Template talk:Infobox constellation

Usage
Example from Andromeda (constellation)

For an example of the 'notes' field, see Cetus.

Numberstars parameter
What is this parameter supposed to represent? Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 23:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The number of Bayer/Flamsteed designated star in the constellation apparently. Can't see how it's useful. I too would like to know what the "number of main stars" parameter means.--JyriL talk 02:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Stupid
Someone wishing to be so exact and tryly technical in language as to by necessity have "known" in the slot List of known planets. It makes the template too wide, and the articles bug out by a fat righthand box. We don't actually need the "known" in the slot head, everybody knows that in science, everything is "as much as we know".  Said: Rursus   ☻   08:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

"Best visible at"
There's a thing at the end of the template that says "Best visible at 9.00pm in the month of ***", and encourages you to fill in the appropriate month. Best visible from where? Doesn't the visibility depend on your location? Or am I missing something? Arsia Mons (talk) 00:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * These are times of upper culmination, i.e., times when an appropriate point on the sky reaches maximum altitude. This will not depend on location, assuming that you take 9 PM to be a local time for your location. Spacepotato (talk) 04:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * In that case, it would be better to change the name to "upper culmination", because 'best visible' is misleading; a constellation might reach its upper culmination at a time when it would still be invisible in many parts of the world. Right? Arsia Mons (talk) 14:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * At upper culmination, the constellation will be visible throughout the world, except for those parts of the world where the constellation can never be seen at all, or where the sun is still up at 9 PM. Spacepotato (talk) 19:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Then would 'most visible' be better than 'best visible'? Best implies quality of vision, which isn't necessarily the case across the world? Arsia Mons (talk) 13:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's best visible in the sense that it's as close to the zenith as possible, and so has minimum obscuring air mass. Again, this is the case everywhere in the world.  (If the constellation is permanently invisible, the minimum zenith distance is sufficiently large that it is still below the horizon even at its upper culmination.) Spacepotato (talk) 19:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation
I would like to propose adding a "Pronunciation" field to the Constellation Infobox, then move the pronunciation out of the lead where it tends to clutter up the flow. This has been implemented for the starbox template and it seems to work fine. (See Sirius and Vega for example.) I think it makes sense to insert the pronunciation just after the abbreviation row. Does anybody object to this?&mdash;RJH (talk) 22:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There was no objection so I implemented this change. I'm going to proceed with updates of the constellation articles accordingly.&mdash;RJH (talk) 18:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Nearby stars in infobox
The number of nearby stars (d < 50 ly) in almost all of the constellation articles are not accurate because there are a lot of nearby stars that are not important and are not in list of stars by constellation. I couldn't find a good source that list all stars up to 50 ly away. Can somebody find a good source and correct the number of nearby stars in almost all of the constellation articles. Also the nearest star that User:Cam corrected in some constellation articles, he only corrected when the nearby stars are less than 20 ly away and are found in list of nearest stars and RECONS 100 nearest star systems. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 22:03, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I would suggest decreasing the distance limit as censuses of nearby stars are quite incomplete even up to 10 pc (32.6 ly.) Two catalogs in VizieR that might be useful are J/AJ/121/2189 (see also ), which lists nearby stars within 8 pc and with declinations above -35°, and V/101, which lists stars within 10 pc.  These catalogs are both rather old and the RECONS list should be more accurate for sufficiently close stars. Spacepotato (talk) 02:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. I would decrease the distance limit to 10 pc (32.6 ly). There is the website for Stellar Database that list stars by distance even beyond the 100th nearest star. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 03:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * An alternative would be to just limit the list (in the infobox) to the nearest 3–5 star systems in each constellation, regardless of their distance. That would keep the list from getting too bloated on some articles.&mdash;RJH (talk) 18:22, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There isn't any list, it's just a count. This also means that we need to give the cutoff distance in the infobox caption as otherwise the count is not meaningful. Spacepotato (talk) 02:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I will start working on changing the number of nearby stars to within 10 pc and the nearest star in all constellation articles. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 18:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Now I'm all done in every constellation articles! BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 00:27, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Stars brighter than 3m
My understanding is that a magnitude such as 3rd corresponds to stars that are fainter than magnitude 2.5 and brighter than 3.5. The Infobox Constellation has a field "Stars brighter than 3m" that includes stars in the range between 2.5 and 3.0. Wouldn't it make sense to change the field to say "Stars brighter than 3.0m"? Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 23:08, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "Stars brighter than 3.00m" would be even better since brighter than 3.0m means that the magnitude ranges from 2.95 to 3.05. So I'm going to change that in template:infobox constellation.BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 23:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That works. Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:53, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Stars with known planets
With regard to this field, it appears that the number may have been inflated by including stars with candidate planets and counting multiple planet systems as multiple stars. As an example, the Taurus (constellation) previously listed four stars. But there are only three stars with candidate planets, and one of the star has two candidates. Because they are only candidates at this point, it is not clear that they can fairly be called "known planets". Also I think it would be a good practice to tag those values with a note listing the actual stars. (I changed the Taurus article to say three and listed the stars in a note.)&mdash;RJH (talk) 23:36, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason why there are 4 stars with known planets in this constellation is because there is a known 4.0 MJ planet in orbit around the star HD 24040 which was discovered in 2006. So I added this star to the candidates list in Taurus. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 23:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay thanks. But there could just as well be zero stars, since none of them are confirmed. Perhaps it would be better to write it thus:
 * Stars with known planets 0 (4 candidates)
 * followed by a footnote? Alternatively another field could be added to input the star candidates, then massage the text accordingly.&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:52, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it is better to remove the word known, since known planets don't coincide well with candidate planets. Some of those candidates may not be planets, but brown dwarfs or even dim red dwarf stars. For all candidate planets, only their minimum masses are known, because their inclinations are not known that determine their true masses. I estimated that over 90% of all candidate planets would turn out to be true planets with masses below thirteen times that of Jupiter. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 23:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. Clarification can always be added to the parameter value.&mdash;RJH (talk) 23:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Just a note: the parameter will become very hard to maintain in the future. I therefore predict that someone, some day becomes tired of it and removes it. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 06:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I suggest that day has arrived, trampled all over us, and left long ago. The data for this field is just hopeless and I can't see it getting any better with new planets being announced almost weekly. Lithopsian (talk) 21:18, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed I'm glad the editor above strikes a bold tone, perhaps the most avowedly correctional on here we have in the field of astronomy; I quite agree. I was going to insist we have 'confirmed' or 'proven' added as a qualifier. But it's a mess and that is about right, it opens the mind to the obvious possibility the data is incomplete and even a brown dwarf of whatever circling the stars.  One day we will have a new field for precisely identified planets or similar.  Until that day it is a bearable but absolute mess of a parameter.- Adam37  Talk  11:45, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Constellation Family
The slot  points to the fringy article Constellation Family referring to one source only. There's nothing official in this arbitrary "classification", there's nothing astronomical in this emotional classification. I empathically propose that the fringy  slot is removed. It is prob added by the article creator of that encyclopedically weak article. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 07:27, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I removed it, because consensus will take 2 years to achieve on Wikipedia, and this was such an obvious case of encyclopedic irrelevance. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 07:46, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The source for that concept is perhaps a little surprising: SEDS. Normally the SEDS authors will list at least list a few references, but that one has none. I support the decision to remove the family slot for now.&mdash;RJH (talk) 21:26, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

IAU images
The use of IAU SVG images in the template seems pretty much premature. They don't look good when sized down to a width of 250px, se f.ex. Ophiuchus! The text is nearly invisible, the stars are too tiny, and the white squary constellation areas takes over from the constellation, giving a perfectly irrelevant impression for identifying the constellation in the sky. What was the wrong with those image of old that were generated from PP3? Some guy hacked forth nice SVG versions of them, so why were they replaced? Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 09:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I find the clear demarcation of constellation boundaries in IAU images an important advantage over the PP3 images. I think that the very first purpose of a page on Wikipedia on a constellation, a predominately scientific concept, is to unambiguously identify the subject as recognized in science. The IAU images do a much better job at that. Some of the PP3 images do not even fully contains the constellations that they depict. For observation guides, Sky and Telescope is probably much better place to go.
 * Your other points are fair. At 250px those elements are indeed small. Maybe it is about time to widen the infoboxes. 250px is less than a quarter of the narrowest mainstream display size. If we bump the size up to around 350px, the readability will improve a lot. Kxx (talk | contribs) 16:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I would characterize constellations as predominantly a scientific concept, since amateur stargazers use them for location information, astrologers use them for mystical things, and some outdoorsmen and sailors use them for navigation... and historically there are alot of religious aspects to them. 70.24.247.40 (talk) 04:31, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Quadrant field
Discussion here Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:45, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

RA/declension
While we're at it, is it better to have a "point" RA and declination or the ranges, which I would have thought was more logical given constellations are fields and not points on a map? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:47, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * To me, a range would be much more beneficial to the reader; while a center point tells the general location of the constellation, a range can also help tell a reader the general size and shape without the reader's having to read the body of the article. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Add an apparent diameter parameter. Can sky be made to support apparent diameter? -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 05:59, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be better to tweak the fields to be ranges rather than points plus diameters? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps both then? The apparent diameter gives an approximate areal size for the constellation giving readers a ready simple value, and could then be directly transferred to the SKY template, were SKY modified to be able to support that (it'd be more useful that the current third value of "distance" which was originally proposed to be used for scaling the viewing area. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 01:00, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Ranges would be better, as it gives some idea of how large the constellation is. Diameter is problematic because they aren't circular. Consistency across all the constellation articles is perhaps more important. Modest Genius talk 14:41, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * To add to this, diameter would also cause problems about where in the constellation to measure from. Do we take the average diameter, or the max diameter? Range eliminates this problem. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:39, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, rather than diameter we have constellation area already within the infobox. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:27, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

So proposing - shall we move to ranges rather than point in the infobox? Yes/no?
I vote yes (for accuracy). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd say this has only benefits; the current system is akin to describing Canada's position on a globe as a single point. Courcelles 03:58, 9 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Looking at this, everyone who has commented appears to support a range...so will look at infobox parameter. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:19, 10 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Duh, looking at the template...we can use range anyway....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:40, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think once the other discussion on WT:AST achieves consensus, I'll start rolling this out (since if I start now, we'll just have to make another round of edits later if the other proposal achieves consensus too. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:22, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Sigh - may as well add the sections while we're at it....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:35, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Nearest star
Discussion about possibly deprecating this field: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomy. Lithopsian (talk) 21:20, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Image size
Sizing images in pixels is deprecated because it overrides user defaults, causing problems for readers with poor vision that need larger images, and readers who have hi-res monitors that make our chosen size too small. I changed 250px to 'frameless', which uses the reader's default. If that's too small for the box, we can append, say, 'upright=1.25' after 'frameless', which will make the image 25% larger than reader default and so accommodate all readers. — kwami (talk) 21:57, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Glitch, with constellation Serpens
The coding for inserting the star maps into the template makes special provisions in two cases for inserting more than one star map into an Infobox. I've pored over the coding. I've copied it and pasted it into my sandbox, where I separated it out onto successive lines, then shifted the lines to match corresponding bits directly over and under each other. And I cannot make out why it's doing this funny thing. It works for Argo Navis, and it's set up just the same way for Serpens. It must be some "deeper" coding that I'm not prepared to get into. Uporządnicki (talk) 01:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * One is for the obsolete constellation Argo Navis, now officially broken up into three constellations, Carina, Vela, and Puppis. That one works.
 * The other one is for Serpens, the only constellation that is in two non-contiguous parts--Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda. The coding is meant to insert the separate star maps for the two half constellations.  But what the Infobox displays is Serpens Caput, Serpens Cauda, and then Serpens Caput again.
 * The template has code that checks for it being used in the Serpens article or the Argo Navis article and if so forces specific images. The code then continues to also add the image based on the article name. The code seems to work for Argo Navis, as the code adds three images and the forth is the default image from the article name. This is confusing because Argo Navis IAU.svg is a redirect to Field Book of the Stars-129-Argo Navis.svg. The code should probably be modified to use a case statement, rather than two if statements. That would be clearer and eliminate the fall-through. — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 08:00, 29 May 2024 (UTC).
 * As an aside:
 * I would opine that three or four images in an infobox is rather unhealthy
 * It is also somewhat evil to have article-specific code in a template. Maybe add an parameter and outsource the choice of extra images to the articles?
 * I would fix the code for you, (either by removing the first image from the first if statement or by adding extra_images and adjusting the articles) but I am using a iPad on a train. Tomorrow maybe; let me know what you think — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 09:43, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * You do understand, I didn't create this or set it up, right? I just noticed that the Serpens article has the Serpens Cauda map twice, and went digging to see if I could remove it.  I've used some fairly basic templates, but I don't have the first idea how to create one. Uporządnicki (talk) 11:26, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @User:GhostInTheMachine You know, I kind of doubted your explanation, but I just did an experiment, and I think you're right. Since the files are called Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda, I figured that just putting the name Serpens would get nothing.  But I just searched File:Serpens IAU.svg, and it went by default to Serpens Caput.  There was no indication of a Redirect, but there it is!  So it's inserting Serpens Caput by default, for the template, and then it's inserting it again according to the special instructions.  I think I might be as bold as I've ever been, and edit the template. Uporządnicki (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Or, on second thought, maybe I won't. Someone else might know how to suppress the default operation for these two situations, i.e., cause it, in these two cases, to follow the special instructions instead of, rather than in addition to the default.  I think that's better anyway, at least philosophically.  And it would also clear up the case of Argo Navis.  I'd thought that "pen and ink" type drawing was inserted by someone into the Infobos (and I think it would go better in the article).  But now I see, that's the default file for the constellation Argo Navis. Uporządnicki (talk) 15:42, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Seems fairly straightforward: the default constellation image is always shown. It is not part of any conditional check.  Before that is shown, the special case for Serpens is checked, then the special case for Argo Navis is checked.  I have edited the test so that the Argo Navis check is only made if the constellation is *not* Serpens, and then the default map is only shown if the constellation is *not* Argo Navis (and by implication not Serpens).  Looks right to me, let me know how it looks to you, especially in light of the recent changes to Argo Navis since I'm not entirely sure what the intention is there.  Lithopsian (talk) 19:16, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * So that was a bit clunky. I've changed it to a switch statement and I think it does look clearer.  Lithopsian (talk) 19:24, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks good, thank you. As for my change to Argo Navis, all I did was change the order of the three modern constellations; they'd been shown alphabetically, and I think the way I have them is more logical.  That's all. Uporządnicki (talk) 21:23, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Remove parameter "stars with planets"?
I propose removing the parameter "Stars with planets". Reason? It is often outdated, hardly updated. Some articles like Cygnus list 89 stars with planets, even though the Kepler's field of view is within Cygnus, with over 2,000 planets discovered by Kepler, this number must be much larger. I think that it should be removed, new exoplanets are being discovered very quickly, and there aren't sufficient editors to update this parameter. 21 Andromedae (talk) 23:41, 1 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Yes, this should be removed since it's extremely outdated and there's no source that keeps track of it. In fact this was already mentioned by Lithopsian above. SevenSpheres (talk) 01:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Re-add field "nearest star"
The field "nearest star" has been removed seven years ago, one of the reasons because there was no source about it (See discussion). However, this recent paper does include a table with the nearest star for all constellations at the last pages (i forgot the exact page number). Maybe we could re-add it? 21 Andromedae (talk) 19:30, 14 July 2024 (UTC)