Template talk:Sky

Zoom
Now, the template is using distance for calculating the zoom, but isn't a good method. I suppose a better way could be based in apparent magnitude, but I don't find a good formula. Telescopi (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * What is it supposed to do? Why would you want apparent magnitude? I understand lightyears, since it's a triordinate, along with right ascension and declination. What do you mean by zoom? In any case, the distance parameter, whether it is used or not, should remain for future options, if you can slice the sky into redshift co-moving distance planes of view / depth coplanar views. If you mean how large a patch of sky should be shown, that would be apparent size usually given in degrees, arcminutes or arcseconds. Probably a number of arcseconds in diameter should be given, and then the template supplies a skyview 10x that size (in minimum W or H, whichever is smaller). 76.66.193.69 (talk) 06:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose you are right. Lightyears is now a few useful parameter, but it could be used in a 3D database, and then we shouldn't delete it. Yes, I meant "how large a patch of sky should be shown", and I suppose that apparent size should be a better parameter, but now we should find how to program it. Telescopi (talk) 18:16, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The difficulty would be with stars... since they are quite small (in angular size), so maybe a combination of distance and apparent size should give the view size, if it's a nearby small size, a larger patch of sky should be shown than if it is a distant small size (like a quasar) 76.66.193.69 (talk) 23:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Request for category addition
Would an administrator be interested in adding the category named "Coordinates templates" to this protected article page? That category seems to be appropriate, since it already contains right ascension (RA), declination (DEC), and other (EqCoor) similar templates BrainMarble (talk) 01:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ The categories aare on the documentation page btw. so next time you can just make the edit yourself. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 18:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Add "|link=" for accessibility
For WP:ACCESSIBILITY by the visually impaired, purely decorative images should be marked with " " so that they don't distract screen readers as per WP:ALT . Can you please install the obvious sandbox patch to this template's purely decorative sky map image? Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 18:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Killiondude (talk) 20:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Zoom and target survey view

 * As was mentioned before I think it worth adding optional parameter to specify angular size of the object for zooming. The distance parameter is very little related to angular size and as result zooming is quite random.
 * I also think about another optional parameter to set target survey. In many cases it is better to show DSS2 or SDSS survey, in some cases would be wise to show sky-map generated map (i.e. constellations links) and may be in some cases to show RASS3 i.e. for x-ray sources. friendlystar (talk) 15:03, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Questions

 * 1) Why "10" as the last parameter?
 * 2) Is it possible to make this template display inline, for use in lists and tables?
 * 3) Is it possible (or desirable) to have this template optionally accept and/or output decimal values, instead of DMS values?
 * 4) Can we make this template offer a choice of target websites, like GeoTemplate‎ does for terrestrial coordinates?
 * Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:55, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 3 years ago I created inline templates with choice of targets similar to geohack. See Template:EqCoor. I tried to use it inside infoboxes, but it caused some issues with references so I abandoned it. We could get some ideas from there. friendlystar (talk) 21:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

1. 10 it's only for constellations and all them has now this template. 2. By the moment it can't show information inline, but if someone could program it, it could be a great idea. 3. I don't know how to do compatible the two systems. 4. It was my original idea, but I don't know how to program it. I wanted to make a replica of coord for celestial bodies, that linked to lots of databases, and let them to use Wikipedia's information (as Google Maps do with coord templates). Telescopi (talk) 21:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Microformat
The terrestrial equivalent of this template, Coord, emits a Geo microformat. There is no equivalent microformat for astronomical coordinates, but I should like to propose introducing something similar: a set of class names which can be parsed by tools in the same way that geo microformats can be parsed. Who knows; it may eventually become widespread, and used by other websites publishing astronomical coordinates. Would anyone like to work on this with me? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:49, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Icon
I was wondering about the icon that Sky and Need sky use... it's Jupiter, but this template cannot be used to address Jupiter in any meaningful manner (since it moves quite a lot...) Seems a bit odd. 76.66.196.139 (talk) 01:46, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 21 where this came up in 2011. Agreement was that Jupiter is inappropriate. -- 70.49.127.65 (talk) 11:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

What should this point at?
Should this template really be pointing at a single third party sevice rather than multiple ones like the Coord template?©Geni 20:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No. If you know how to change it, go ahead. There are other sources (Google Sky, for example) that it could link. Telescopi (talk) 14:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Link error in example
example was error at This Template documentation

What's the problem? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kladess (talk • contribs) 04:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It needs to be placed all in one line. This template has a problem with carriage returns for some reason. (weird, since most templates don't) 70.24.246.151 (talk) 13:16, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * . – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Link to all services
We have good experience over very long time with geohack for geocoding on the earth. So it would be perhaps a good way to link from this template to something similar: It's running at german wikipedia since over a year and it's editable over Template:SkyTemplate. It'S not the neutral way of wikipedia to support only one service. It better to give the user the choice what he prefer in which situation. So please think about if it would to support skyhack. --Kolossos (talk) 09:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Example page skyhack

Minus sign
I made 13 edits like this one. I estimate that there are about 100 more examples of that problem yet to be fixed (probably using AWB).

That is, the Manual of Style's MOS:MINUS guideline requires a minus sign, not a hyphen, when writing a negative number. Although a hyphen and a minus sign are usually the same thing, in this context a minus sign looks slightly different: compare -&minus;. Therefore, some use a minus sign instead of a hyphen when using this template's declination sign parameter. But it doesn't work. It links correctly to Wikisky, but in the upper right corner it displays the declination as positive, not negative. That could seriously misinform someone who took it for granted that the declination was correct as printed, perhaps leading them to copy the error elsewhere, not find the object with their telescope, or conceivably aim their spaceship north instead of south.

Before I go through 1,924 uses of this template or get AWB working again, note that changing all the minus signs to hyphens is only a temporary solution. People have encoded minus signs in the past, therefore they will continue to encode minus signs in the future, and editing existing minus signs won't fix that. I edited the document, but only people like me read that.

So the permanent solution would be to edit the template, so that the declination sign parameter accepts a minus sign as if it were a hyphen. The second best solution would be to edit the template to print "Unrecognized declination sign", instead of blindly printing a plus sign. Art LaPella (talk) 15:44, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

✅

After studying template programming, I came up with an unexpectedly simple change to the template that fixes this problem, coded it, tested it, and implemented it. Instead of always printing a plus sign unless a hyphen is coded, it always prints the declination sign as entered, unless it's a hyphen, in which case it uses a minus sign. A side effect is that if no declination sign parameter is entered, it no longer prints a plus sign; it doesn't print a sign at all. That might be considered a feature; if not, it surely isn't as bad as printing minus signs as plus signs. Art LaPella (talk) 23:27, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Template leads to strange images
Shouldn't this template better point to the (default) DSS2 image of sky-map.org, rather than to their "astrophoto collection"? not only leads to a view that has far too much zoom (that has already been discussed for years), but it also leads to a useless astrophoto rather than the actual image. Something like this would be preferable. Renerpho (talk) 01:04, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 25 January 2021
The Celestia icon should be copied and this template changed to refer to its own icon file, so the Celestia icon can be updated. See c:File talk:Celestia.png. Bachsau (talk) 02:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Why don't you use File:Celestia-logo-new.png instead? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:47, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You will find the answer to this on the talk page I was reffering to. --Bachsau (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ❌ if you want us to change this template, we would need to have something to change it to; template protection is not preventing you from uploading commons files. —  xaosflux  Talk 15:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I can't see any purpose in changing this template. The usage of File:Celestia.png is enormous other many wikis. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:53, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅. Celestia.png is supposed to track the logo of a software project and was being used here by coincidence. I created File:Jupiter and moon.png as a fork of that file so that we could continue to use that image here. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This really doesn't make sense Jonesey. Regardless of what it was "supposed" to be for, this image is used on 112,642 pages across wikimedia projects. I don't know how many of these relate to the software project, but I'm guessing just a handful. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As you can see by your own reaction @Xaosflux, the wiki community has gotten into the habbit of denying and reverting other people's works instead of improving it. Because of that I was unwilling to upload a copy of that image before getting it approved here. It would most likely have resulted in its deletion and probably a discussion on how I'm edit waring or vandalizing. No offence ment, but I've had enough of this, thanks. 😉 I would have gone ahead with what @Jonesey95 did, if this template had not been protected. --Bachsau (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I declined your edit request, as the protection was not the immediate problem, lack of an image was. Edit requests serve an important check against the protection policy and we diligently work though them.  Lack of the image was not being hampered by protection, and if this was just meant to be a request for someone else to do it - it didn't need to have an immediate action needed edit request pending in the interim. —  xaosflux  Talk 18:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I was not aware that an edit request includes a request for immediate action or demands urgency. I was merely following the advice given when I clicked the edit tab. --Bachsau (talk) 21:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , I agree with about the initial reason for the closing of the edit request. There was not yet an appropriate replacement file that could be used in this template. You correctly identified that the Celestia software project logo (created for use on Commons to tag images created with that software) had been used incorrectly here, on the mistaken assumption that its form, an image of Jupiter and one of its moons, would never change. That was a bad assumption that then spread to 50+ wikis. I have begun the process of fixing that long-ago error by creating a file for use with this template and updating about 50 templates to use the new file. The process is not complete, so the recent update to the logo is probably premature. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, it's an open project. If someone stumbles upon the icon somewere and decides to track down whats wrong with it, he will most likely come to read this discussion and can make the appropriate changes. You don't have to do all of the updates yourself. Its neither mine nor your fault that someone decided to use the image for whatever. --Bachsau (talk) 21:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My point is that your update broke the long-standing (mis)use of this image on tens of thousands of pages. When you break something on Wikipedia projects, it is your responsibility to ensure that it gets fixed, not to say "oh well, everyone else has been wrong forever, so that's their problem." I recommend that you change back to the old logo until c:Special:GlobalUsage/Celestia.png shows that the file is being used only on Commons and in the other limited circumstances in which a Celestia logo is appropriate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:53, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If that is the policy here, it's no wonder if nothing ever gets fixed. There are many eyes on the Wikipedia and Commons which together form a dynamic network that should be able to propagate a change through the network in a reasonable amount of time until everything is right again. Sure, clicking the 'revert' button is always the cheapest thing to do, but when I updated the image file, I was not aware that it was used off-label on so many pages. @SevenSpheresCelestia brought that to my attention, but he would have been more constructive if he had gone ahead, forked the image, and changed the template, instead of reverting my edit just to retain a wrong status-quo. Other editors could then do it on their respective language versions, as soon as they discover something has changed. Now let me make one thing absolutely clear: I'm not responsible for anything. I'm not getting paid for this. If the Wikipedia demands a huge amount of work from a few authors instead of all the small changes a huge amount of users could contribute, it is not a community project anymore. This is already much to much discussion for the fact that I dared to upload an updated logo image, and I'm tired of it. Wikipedia has always been telling its users to be bold, and this is what it results in. It's always the same. I will take it as a friendly reminder to not contribute to the project again. Have a nice day. --Bachsau (talk) 13:57, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * PS: It is also my notion that Commons stands for itself in some way, and that it is not the obligation of a Commons editor to check all changes against any other wiki or external site that might be using a resource arbitrarily. --Bachsau (talk) 14:26, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Make it inlineable
Use Special:PermanentLink/1007260652. Check test cases for effect.

Artoria2e5 🌉 05:28, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Please update Template:Sky/doc when you can. Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 04:35, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Sky and COORDS
Now that coords was converted to LUA Module:Coordinates, which is able to switch between decimal degrees, DMS, and selectable display values; perhaps something should be built for astronomy, that can convert between galactic coordinates, RA-DEC, different epochs and eras, values in Decimal Degrees, DMS, HMS. And perhaps then sky could be converted to handle more than just HMS/DMS coords -- 65.92.247.17 (talk) 00:42, 29 May 2022 (UTC)