Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Serpens

Serpens

 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page. 

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/September 25, 2015 by Brianboulton (talk) 14:49, 8 September 2015 (UTC)



Serpens is a constellation of the northern hemisphere, representing a serpent. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, it remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. It is unique among the modern constellations in being split into two non-contiguous parts, the head (Serpens Caput) to the west and the tail (Serpens Cauda) to the east. Between these two halves lies the constellation of Ophiuchus, the "Serpent-Bearer", with the body of the serpent passing behind Ophiuchus. The brightest star in Serpens is the red giant star Alpha Serpentis, with an apparent magnitude of 2.63. The famous Eagle Nebula and its associated cluster are located in Serpens, as is the nearby star-forming region Westerhout 40. Notable extragalactic objects include Seyfert's Sextet, one of the densest galaxy clusters known; Arp 220, the prototypical ultraluminous infrared galaxy; and Hoag's Object, the most famed of the rare ring galaxies.
 * Most recent similar article(s): Corona Borealis/Corona Australis (16 August 2015)
 * Main editors:
 * Promoted: 14 August 2015
 * Reasons for nomination: Level 4 vital article in natural sciences. I'm fine with this article running over a month in the future, as to avoid overlap with the Corona Borealis/Corona Australis TFAs.
 * Support as nominator. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Support An important and well-written article. RO (talk)  22:31, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Support: the article is in good shape and it lists a number of interesting astronomical objects. Praemonitus (talk) 20:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Support: ....snakes on a plane (main) page!! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't know if it's just me, but I literally cannot make out anything in that image—it just looks like a dark rectangle with a slightly darker patch at the bottom. Even clicking through to view it full size, I can barely make out what it depicts. &#8209; iridescent 17:13, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * , the image depicts what part of the constellation actually looks like at night (the darker patch at the bottom is foreground trees). For me, the image shows up fine, and unfortunately I'm not sure of another good image we have to show (I don't want to use the Urania's Mirror image, since that depicts Ophiuchus as well). What would you think of showing an image of one of the striking astronomical objects in the constellation, such as Hoag's Object, instead? StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:02, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * See what others have to say about it, since this may just be an issue that only affects a few computers—I know I've had this issue with other very images of this kind when reduced to tiny mainpage size. I believe this is an issue with Apple displays; because their screen resolution is much higher than usual, very thin lines tend to vanish into the background because they're only a couple of pixels thick, so are effectively invisible on retina displays. (The key issue will be if the image is visible on iphones—if it's not, it probably does need to be changed as that will affect a lot of users.) &#8209; iridescent 21:12, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I just checked on my iPhone, and I can see it fine, both on mobile and desktop view. StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:47, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not terribly enlightening at thumbnail size, but very few illustrations are. It seems fine at full resolution on my screen. If skies cooperate over the next few nights, I'll try to make a higher-resolution alternative and see if that helps. –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:04, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd just like to mention that I can't see anything at this size either (that's a lie; I can see a darker area at the bottom left and tiny grey writing above it); I'm not looking at it on an i-anything; just a big monitor at high resolution. On the flip side I live in the middle of nowhere, so on the night this runs, providing there are no clouds, I can just look up at the sky; I'm guessing that's not a solution for everybody though. Belle (talk) 11:11, 8 September 2015 (UTC)