Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Mars observation/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 17:08, 30 July 2012.

History of Mars observation

 * Nominator(s): RJH (talk) 02:41, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because I like to think it satisfies the criteria, or at least is within close striking distance. The article covers observation of Mars from Earth. (It is meant to be complementary to exploration of Mars; the latter describes the direct exploration of Mars by spacecraft. The two are basically daughter articles of the main Mars article.) I've tried to cover all of the scientific highlights. What do you think? Regards, RJH (talk) 02:41, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support - I am very interested in astronomy and space and after review the page you nominated, I second your decision that it should be a featured article. Keep up the good work! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Haon 2.0 (talk • contribs)
 * Thank you, Haon 2.0. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Lead looks good Comments. 8 days without any feedback? Frightening. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:50, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Well... just a couple of days actually. RJH (talk)

After a brief lead review, I am satisfied with the clarity and accessibility of the introduction. The details of the review have been moved to the FAC talk page to avoid clutter. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 23:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Be consistent in whether you include publisher locations
 * Macmillan or The Macmillan company or Macmillan and co., limited? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I've removed the publisher locations and changed the aforementioned publishers to say Macmillan. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 02:57, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Source spot check.
 * Thought I'd do a source check and started with footnote #1. Didn't like the sound of the book title. Visited the webpage of the listed publisher (which, incidentally, doesn't match the publisher name at the hyperlinked page). These people publish books about UFOs and the healing power of magnets. So: what on earth (or on Mars) makes this a reliable source? hamiltonstone (talk) 05:13, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware of that, and I haven't been able to find much corroborating information. Hence I modified the article and based the date on Ove von Spaeth's work on the Senemut star map, which is referenced by Novaković (2008). Hopefully that's okay for now. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:22, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * better, ta.
 * Footnote 4 - no plagiarism; yes underpins first half of para; ref 5 may underpin the second half.
 * Footnote 10 - couldn't locate page numbers to check, but what i did read is consistent with text.
 * Footnote 15 - no plagiarism; yes underpins text.
 * Footnote 26a and b - too close to original at one point, which I have tweaked; yes underpins text. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:48, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Footnote 32 - er, no. Please go back and look at this source. Although a bit technical it appears to explicitly doubt that Flamsteed's observations confirmed Cassini's results. Rather, Flamsteed selectively edited his results to choose those that were close to Cassini's. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * See the end of page 116. Flamsteed measured Mars' position at different points in the Earth's rotation, whereas Cassini's measurements were from different points on the Earth; two different techniques for measuring the diurnal parallax. Flamsteed's results produced a series upper bounds, with a final upper bound estimate of 10 arcseconds. Cassini then reproduced Flamsteed's method and supported the results of Flamsteed, but it was Cassini that tweaked the results in this experiment. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:45, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * My mistake re who tweaked to match whom! I see what was meant now. OK. hamiltonstone (talk) 12:43, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Footnote 48 - one fairly close paraphrase, probably ok; yes underpins text. hamiltonstone (talk) 06:02, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Footnote 77 - no plagiarism; yes underpins text.

That's all i was going to check. Please respond to the two key issues above. Thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 06:06, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your checks, hamiltonstone. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:33, 2 July 2012 (UTC)


 *  Comments tentative support on prose and comprehensiveness - reading through now. Will jot queries below. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:40, 2 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The Early telescope observations section could do with an opening line (even though obvious) about what observers could see or conclude about Mars without a telescope. i.e. that it had no features? Otherwise just sorta launches into things.....
 * Good point. I've added a couple of introductory sentences and clarified how much detail Galileo could (or could not) see. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:33, 2 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Some of the paras in the Refining planetary parameters are a bit small, rendering the flow of prose a bit choppy - if you can combine any I think it would be helpful.
 * Okay I added a few cited comments, rearranged a couple of paragraphs and merged some others. Does that read any better? – RJH (talk) 15:15, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Overall looking good, not seeing any deal-breakers prose-wise or any gaping holes in content....Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:09, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Casliber. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:15, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Support Queries. Good article, happy to support if you could look at my queries below. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:43, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Orbital models para 4. Are you intending to make a distinction between "angular size" (linked) and "angular diameter" (not linked)? They sound like the same thing to me. If they are not the same, some explanation / linking is in order. If they are the same, why give the arc-minute estimate as "2" the first time and "2.0" the second time?
 * Fixed. In this case angular size and angular diameter are synonymous, but I changed it to the former. RJH (talk)
 * Orbital models para 4 versus Early telescope observations para 1: consistency / clarity issues. We have "...the Indian astronomical text Surya Siddhanta estimated the angular size of Mars as 2 arc-minutes...", which is then explained to be based on an "inaccurate guess". In contrast we then refer to "...the measurements of Ptolemy, who found a value of 1.57 arc-minutes. This is close to the resolution of the human eye" but in the next section we learn the maximum diameter is in fact "25 arcseconds; this is much too small for the naked eye to resolve." First, 1.57 arc-minutes is around 100 arc-seconds, and is not, according to naked eye, "close" to the resolution of the human eye, but is less than half that resolution. If it is a fact that the max. diameter is 25 arcseconds, then surely Ptolemy's figure is just as much a guess as that of the Indian astronomers. Yet that section refers to "estimate" and "guess", while the text on Ptolemy refers to "measurements" and "found a value". It seems in fact Ptolemy was guessing as much as the Indians were, and the text should reflect that.
 * I've tweaked the text. Is that clearer? RJH (talk)
 * Early telescope observations, para 3. This begins by telling us that Cassini "tackled the problem of the physical scale of the Solar System". It then gives the results on Mars parallax (a value within 10% of actual). However, we never learn what the result was of the original intention behind the observation: determining the physical scale of the solar system. Do we know what conclusion was reached?
 * I've added a sentence of explanation. Does that work? I'd rather not have the text go off on a tangent, so it's pretty brief. RJH (talk)
 * para 4. "measured the axial tilt of the planet's poles to the orbital plane as roughly 28.5°." Really? "roughly" to within half a degree??
 * I've removed "roughly". (Note that the resolution of the human eye is 0.07°, so half a degree is pretty rough. Shrug.) RJH (talk)
 * Martian canals: "His term canali was popularly mistranslated in English as canals". Please add what the correct translation would have been - this would help explain Schiaparelli's intention / analysis.
 * In the previous section it says, "In 1869, he observed two dark linear features on the surface that he referred to as canali, which is Italian for 'channels' or 'grooves'." RJH (talk)
 * Oops, sorry! All other queries addressed! Thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your observations and support. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:40, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Delegate note -- image check, anyone? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Image review I briefly looked at the images and all of them are good except two:
 * File:Mars_views_001.jpg: It is not strictly speaking a NASA image. It is a collage of different images including some from NASA. I am worried about an image "from 1960s', which appears to lack an appropriate license.
 * I selected a different illustration. This one appears to be in the public domain.
 * File:ALH84001.jpg: The links are dead. So, I can not check whether this is a NASA image.
 * That NASA site seems to be messed up. For now at least, I replaced it with File:ALH84001 meteorite Smithsonian.jpg, which has a CC-share-alike license. We can always put the other one back if the site gets repaired.

Regards, Ruslik_ Zero 19:30, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:08, 28 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Support Comments from Jim Nice article, but a few niggles  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  11:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the review, Jim. I tried to respond to the points where Hamiltonstone had not already helpfully replied. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:08, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Overlinking—albedo is linked thrice, including twice in lead, and you certainly don't need to repeat "obvious" links like Sun, Mars, Moon, since we aren't likely to forget what they are while reading the article. Please check.
 * removed one use of albedo link, and a couple of others, but wasn't sure how far to take this, and will leave to other editors. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:15, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "Detailed" appears twice in consecutive sentences in lead
 * Done. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:15, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * became popularized among the public—I think you mean popular with
 * One of the senses of popularized is, "to present in generally understandable or interesting form". Regards, RJH (talk)
 * discovery of the telescope,—invention, not discovery
 * Done. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:15, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * red shifted—one word, redshifted, and would be hyphenated even if two
 * Done. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:15, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * orientalist Percival Lowell—technically true, but much better known as an astronomer, which is also more relevant to this article
 * removed reference to occupation / expertise, but if other editors don't like that, then suggest add "astronomer". My view is that that would be redundant, since one can take it as read that most people named in this article are astronomers. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:19, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that was necessary. That was how he was described in the source. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:05, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * has taken the highest resolution images of Mars ever captured from Earth—in what sense is the HST on Earth?
 * Well, that's why I wrote "from Earth", rather than "on Earth"; from a technical perspective, the HST is at the same distance from Mars as an Earth-based telescope. Do you think it would be better to say, "from the neighborhood of Earth"? Regards, RJH (talk)
 * I think the "popularized" bit is clunky, but no big deal. I'm happy with Lowell as it is now, the "orientalist" made it sound as if he was doing astronomy on his days off. HST probably better as is, unless someone else nitpicks the same point. Supporting above now  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  06:29, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jim. Percival Lowell did spend a decade or more traveling the East and writing about the region, so I don't think it's that much of a stretch to call him both an astronomer and an orientalist. But no matter. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:45, 30 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.