User talk:MHD

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Degrees, etc.
I believe my wording was unclear, rather than my facts incorrect. There were two things I wished to communicate in the astronomy sections on the pages on arcminute and arcsecond. Perhaps you can help me with better wording, though I'll copy some of this into the pages.
 * 1) Astronomers typically measure Right Ascension in hours, minutes, and seconds. RA minutes and seconds are not to be confused with Declination arcminutes and arcseconds, as they are of a different size.
 * 2) In right ascension and longitude, the size of the degree (and therefore arcmin and arcsec) changes with how far you are from the equator.
 * As opposed to a degree of latitude, which always corresponds to about 111 km (69 mi), a degree of longitude corresponds to a distance from 0 to 111 km: it is 111 km times the cosine of the latitude, when the distance is laid out on a circle of constant latitude; if the shortest distance, on a great circle were used, the distance would be even a little less. (Longitude page)

--zandperl 00:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

AB Magnitude
Thanks for correcting me on this - I've slightly re-edited it so that the reader has some indication that it's an energy to magnitude conversion we're talking about and that 'AB magnitude' is a definite thing to Google for. But if you think we can improve on matters in the interim please do! Bob aka Linuxlad 14:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Jansky
Regarding this edit: Please explain why the two are not equivalent. As far as I know, a^b * a^c = a^(b+c). Am I missing something? Owen&times; &#9742;  20:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I apologize: I made a mistake in verifying the conversion. So, yes: the two forms are equivalent. Then it comes down to a matter of taste. The original form explicitly shows the zeropoint of the AB magnitude scale (48.6); the other does not, but it is shorter. MHD (talk) 12:14, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Fair point. Separating the "29" to 23+6 will make this even more obvious; I'll include both forms in the article. Owen&times; &#9742;  13:55, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Please feel free to reformat or refactor if you feel that's needed. Thanks! Owen&times;  &#9742;  13:59, 9 January 2009 (UTC)