitude) and absmag_bol (for bolometric magnitude). StringTheory11 (t • c) 05:33, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Long Period Variable

This level-4 vital article has been proposed to be renamed, see Talk:Long-period variable for the discussion -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 06:04, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

NGC catalogue wikiproject

FYI, I found this proposal for creation of a wikiproject just for the New General Catalogue. See the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/NGC catalog -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 07:00, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of that...actually finishing the lists of NGC objects (e.g. List of NGC objects (4001–5000)) should be a very high priority, as they are very important (much more so than the minor planet lists). Perhaps a bot? StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:24, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Category:L-type stars

Category:L-type stars needs a subcategory Category:L-type brown dwarfs, since not everything in the category is a brown dwarf, and the category has a parent "Category:Brown dwarfs", which would be incorrect for those cases where it isn't a brown dwarf. Can someone create such a category, so we can subcategorize the brown dwarfs into it, and move the Brown Dwarf parent category onto it? -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 09:00, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Alternately, we can just remove the parenting to "Brown dwarfs". -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 09:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Drafts for submission

I've submitted some draft articles for consideration

-- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 08:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

All accepted. I've taken the liberty of moving the quasar article to a title it is more commonly known by (the PKS designation). StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:46, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 06:08, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

NGC 660

I just started it but don't quite know the subject. I'd be very grateful for a quick read and the addition of a few missing bits in the infobox. Many, many thanks for any help you can offer. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:58, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

You can always try the common astronomical databases for some information, SIMBAD and NED ; SIMBAD will point to research papers published that references this object; also the PGC number is not the same as the NGC number -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 11:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you very, very much! I'm learning. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:24, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Uranus and Neptune are Gas giants too

As far as I know they are. Technically they're giant and are composed of gas. Ice giant is just a subdivision. Also, I've been into astronomy for quite a while and I swear I never heard the term Giant planet.

Many articles (like the ones I wikilinked) seem to exclude Uranus and Neptune from the gas giants classification. which I think is wrong Tetra quark (talk) 12:15, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, two hardly makes "many", but there has been discussion of this topic before. This was previously discussed here. Personally, I prefer "gas-liquid giants", "Jovian planets", and, yes, even "Ice giants", and don't mind having the otherness of Uranus and Neptune noted. As for Giant planet, be careful not to make the common error that just because you haven't heard a term it doesn't exist. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 14:24, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
"Gas" in astronomy refers to hydrogen and helium. Uranus and Neptune are composed of mostly ices (volatiles heavier than "gas"), and have only a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. They are therefore clearly distinct from Jupiter and Saturn in composition. The specific term for Jupiter and Saturn is "gas giant". The most common cover term is "giant planet". "Gas giant" is still also used to refer to all four, but then we would be faced without a term for the giants composed mainly of H and He. --JorisvS (talk) 14:58, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
Tetra's right for once. There are two general classes of planets, which date back to the early 19th Century. There are terrestrial planets and the gas giants. Solid bodies versus gaseous planets. There cores compress the gas into liquids or solids, but they are technically gases from the common perspective we think of hydrogen, helium, noble gases, methane, ammonia, etc. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are collectively termed gas giants. (Many sources. I.e. Norton's Star Atlas, Ed.18., pg.96. (1989), being a reputable standard source. Gas giants are needed to be big to hold their bulk together, especially as small gas planets don't actually exist. Hydrogen content is irrelevant. "Giant planet" isn't a term I heard of either, as it makes little sense without any real context.
Really, 'Gas planet' only came into debate with Pluto and Dwarf Planets, in a bid to try and retain it as a planet under a different definition.
As for saying ""Gas" in astronomy refers to hydrogen and helium. " Yet methane or the noble gases in astronomy, but somehow now it is not? I completely fail to see JorisvS point here? Arianewiki1 (talk) 17:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
"Giant planet" is a term used: see here. There is a previous consensus to accept "giant planet" as encompassing "gas giants", "ice giants", etc - though I'll note it was a weak consensus. However, this paper from Nature is an example of professionals using both the term "giant planets" and referring to Uranus and Neptune separately as "ice giants". Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
"Giant planet" is used in astronomy, as already shown by others. It also simplifies the division of gas-type gas giants and ice-type gas giants, which are "gas giant" and "ice giant", with the much less confusing name "giant planet" referring to both types instead of "gas giant" ; or Jovian planet, which itself is being redefined with the flood of exoplanet discoveries as to what "Jovian planet" is. "giant planet" is altogether less ambiguous and confusing a term, so delineates the issue properly as to what coverage our article has in scope. A quick check of Google Scholar shows many uses of "giant planet" [1] -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 09:47, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6

"1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6" has been proposed to be renamed to being simply half the coordinates, see talk:1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 11:23, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Earth-grazing meteoroid of 13 October 1990

Request to reassess an article

User:Primefac marked the article Earth-grazing meteoroid of 13 October 1990 as a stub at the talk page. In my opinion this contradicts both WP:Stub and general understanding of this term: I do not think the article will ever get more detailed, since there is not much more known about its subject. Therefore I would like to ask for reassessing it. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 18:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to the ranking being changed; I based it on the number of references. Primefac (talk) 18:22, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
I changed it to start-class. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
This was certainly inappropriate to class this as stub. It is probably worth a "C" rating. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:34, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Request to rename an article

Category tree of Category:Objects within 100 Gly of Earth

Category:Objects within 100 Gly of Earth and category tree has been nominated for deletion. -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 07:27, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

{{infobox astro object}} and {{infobox cluster}}

The proposal to merge {{infobox astro object}} with {{infobox open cluster}} was reopened recently -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 05:41, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

"Ceres"

The primary topic of "Ceres" is under discussion, see talk:Ceres (dwarf planet) -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 06:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

More categories up for deletion

See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 February 25 where several astronomical object categories are up for deletion -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 05:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 February 26 for yet more categories -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 07:16, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Eubot (talk · contribs) redirects

Another bunch of completely wrong redirects created by user:eubot have been brought for deletion, see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 March 15 -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:44, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Question

Do people think this article is enough to establish notability for NSV 11766 (LW Draconis)? StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:57, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't call that an article at all. I was expecting something a lot more substantial. Many articles that cover many objects and do not cover a certain object in the text have similar amounts of information on that object. Short answer: No. --JorisvS (talk) 08:49, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Yep, that's what I was thinking too. Just wanted to get a second opinion. StringTheory11 (t • c) 14:00, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
That journal article just says it's an SX Phe variable , and only 1 article even cites that article... It could possibly work as a redirect to a list of SX Phe variables -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:25, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
There's a total of 6 references on SIMBAD - does sound a bit unusual though - one ref mentions a new red (??) variable which doesn't gell with the classification. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:04, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Many of the templates for New General Catalog (NGC) objects (John Dreyer 1888) have a reference to the older designation in John Herschel's General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (GC). This "GC" is for this catalog of nebulae and clusters. However the GC link in the templates goes to the Boss General Catalogue. This "GC" is for bright stars, not deep space objects. I understand the confusion, as the former is not used much today, but it's the Herschel number that is given, not Boss. All the "GC" links go to the Boss page, unfortunately. The good new is that the numbers are correct, from whatever database they were coming from. You can see the Herschel GC numbers given in the second column of Dreyer's NGC catalog. — ★Parsa ☞ talk 21:38, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Do you know if the numbers for the two Herschels (father and son) match up, or are different? "H" (father, William) and "h" (son, John) are also used to designate their catalogues, IIRC -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 05:27, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Category tree of "objects by distance from Earth"

Several categories have been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_March_8#Objects_by_distance_from_earth -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 04:11, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

They've all been deleted. Modest Genius talk 23:32, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Categories in redirect pages?

I've noticed that a user has been adding categories to redirect pages for asteroids, such as here. Will this interfere with the redirect in any way? Is this a common practice for other redirect pages on WP? It doesn't matter to me if someone wants to do this, but it raised my eyebrow, so I'm hoping somebody who knows more about the background operations with categories/redirects can answer. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 17:19, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Regarding WikiProject tagging & assessment, The Redirect articles should be rated as 'Redirect-Class' by typing {{WikiProject Astronomy|class=Redirect}} on the redirect article's talk page. It makes no sense to add 'Stub-Class'. Refer {{Redirect-Class}}
Adding Categories to Redirect page should not be recommended. - Ninney (talk) 17:52, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
You should probably tell that to Exoplanetaryscience... Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 03:20, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Acknowledged. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 03:21, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
But what would be the disadvantages of doing that? --JorisvS (talk) 09:04, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
No such disadvantage, we do categorize them under Category:Redirect-Class articles. Refer Category:Redirect-Class Astronomical objects articles.
* Also, If the category name is added in the parent article then same has to be maintained in the Redirect article.
* If Category name is changed, we need to unnecessary delete & add (additionally maintain) the redirect pages . -Ninney (talk) 16:35, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
I can't quite follow you. We're talking about adding categories to the redirect page itself like categories are added to articles. Maintaining their categorization would be identical to maintaining an article's categorization. In this case the redirect is that of an object and the "parent" article not another term for that object, but a list of that and other objects. --JorisvS (talk) 18:09, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
The article Ceres (dwarf planet) has more than 25 redirects. Do we need to categorize all 25 redirect articles with the same categories as the article OR simply mark the redirect articles with Template and Category both as as Redirect Class? The latter seems to be simple. Thank You! - Ninney (talk) 18:42, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
This issue of categorizing redirects does not apply to redirects redirecting to Ceres (dwarf planet), or any other actual articles. This applies to redirects redirecting to generic lists, such as is the case for 4157 Izu. --JorisvS (talk) 21:53, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
I see it as a lot of work for little benefit, but I also don't see anything wrong with it, per se. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:54, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Rather than making a decision on astronomy-related redirects, I think we should defer judgement on this point to Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect and Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories, who specialise in this sort of issue. Modest Genius talk 18:26, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
Some WikiProjects specifically indicate that some of their redirects should be categorized and that some should not. So I don't think deferral to WPPREDIR and WPPCAT will be possible. AFAIR, some of our categories have descriptions saying that categories of a certain naming format should also be categorized if the base article name does not follow the naming format, to ease navigation by naming-format in category -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 06:10, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
checkY @JorisvS, Categorizing generic lists articles such as 4157 Izu, seems perfectly Okay. Atleast the objects get placed in particular Category (Asteroid spectral classes). - Ninney (talk) 16:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

N49 (astronomy)

N49 (astronomy) has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 05:35, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Reference question

Not sure if anybody here knows the answer to this: is arXiv:1109.2497 considered a reliable reference? I find at least three planets listed in that article that don't seem to be widely published (although they are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia) and the article doesn't appear to have been printed in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the authors do have numerous other articles published in peer-reviewed journals. (For the particular planets, see the self-referenced entries in Table 3.) Praemonitus (talk) 22:01, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

There are [2] 236 citations to this article. Many of them are in published journals [3] -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 05:08, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you. I wonder then why it wasn't published in a journal? Praemonitus (talk) 14:44, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Ask Michel Mayor. The paper's number in the series was re-used for a completely different paper. A similar thing seems to have happened with papers 31 and 32. Maybe they just don't persist with resubmissions if they get an adverse referee's report, or had a falling out with the journal editor. Modest Genius talk 19:56, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
I had no idea. I suppose people will be people, even if they're rational scientists. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 21:04, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

A large number of asteroids up for deletion

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1692 Subbotina were a large list of asteroid articles have been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 06:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1769 Carlostorres -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 08:26, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
And also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1579 Herrick -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 08:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
As well as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/4058 Cecilgreen -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 06:10, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

The deletion nominations are continuing, including quite a few low-numbered asteroids. I find it concerning that a large amount of infobox content is being lost. -- 120.23.176.56 (talk) 09:30, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

"Age of Celestial bodies"

I found a weird draft article DRAFT:Age of Celestial bodies ; the rejection notice has a interesting comment about having an article on how astronomers derive the age of objects -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 07:32, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

List of most massive black holes

List of most massive black holes has been requested to be renamed to List of black holes by mass; for the disucssion, see talk:List of most massive black holes -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposed Changes to WP:NASTRO

Currently being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (astronomical objects)#Proposed Changes. WikiProject Astronomical objects' input is requested.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf)  18:02, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Starbox astronometry -> parallax link

Currently the template links to Parallax, but we have a main article Stellar parallax. I suggest to change the link. If the box is included in articles that are not stars, the name is misleading. --mfb (talk) 12:29, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, better link. Plus the article does cover parallaxes for non-stellar astronomical objects. Lithopsian (talk) 13:34, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
agreed. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:45, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
Changed. Also in Template:Starbox multi. --mfb (talk) 15:28, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Article titles for unnamed objects

What article titles do we choose for objects that do not have a common name? For instance, we have an article on a pyramid-shaped mountain on Ceres that hasn't really gotten a common nickname yet, so where should the article be located? What precedents do we have? Input is welcome at the related debate for this mountain. --Njardarlogar (talk) 09:58, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I suggest to use a description until we get some sort of common name (at least in media): Large Mountain on Ceres. --mfb (talk) 11:56, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
Hmm, I think such a sensational title as "Great Pyramid of Ceres" isn't a good idea if it's not the official name. "Large Mountain on Ceres" is ambiguous, considering there are other mountains there. I think a good title here would be something like "Pyramid-shaped mountain on Ceres"; it solely describes the single mountain, while the phrase "pyramid-shaped" has been used to describe it. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:51, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Is it really pyramid-shaped? Sure, take the best fitting description that makes it unique (hopefully). --mfb (talk) 13:15, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Is it really the only one that could be described as pyramid-shaped? --JorisvS (talk) 14:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
To me it appears cone-shaped, much like every other mountain. Praemonitus (talk) 14:39, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
To me, too. And the side view in the article suggests some sort of volcano to me. I'm curious to hear what it turns out to actually be. --JorisvS (talk) 09:30, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Hottest Known White Dwarf?

Apparent there are two stars vying for the title of the "hottest known white dwarf":

  • KPD0005+5106 (200,000 K)[4]
  • H1504+65 (200,000 K)[5]

Should we call it a tie? Praemonitus (talk) 16:45, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. I guess we should look at whose claim's been most readily accepted elsewhere.....cool, a contest..and I have never seen that page before.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:26, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
I would just list both. Their references show the same, so would approximately be the same. -- 70.51.203.69 (talk) 05:25, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
I would agree with 70.41.203.69; since it's a tie, we should list both. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:41, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
H1504+65 is given as 200 +- 20 kK here, the other one as 200 kK without uncertainty, and with reference to a previous estimate of 120 kK. The article also mentions H1504+65. --mfb (talk) 15:42, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Stick 'em all in. Life is full of uncertainty and we need to embrace it. I've mainspaced the article as easily viable. white dwarf is too big to have a list in it anyway. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:05, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

HD 35984

SIMBAD has HD 35984 listed as a T Tauri star. This apparently originated with Li and Hu (1998), who have HR 1822 categorized as F7V (entry #200 on p. 176). Li (2004) table 1 #200 has it listed as a PMS star. However, Luck and Heitner (2007) have this listed as a giant, F6III, as does De Medeiros et al (2000). I wouldn't think it could be both, but perhaps I'm mistaken? Praemonitus (talk) 16:41, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

In general, I've found SIMBAD's o-types to be untrustworthy, and don't think it's a reliable source for such info; for example, it lists 3C 273 as a Seyfert 1 when we all know it's a quasar. I generally check other sites such as AAVSO or NED for this such info, and source it to what is stated in papers. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:59, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Agree with StringTheory11, also some stars I've come across as technically III or IV but must be due to another factor (not age) - some of the contact binaries end up with funny spectra and I think some pre main sequence stars can too.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:16, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Well... there seems to be a disconnect between Eastern and Western sources here that I can't resolve. Ita et al (2010) list it as a PMS. The Geneva-Copenhagen Survey gives an age estimate of 1.3 billion years. I guess then it's a very old pre-main sequence star. Praemonitus (talk) 02:20, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Beware of self-confirming studies. If you assume that a slightly large cool star is a giant then you will derive a large age for it. A T Tauri star looks like a slightly expanded and over-luminous star for its mass and it takes closer study first to decide whether it is a pre-main sequence star or an older evolved star. The original classification as a T Tauri star was specifically looking for weak-lined T Tauri stars (those with only weak emission from the surrounding disk, in some cases completely absent), in other words those that look superficially like a giant or sub-giant. They did an x-ray search because T Tau stars are over-luminous at x-ray wavelengths, and used Li absorption and weak H-alpha as confirmations of young stars. There is still the possibility that a wide-ranging survey gets some false positives but it was at least examining features that could discriminate between young and old stars. Lithopsian (talk) 13:12, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Okay, I tried to modify the article to suggest both possibilities. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 00:23, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Embracing and describing uncertainty is a Good Thing. I hope that young readers get an idea of scientific thinking by reading some of these pages. I hate incomplete science being presented as undisputed fact. And I am happy that one of these cleanup articles can be expanded! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:08, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
As a rather young person myself, I would strongly agree with this sentiment. The scientific method is something which is severely lacking from our education system (at least in the US), so Wikipedia must attempt to teach in its place. That's why we need to make sure we don't say something is true when it's not proven. StringTheory11 (t • c) 23:16, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present).--Lucas559 (talk) 15:52, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:Habitable zone planets

Category:Habitable zone planets seems destined for a CfD. It's contents: Earth, plus Category:Exoplanets in the habitable zone. Praemonitus (talk) 16:16, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Do we really need to separate out Solar System planets from exoplanets here? It should be the exoplanet category that is deleted/upmerged -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 06:10, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
I suspect that the separate sub-category (Exoplanets in the habitable zone) exists so that it can be a sub-category of Category:Exoplanets. Praemonitus (talk) 17:28, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
I think some other categorization schema should be used for any exoplanets that only use this category to go under that hierarchy (such as one of the discovery method categories, or discovery year categories). This category schema should descend from Category:Planets. -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 05:58, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Template:Star systems within 25–30 light-years

The following template has seemingly become an attractor for non-notable (and often trivial) articles about red dwarf stars: {{Star systems within 25–30 light-years}}. It would be better if most of those links were redirected to the corresponding constellation star lists. Praemonitus (talk) 20:59, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Chermundy (talk · contribs) recently created a huge number of obviously-non-notable stubs. I've been working recently to redirect all the non-notable brown dwarfs to the list of brown dwarfs, but I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for the red dwarfs except to PROD them one by one and hope no disruptive editors come along and remove the PRODs. And I actually think that all these templates above 20 ly should be deleted, since past the value the distance from the sun isn't really a notability property; it's navbox overuse at its finest. Praemonitus, if you want to help it the PRODing process of the non-notable articles, it would be greatly appreciated. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:13, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes a TfD request would be appropriate. Praemonitus (talk) 22:16, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Sometimes, I think a speedy deletion criteria for non-notable astronomical objects is needed, with all the garbage we get. I know it wouldn't gain consensus though... StringTheory11 (t • c) 23:38, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
There's also the problem so non-astronomy editors will consider that almost all things should be deleted, and we'll inevitably loose significant topics to articles speedily deleted, were such a criterion established, since evaluating specialist notability is problematic on Wikipedia -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 05:27, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
OK, I've just sent those templates to TfD. 65, you're probably right on the speedy criteria now that I think about it more, since editors do get overzealous sometimes. StringTheory11 (t • c) 15:29, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
On the basis of a desire to 'Listify' the set, the templates have been getting enough 'Keep' comments that they will probably be retained. An illogical outcome. (Discussion link for posterity.) Praemonitus (talk) 17:03, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Chermundy has been making these things for years. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 05:28, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
There's plenty more to get at the soon-to-be-deleted {{Star systems within 20–25 light-years}}. Unfortunately, I'm about to fall off to my February activity levels again (i.e. maybe an edit a week), so if somebody else can lead the charge, I would be willing to provide a copy of the deleted template, provided it gets deleted again after they are gone. StringTheory11 (t • c) 23:48, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
You could just subst copies of the various templates into the discussion right here (and then clean it up to remove categories, etc). -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:21, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

The outcome of the discussion was to "reformat as list articles", which is the least useful result they could possibly have produced. Correction: the templates are labelled as being deleted, so perhaps they are in the process of being "list-ified"? Praemonitus (talk) 19:03, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

It is now two months later: the templates have not been deleted and the contents have not been "listified". The templates remain linked on a large number of articles. Praemonitus (talk) 20:01, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
Apparently it is now in the "holding cell" (WP:TFD/H) where it appears it may sit idle for several years. Praemonitus (talk) 15:41, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
I think increased visibility would have been possible with a new note at the bottom of this page referencing this section -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 07:59, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC on artists' impressions in exoplanet articles

There is an ongoing RfC at WT:WikiProject Astronomy#Should Artist's Impression images that be used on Article Pages? about the use of artists' impressions as images in exoplanet articles. All comments (especially those giving a rationale for the stated position) are appreciated. A2soup (talk) 06:19, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

"Elara"

The usage and primary topic of Elara is under discussion, see Talk:Ellalan (monarch) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:34, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

"Eris"

The usage and primary topic of Eris is under discussion, see talk:Eris (dwarf planet) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 03:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

"Ceres"

The usage and primary topic of Ceres is under discussion, see talk:Ceres (dwarf planet) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:41, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Other moons of Earth

I just came across Category:Other moons of Earth, which concerns me a bit. None of those objects are actually moons, and nor should they be categorised under Category:Earth and Category:Moon. Thoughts? Modest Genius talk 09:47, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it could be renamed according to its main article, Claimed moons of Earth.
In the same vein, it seems that we have two overlapping articles and corresponding categories. Are the topics of co-orbital asteroid and claimed moon distinct, or is it sufficient to redirect one to the other?
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:02, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Harmonizing those titles makes sense. I've gone ahead and made the change. --JorisvS (talk) 16:50, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. Modest Genius talk 09:45, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

EGSY8p7 (EGSY-2008532660)

So I have a draft up at Draft:EGSY8p7, do you think it's ready to go? -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 12:43, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I've moved it to mainspace. Dare I say it's already better than the vast majority of our ASTRO stubs :). StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:53, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Mean anomaly

I notice that Inforbox planet has a line for "mean anomaly", and maybe others do as well. But what does that mean? At what epoch? The mean anomaly of an object is constantly changin'. If we're gonna put this information, then we should specify the epoch. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it is constantly updated to the current date :) In which case it is wrong :( No seriously, look at the top of that section of the infobox, it gives an epoch, although most of the other elements don't depend strongly on the epoch. Lithopsian (talk) 20:00, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Oh, you're right. I didn't even see that line. Well, I think that since none of the other parameters depend on the epoch (or actually they do, but that's just the slow evolution of the orbit) we should put the epoch line and the mean anomaly line one above the other. Maybe:
Mean anomaly:
 at epoch:
Eric Kvaalen (talk) 13:33, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make more sense to list the epoch of periastron passage instead? Praemonitus (talk) 19:47, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


Well, that's fine, Praemonitus, but in that case the editor can simply put 0 for the mean anomaly. Giving a pair (mean anomaly and epoch) gives more freedom, even though it's the same amount of information. And we can change the Infobox format easily, without having to re-edit all the articles to put in an epoch of periastron. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 06:59, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
You are still going to need to edit every article with a mean anomaly listed in order to add a specific epoch, and you will also need to reference that information such that others can look it up and verify it. I'm not sure how readily available that data is even going to be; all you may have is some constantly changing value. The alternative is just to use use T, which supplies a fixed epoch and is thus easier to reference. Praemonitus (talk) 19:22, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Praemonitus, I'm certainly not gonna go through all the articles checking all that. The point is, if an article gives both an epoch and the mean anomaly at that epoch, then it's fine. If not, then anyway it's useless. I just want to make it more clear by putting the epoch next to the mean anomaly. You're welcome to put your T in any article, but just put 0 for the mean anomaly as well, since your T is the epoch when the mean anomaly is zero. (By the way, if you put a link to me in your answers, I will get a notification and I won't have to check back here or set a watch here.) Eric Kvaalen (talk) 18:46, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Meh. You wore me out: I no longer care. Later. Praemonitus (talk) 21:32, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Questionable images for Saturn's outer moons

I've noticed that an IP is adding images to most of Saturn's outer moons. The images in question are raws from Cassini taken from a great distance which at best may show the moon in question as a dot. However, in some cases the images are cropped on whatever the brightest dot happens to be, which may not actually be the moon in question. These need to be looked at and probably removed. --Patteroast (talk) 22:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

After being removed, they've been re-added. I see that these very dubious images are being used on other languages' pages as well. --Patteroast (talk) 03:28, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Multiple overlapping range list pages

I noticed that there are multiple pages that cover overlapping ranges of minor planets; for example,

This seems like a invitation to chaos: To make up an example, someone might edit the entry for minor planet #3141 Pi on Meanings of minor planet names: 3001–4000 but not on Meanings of minor planet names: 3001–3500.

What's behind these overlaps, and are they going to be cleaned up? Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 22:10, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

@Thnidu: There's no problem here. The page is in two because it was long. However, there is no actual content at the 3001-4000 page, as it transcludes the two other pages. You can't actually add a new list entry or new information at the 3001-4000 page, since there's nothing there. Deletion of the 3001-4000 would also probably be no problem either, since these and others created by Kwami are rather new. -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:54, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Asterisks, and 3202 Graff

@67.70.32.190 and Kwamikagami: Thanks much for the explanation.-- Going back to look at the page and its talk page, I noticed two things.
  1. Some of the entries are marked with an asterisk, but I could see no explanation for it, unlike the dagger, which was explained.
  2. The talk page post Talk:Meanings_of_minor_planet_names:_3001–3500#Too foo had a mess of hashed-up non-English, apparently translated from French word for word by a program or the user, who/which doesn't know any English. I figured out the gist and appended it: it concerns a discrepancy between the page and an authoritative database (AFAIK, but IANAA). Can someone knowledgeable check it out?
Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 17:49, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
@Thnidu:. Hi Thnidu. I just extended our existing conventions for these lists. I have no preference -- whatever you think works best is fine, though it should interact properly with our nav boxes. I have no idea about what they were named after. All I've done is look up pronunciations of the first thousand. — kwami (talk) 20:18, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
@Kwamikagami: As I said above, I Am Not An Astronomer. I haven't the know-how - or, frankly, the time or the interest - to put into corrections or other research on this. I pinged you as well as our IP colleague because they'd mentioned "these [pages] and others created by Kwami", and I didn't know how much specialization your involvement...uh, involved. I'll try to hand this off to the project. --Thnidu (talk) 23:14, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
When I said "these pages", I meant the pages that transcluded other lists, which are the pages created by Kwami. Their deletion has no effect, precisely because they transclude their content from other pages, no information would be lost because all the information is actually contained in the pages that the 3001-4000 page trasncludes (and similar pages that transclude their information). -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:31, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Please see, just above, subsection #Asterisks, and 3202 Graff, specifically the ordered list. There's an issue of unexplained notation, and another of an apparent error that was reported over 3 years ago and AFAICT has not been rectified, possibly because the report was practically in code. I'm not able to handle these, but they fall in the purview of this project. Over to you, comrades. --Thnidu (talk) 23:34, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
No idea about the asterisks, but I've fixed 3202 Graff; see the article talk page. Modest Genius talk 12:52, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Planetary-mass objects

I found the section Planet#Planetary-mass objects and the article Planetary body sound similar. Can anyone confirm whether they are the same topic? --Quest for Truth (talk) 12:42, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

They are close, but not quite the same: the first link does not cover geological differentiation. However, that is not a requirement for an object to be a planetary body and so I think it should probably be removed from the definition in the second link. Praemonitus (talk) 16:44, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
The definitions are identical. If there is a difference, it does not say anything that suggests so, which should then be corrected. --JorisvS (talk) 16:48, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
In checking again, I noticed that Planetary body is limited to the Solar System while Planet#Planetary-mass objects is not, so the latter may include objects that have not undergone geological differentiation. Praemonitus (talk) 19:40, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
And obviously 'in the Solar System' is something non-defining. --JorisvS (talk) 09:17, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Presumably the original author was inferring the object is "in orbit around the Sun", as per the IAU definition of planet. Otherwise I'm not quite clear what you are getting at. Praemonitus (talk) 15:33, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
The IAU simply phrased it that way so they could avoid discussing the uncertainty involving exoplanets. What I'm saying is that, to nature, the Solar System is just one of many. Any definition that includes a distinction between whether a body orbits the Sun versus any other star is flawed/meaningless (as I already remarked, the IAU definition does not actually do this). If "planetary body" is seriously limited to in the Solar System (which I seriously doubt), the term would be meaningless. --JorisvS (talk) 16:40, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
The IAU has a separate definition of planet for extrasolar ones. [6] -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
And the reason for that is practical and I have already stated: to avoid having to deal with the enormous uncertainties involving exoplanets. No scientist would adhere to these definitions in a legalistic way because they know that would be scientifically dishonest. --JorisvS (talk) 10:32, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Stern and Levison (2002) p. 208 have what looks to be a fairly workable definition of a "planetary body". It (nearly) matches that in Planet#Planetary-mass objects and seems to fit the most common usage. Praemonitus (talk) 17:32, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, indeed "planetary body" is not limited to the Solar System. That definition comes down to "planemo" and "planetary body" being precise synonyms. Stern & Levison's is just more formally stated. --JorisvS (talk) 18:43, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Starbox orbit formatting

Does anyone else see the starbox orbit title bar not centred like all the other starbox headers? Take a look at Theta1_Orionis_C. I see the "Orbit" left-justified. All other starbox titles are centred. I'm not sure if it has always been like this and I never noticed, or if it is something new. New as in this year, not just changed this week. Lithopsian (talk) 19:37, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Yup, I too see it left justified. No idea why; doubt it's deliberate. Modest Genius talk 10:19, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Fixed it (fingers crossed). The style wasn't sophisticated enough to handle titles with references. Lithopsian (talk) 21:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Starbox issues

I noticed a couple of issues with the starbox templates:

  • If a star has a negative value for the parallax, the {{Starbox astrometry}} template gives a negative value for the distance. See for example, HD 150136.
  • The {{starbox sources}} template will introduce a blank line at the top of the article unless it is joined to the previous starbox template with HTML comments.

Praemonitus (talk) 17:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you have an example for the 'starbox sources' error? -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
HD 135438. Praemonitus (talk) 14:57, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
There's a hanging DIV closing statement with no matching opening statement. Is that doing something useful? It seems like an error to me, but it should be showing up in the text of the article, if it is. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 10:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Done. Modest Genius talk 10:27, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Numerically the negative distance is correct; obviously it is unphysical and occurs due to an uncertainty which is comparable to the value. The only sensible solution would be to propagate the uncertainties and give a range of distances, but that would be a complete mess - especially as the upper and lower bounds would be asymmetrical and it's currently quoted in two sets of units. I'm not sure how else this could be addressed. Modest Genius talk 10:32, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
To be honest, those really small and/or negative parallaxes are not giving useful information anyway, and a case could be made for leaving them out of the starbox anyway. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Better for the starbox not to generate a distance from them. The parallax a measured value and we shouldn't just throw away data we don't like, but there is no point deriving a distance from it if it is negative. Lithopsian (talk) 12:53, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Discarding negative parallaxes is a well known bias in astronomy - it effectively removes one side of the error distribution, biasing the mean of the remainder. That's one reason why researchers working in this field usually plot quantities against parallax (an observable quantity) rather than distance (a calculated one). I agree we shouldn't remove this information, but perhaps the infobox could output 'undefined' if the distance comes out negative. That's still biased, but hopefully no-one is taking distances from Wikipedia infoboxes and using them for calculating anything... Modest Genius talk 13:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
To alleviate the problem you mention, my opinion is that if error range so much as overlaps any negative values, we should not derive a distance from it. Frankly, if the error range overlaps zero anyways, it's not telling us much about the distance other than that the star is either far away and/or the parallax is imprecise. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:15, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
I agree. We could give a lower limit on the distance, but we have to be careful to avoid OR because the transformation can be nontrivial for those poorly known parallaxes. --mfb (talk) 16:38, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
I did this with "parallax minus uncertainty" now. If it is negative (or no uncertainty is given), the distance is not calculated.
Gaia will solve many of those cases in the next years I hope. --mfb (talk) 11:36, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but also provide many thousands of new cases! Modest Genius talk 13:00, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
There is no way astronomers can keep up with publishing enough about individual stars to warrant 1 billion articles. --mfb (talk) 19:49, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
No, but it's likely that a few percent of that >billion will have parrallaxes comparable the precision, and that's still a huge number... Even if only a few of those turn out to be notable the issue won't disappear from Wikipedia. Modest Genius talk 10:26, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Instead of calculating mas->pc directly in the starbox template, we should create an accessory calculation template so that we can use it inside articles as well, not just in the infobox. It would also simplify the coding of the starbox template. Something like {{astrocalc/mas_to_pc}} ; we could create a bunch of utility calculator templates to calculate things. (like Draft:Template:convert/kps/z or Draft:Template:calculate/v＝c*(((1+z)^2-1)÷((1+z)^2+1)) ) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:49, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

We could add that functionality to Template:Convert, instead of creating a separate template for it. --JorisvS (talk) 09:43, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
It's not an apples to apples conversion though (ie. angle units to angle units). It's an apples to oranges conversion (angle to distance). Does/should {{convert}} support that type of transformation? -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 03:36, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't see how that could be any problem. The calculation is incredibly easy, thanks to the small-angles approximation, "the distance is simply the reciprocal of the parallax". At most there may be some people who might not like to see this conversion included because of that. But to see if that's the case, it's a simple matter of requesting it there and see if anyone objects (and if they do, engage in discussion, because I don't see any actually good reason for not including this functionality, it's not as if it does any harm to them or so). --JorisvS (talk) 09:40, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
From the ongoing discussion at CONVERT, it would seem to be easier to create and maintain our own astronomy calculation template -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 06:15, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
To match the current configuration, the template would need to be able to generate a margin of error, plus switch to using '~' rather than an error range for relatively large margins of error. The approximation used to compute the distance error margin from the parallax error will start to break down once the parallax error range is a significant fraction of the parallax. Praemonitus (talk) 21:14, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Though, this is specific to a particular set of angular measurements. It isn't the general trigonometric conversion of an angle and baseline to a distance, since the baseline is fixed. If someone were using a coincidence rangefinder, that angle would use a different baseline to find distance. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 06:05, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
I just noticed that CONVERT doesn't currently support conversion between angle units. There's no radians, gradians, degrees listed as supported units. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 06:05, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

{{Starbox multi}}

template:Starbox multi has been nominated for deletion -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:48, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Category:Local Bubble

Note that Category:Local Bubble is being populated with stars. This seems pointless given the volume of the region. Praemonitus (talk) 15:47, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, do we really need a category that contains all of the stars in the Local Bubble? Most of them have no physical relation to it, other than coincidence. Modest Genius talk 21:30, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
The Local Bubble is structure and a location, so suitable to have anything located in it be categorized into it. Just as halo stars moving through the bulge can be categorized by location as being in the bulge. -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:04, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
I doubt that would be a useful category either. Why would anyone conceivably want to examine those as a group or navigate between them? Modest Genius talk 10:21, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
On a more general point, did I miss the memo about creating categories for every astronomical object? For example, see contributions for User:Deneb in Cygnus. Lithopsian (talk) 08:52, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
That's an interesting edit history. A lot of the edits seem to be categorizing fiction into fiction by astronomy categories, and creating new head categories for new fiction subcategories -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:45, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
What is the purpose of adding a bannershell [7][8][9] around one projectbanner? (or indeed, adding bannershells to category talk pages, that hardly ever contain discussions, since they usually occur at the projects) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:45, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
Is the new category Category:Protoplanets proper? I had thought we hadn't definitively categorized any object as a protoplanet (and depending on definition, both Mercury and Mars qualify as ones) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:45, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
Category:Aldebaran (and similar ones) is an interesting case, it only includes fiction in a fiction subcategory, besides the star article itself... these things are usually deleted at WP:CFD as being an unnecessary level of categorization due to the lack of content. (Same as how music band categories don't exist, but categories for their songs and albums do) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:45, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
It likely fails WP:SMALLCAT. Praemonitus (talk) 17:25, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
Should I flag this up somewhere? It seems to have gone beyond my capacity to fix one by one. I'm not even sure where to draw the line, or whether the whole lot just needs to go. Lithopsian (talk) 20:21, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
If the category contains less than 5 entries (subcategories+articles) they typically end up being deleted, unless it's likely to obtain more content quickly. So the lot of those new asteroid type categories containing only 1 article are problems, depending on how many unprocessed asteroid articles remain to fill them. I suppose WP:AN and WT:CFD would be likely places to flag category behavior -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 07:15, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
I can see a need for a {{Category too narrow}} warning template. (There is a {{Very large}} template.) Praemonitus (talk) 19:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
I've nominated four CfD here: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 September 5#Stars with Proper Names. Praemonitus (talk) 16:32, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

More mini-categories for stars

I have submitted several more individual star templates for deletion: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_September_24#Category:Wolf_359. I may have missed some, but I think I found most. Lithopsian (talk) 21:12, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Material under "Deletion" mandate being modified by Chermundy

Chermundy (talk · contribs) has modified deleted content (the Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Star systems within templates} to use his new templates, after it was decided to delete through listification. I think these should be rolled back to the state they were in when the TfD was resolved to listify. They've been modified to use the undocumented templates we've been discussing this month. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:28, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Did someone try to engage them? If so it might be time for a block. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:22, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Headbomb, they haven't responded to their talk page messages in quite a while. Primefac (talk) 13:20, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
I concur about the rollback, but {{nsx}} was also updated around that time and until someone can untangle the interconnected diffs simply reverting won't do (since the old "Star systems" template doesn't work with the new nsx). Primefac (talk) 13:30, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Phoebe

Is Phoebe (moon) a former planetesimal or a former dwarf planet? Talk:Phoebe_(moon)#Dwarf_planet -- Kheider (talk) 02:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Planetesimal means that it was never round. Small Solar System bodies are planetesimals - Phoebe was always spherical as long as it was the object we now know as Phoebe. So in this case, it's a former dwarf planet. DN-boards1 (talk) 02:29, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Who says planetesimals can not be nearly round? You need a reliable source to claim Phoebe is a captured dwarf planet. wp:Synth is not good enough. -- Kheider (talk) 02:36, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
We have a source that says both A) that it 'was spherical and hot early in its history' and B) 'Phoebe likely was captured by Saturn's gravity when it somehow got close to the giant planet'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JorisvS (talk • contribs)

Content discussion at Rosetta (spacecraft)

There is a discussion currently taking place upon the inclusion or removal of a section of content regarding this spacecraft. Your input is requested. Primefac (talk) 21:31, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Category:Resonant trans-Neptunian objects subcategories

There's a big problem at Category:Resonant trans-Neptunian objects, it has a lot of subcategories called Category:3:10 resonance etc, which has absolutely no indication that this is for TNOs, or for any orbital resonance at all, since resonance occurs all over nature, and not just with orbits, and resonant orbits exist outside of TNOs. -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 02:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

We could rename them to Category:3:10 resonant trans-Neptunian objects etc. --JorisvS (talk) 08:50, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
All of the categories under Category:Resonant trans-Neptunian objects are very sparsely populated. If there aren't enough notable objects to expand these sub-categories, then, per WP:SMALLCAT, it would be better to merge them under the main category. Praemonitus (talk) 15:46, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Asteroid 2005 BS1

Asteroid 2005 BS1 has a diameter of 39.37 feet and its sigma impact is equal to 0 with odds of impact 1 in 12,000. Will it hit the Earth on January 14, 2016?

Details are available at this URL:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risks/2005bs1.html#summary Bsmath1 (talk) 21:47, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Why would you expect it to impact on January 14, 2016? I have already answered this question at Talk:Asteroid#Asteroid_2005_BS1. On Jan 14, 2016 it is much more likely to be 1/3rd as far as the Sun. It is difficult to make long-term predictions of where an object will be with a very short observation arc of 3 days, especially when the object has not been seen since 2005. Just because it is currently the most threatening Palermo rated asteroid on the Sentry Risk Table with a chance of impact in 2016, does not mean it will impact. -- Kheider (talk) 22:46, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

COBD templates up for deletion

See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 September 28#COBD template set for the 6 templates I have nominated for deletion that were created by Chermundy -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:21, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I have deleted all these. Though it looks as if much work went into them. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:10, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
I agree, it's unfortunate that the work that went into these templates was not put to better use, but if there's already a car in the one-car garage, bringing a second one home isn't going to do much good. As near as I can tell Chermundy simply decided these were necessary without consulting anyone else. Primefac (talk) 13:57, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Issues with Chermundy

I've grouped the Chermundy-template issues into one subsection for ease of navigation. Primefac (talk) 01:18, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Duplicate star maps

An editor apparently felt that one star location map wasn't enough and proceeded to add a second to multiple articles. For an example, see Wolf 359. One or the other should probably be removed as they aren't adding any additional value. Praemonitus (talk) 14:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

The new template should be easier to use than the previous clunky manual methods (needs documenting!), but personally I find the choice of the blank map and red blob to be unhelpful to the average reader and generally not very appealing. Lithopsian (talk) 16:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Being unlabelled, the new map is not as useful. Prominent bright stars should be labelled. As well as the star in question itself, and the various constellations it is in and bordered by. (or atleast tooltip the constellations) -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 04:19, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
There could also be a concern about the source for the images. They look to be scanned from some other source, which is not indicated. Praemonitus (talk) 15:32, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Chermundy (talk · contribs) uploaded a whole bunch [10] of these images recently, to go along with adding them to the articles. S/he also created {{Celmap}} which seems to be a template for using the maps. There's also {{cepro}} and {{Conp}} that work with that. This is the same user who created all those Template:Star systems within 55–60 light-years/etc templates -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:08, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
[S]he seems to be another one of those editors who specialize in creating clutter. Praemonitus (talk) 14:33, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
The celmap usage has been removed from all articles. Note that they were all on pages that already had images associated with them, so there was no lost information. Primefac (talk) 00:41, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Note that you removed a chart from the Struve 2398 article that did not already have a star chart. In that case though the star is below the naked eye threshold, so it probably doesn't matter. Praemonitus (talk) 16:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah, my mistake. I had assumed that Chermundy had added the extraneous {{starbox image}} tags at the end because the articles already contained images. Primefac (talk) 17:31, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
It's a minor thing, but your edits have left a blank row in the table, which causes a blank line to appear at the top of the page. (I've edited out a couple of those.) If you do any more deletions, you may want to address that. Praemonitus (talk) 22:15, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
template:Celmap was nominated for deletion by someone -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 04:18, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

User:Chermundy's Celestial Objects Withing x Parsecs templates

Chermundy (talk · contribs), who created all those Template:Star systems within 55–60 light-years/etc templates also has another template system of the same type:

-- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

These have all been removed/reverted to {{nearest systems}}. Primefac (talk) 00:42, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
I have nominated these for deletion (except cobd, which needs additional work), see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 September 28#COBD template set -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:21, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Chermundy is still modifying these things, even as they are under TfD, without responding to TfD... seems odd not to acknowledge the process. - 70.51.44.60 (talk) 03:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Is it safe to delete {{cobd}} now? -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:05, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Cobd is simply a redirect to {{nearest systems}}, so there's not much reason to delete it other than having to change all of the code in the existing navboxes. Primefac (talk) 13:50, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
So, not yet safe to delete, due to template coding. Though we should eventually orphan it, and delete it, since it's a senseless term, and a redirect for no reason, except the creative stylings of Chermundy in inventing template names. -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 07:18, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
You make a reasonable point, and I'm not going to stop you from nominating it for deletion. My only thought was that redirects are CHEAP. Primefac (talk) 14:38, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Chermundy's nearest X template system

Do we really need massive templates like

  • {{Nearest star systems}} -- which reaches out to 20 light years and includes gigantic amounts of text (list articles are not the same thing as temlates; how is this going to help navigte between articles?)
  • {{Nsnavbox}} -- which uses Petametre measurements
  • {{nsx}} -- some weird template with massive amounts of template coding hidden inside
  • {{nsxz}} -- completely unexplained, but it seems to involve parsecs

-- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Chermundy's parallax table templates

We need to document and rename the parallax table templates for more clarity. The templates are mostly missing documentation, and two letter names makes them poor names.

  • {{πs}} -- completely unexplained
  • {{πc}} -- completely unexplained
  • {{πd}} -- completely unexplained
  • {{πt}} -- this is supposed to mean "start table"
  • {{πp}} -- this is supposed to mean "table entry"
  • {{πe}} -- this is supposed to mean "end table"

The problem with "start table" is that it relies on the PAGENAME, which may be disambiguated, thus a bad name. They all need better template coding to hide the wikitable coding. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

The question is, do we really need a table of every paralax measurement for a star? Primefac (talk) 01:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
In order to answer that question, I have nominated them for deletion. Primefac (talk) 01:35, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Chermundy's proper motion table templates

Chermundy has a bunch of undocumented proper motion templates. They need to be renamed for clarity and documented to explain how to use them. The hidden Greek letter μ/Μ makes these names hard to read.

  • {{Μe}} -- this is the "end table" template
  • {{Μt}} -- this is the "start table" template ; Name is confusable with Metric Prefix "micro" for microtonne
  • {{Μx}} -- no idea; but it seems to have hardcoded references, which is a bad idea.
  • {{Μp}} -- no idea; but it seems to have hardcoded references, which is a bad idea. Further the name is quite confusable with our minor planet navigation templates
  • {{Μs}} -- no idea

-- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 07:44, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I think I've figured out what the templates actually do (and how they do it), but at the end of the day it's just encouraging listcruft. I've nominated them for deletion. Primefac (talk) 01:58, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Starbox short

There's a flaw in the {{Starbox short}} template; I posted a notice on the talk page but I don't know if it is regularly patrolled. Praemonitus (talk) 19:44, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it. Should be a relatively straightforward fix. Primefac (talk) 00:45, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
I've already made *a* fix, but it could do with a more detailed look. Lithopsian (talk) 10:51, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
That seemed to do it. I removed the N/A from PSR B0329+54 and it is still displaying the other fields. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 16:23, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

V774104

Does anyone have the MPC code for V774104 ? -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 18:24, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

"Solar System"

Solar System has been requested to be renamed by someone, see talk:Solar System -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 09:49, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

template:TNO-distance

We have a new template, {{TNO-distance}} ; which needs categories, and references -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 06:26, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

The table in this template can grow indefinitely. It needs to be limited by some criteria. Praemonitus (talk) 21:30, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Alphabetization

I've been using {{DEFAULTSORT:}} to alphabetize dwarf planets and other minor planets by their given name (if they have one), rather than by their minor planet number (MPN); because in most contexts minor planets, at least the bigger, better known ones, are usually called by their given name only, e.g. “Vesta” rather than “4 Vesta”. Thus, {{DEFAULTSORT:Sedna}} or {{DEFAULTSORT:Salacia}} (see Sedna, Salacia). (Obviously, the articles “Ceres (dwarf planet)”, “Eris (dwarf planet)”, or “Pluto”, because of the article title, need no DEFAULTSORT.) Also, the given name can begin with any of 26 characters (discounting accented vowels, etc.), whereas the MPN can only begin with one of 10 characters (assuming MPN < 100,000 means that the first character is 0). Thus, alphabetizing by given name results in more possible initial characters, preventing clutter in the alphabetic lists. Okay?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 23:33, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Categorization of unconfirmed discoveries

If a supposed exoplanet finding such as Alpha Centauri Bb is later placed in serious doubt, should it remain in categories such as 'Category:Exoplanets detected by radial velocity' or 'Category:Exoplanets discovered in 2012'? Or should it be moved to separate categories for unconfirmed objects? Praemonitus (talk) 15:37, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Enceladus

I have nominated Enceladus 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. DrKay (talk) 16:26, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Image request

Please could somebody with the appropriate privileges please post the Chandra optical image (not the composite image) from this site to the infobox on the NGC 4178 article page? I think it should be okay for the Wiki commons, as it's a NASA site. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Nobody? Ah, it'll do without then. Praemonitus (talk) 17:43, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
Why don't you just request it at WP:IFU ? -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 07:20, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
Unfortunately this one is for non-commercial educational and public information purposes only. So its not suitable for use here. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:15, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
All right, thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 23:28, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Minor planet name

Interestingly, it looks like nobody at the IAU has thought to rename 1999 AN23 to "31415 Pi" yet. Hmm, it might make an entertaining Pi Day event. Praemonitus (talk) 19:59, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

New IAU Star and Exoplanet names

So, as many of you already know, the International Astronomical Union has officially announced the new names, voted by the public, of various stars and exoplanets. I have noticed, however, that nearly all the articles on such objects are keeping their old names and the new names being redirected to them; e.g. Ogma (star) was made as a redirect to HD 149026, instead of HD 149026 being renamed. Now, I'm not sure about you guys, but wouldn't it be common sense to rename these articles to their new names? I foresee somebody bringing up WP:COMMONNAME, but I doubt that would be a valid argument for most of these articles, where the old names are an arbitrary sequence of letters and numbers that are barely rememberable, and are often copy+pasted into the search bar, rather than actually typed out from memory. Philip Terry Graham 02:58, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

They shouldn't be renamed unless the new IAU names become widely adopted, but a redirect is acceptable. See WP:STARNAMES and WP:PLANETNAMES. Praemonitus (talk) 03:56, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
Yep, stick with the existing names for as long as they remain the WP:COMMONNAME. The new IAU names should be mentioned in the lead and redirects set up, but no more at this stage. Let's see if they catch on and become the primary usage before renaming anything. For what it's worth, I find '14 And' easier to remember than the spelling of 'Veritate', but that's probably because I'm familiar with the constellations. Modest Genius talk 10:33, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
There's a similar discussion on Talk:Upsilon_Andromedae_d#Requested_move_17_December_2015 with notes directing to that discussion on the other planet/star talk pages. I've added a note there directing them back here.
I tend to agree that we should leave the articles under their original names for now. There's no need to rush into anything and we can wait and see what the reaction is. Cuddlyopedia (talk) 10:59, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
I do not think that the names should be changed. Regardless if official of IAU or not. So many things the IAU made "official" but is still disregarded (ex. Object over 13 MJ are Brown dwarfs are not universally accepted). Davidbuddy9 Talk  04:09, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Note From WP:PLANETNAMES "Since the International Astronomical Union (IAU) states that unofficial nicknames (e.g. Bellerophon and Osiris) are not the officially recognized names, extrasolar planet articles should not use such names. These names are only to be mentioned in the article." Davidbuddy9 Talk  04:17, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but that refers to the unofficial nicknames picked by individuals or research groups. The new names are official and have been through the formal naming process. It might be worth updating that guideline to explicitly state that official names are subject to WP:COMMONNAME. Edit: that's already stated higher up the same page, so I've added a cross-reference. Modest Genius talk 11:17, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
No, I don't think so, as Bellerophon and Osiris were picked by the same program from the IAU and are widely considered unofficial. I personally think we should continue with catalog names and include other names as simple redirects. Davidbuddy9 Talk  18:31, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow your point. Bellerophon was unofficial - it has now officially been named Dimidium. Osiris (HD 209458 b) has not been formally named by the IAU. Modest Genius talk 17:06, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

If the names start seeing use in scientific discourse, then the articles should be moved. Until then, the original designations are still WP:COMMONNAME, and thus per WP:NCASTRO the articles should not be moved. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Minor planet notability

There's a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomy#Notability on the notability of small minor planets. --mikeu talk 21:04, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Venus

I have nominated Venus 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. Anon 09:37, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

12817Federica listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 12817Federica. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. -- Tavix (talk) 00:33, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

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