Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 15

Bottom importance
I think this project should add the Bottom-importance level to importance assessment. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 01:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Citing circulars
Hey mates! I've been working on GRB 970508. I'd like to cite an IAU Circular (this one), but I'm not sure how. I checked WP:CITET, but there doesn't seem to be any mention of circulars. I also asked Ealdgyth, but he didn't know either, so he suggested talking to you guys. Any thoughts? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:26, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You can probably just use a cite journal template and set the issue field to the circular number.&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

V415 Carinae / A Carinae
We have two articles V415 Carinae and A Carinae on the same star. Which name should the merged article use? (A Carinae is the older article, V415 is a CarloscomB spawn) 76.66.193.69 (talk) 04:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Isn't the V designation for suspected variables? My vote would be for "A Carinae", except that SIMBAD uses "V415 Car".&mdash;RJH (talk) 18:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * According to variable star designation, the V series is just when you run out of letters. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 06:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't use "A Carinae", too much potential for confusion with "a Carinae" which is a different star. Icalanise (talk) 20:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've merged the two articles together as V415 Car 70.29.213.241 (talk) 09:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

set indices for stars
For SIA on stars, it's been suggested that be used, and a guideline be developed by the WikiProject for perhaps a relaxed ruleset as compared to standard WP:DAB, to better convey information on star lists. See my talk page and user talk:Emperor for some background on the suggestion. It's related to the cleanup of Bayer designations I did earlier. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 14:04, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * There would need to be created a 76.66.193.69 (talk) 08:10, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * There's a now. 70.29.213.241 (talk) 06:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

NGC 246 and BD-12° 134
There is a suggestion to merge the star article BD-12° 134 into the planetary nebula article NGC 246. In any case, they need cleanup, since star names appear in the PN infobox, and viceversa. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 07:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Would be nice to see them expanded as well! How many such articles are there lying around? Sometimes I wonder what the purpose was of even creating them, if there was no more information available! CielProfond (talk) 13:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well the star article was created by User:CarloscomB, who created a very large amount of stubs with every single "name" listed in SIMBAD as part of their star infoboxes, some of which are inappropriate as they more properly refer to something else, some of which are wrong since SIMBAD notation isn't necessarily the actual name; most of the articles contain just the information found on the SIMBAD basic printout. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 22:34, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I heard of the "CarloscomB incident" if I may thus express myself. While I salute the will to make things known, it was incomplete and unresearched, which is sad. Also sad is the fact that there are so many astronomical objects that a lifetime would be greatly insufficient to detail all of them, so I guess CarloscomB's intention was to get us (the Wikipedia community) started, and that someone would eventually pick up on some objects, and someone else on other objects, and so on... I'll do whatever I can on whatever objects I know about! CielProfond (talk) 04:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Some of the CarloscomB articles are actually duplicate articles, where the star exists as an article under another name already (see previous section on "A Carinae"). He also seemed to think that any pulsating variable should be categorized under millisecond pulsar for some reason, and that every quasar was "the first quasar discovered", any active galaxy was a quasar. Stub sorting complained that he added to every stubby star article that already had a more specific template (like  etc) and several articles directly added stub categories instead of via template, or in addition to the stub template. There's also severe overcategorization on many of the articles (it's categorized in the parent, and the more specific type). Some articles suffer from copy-paste syndrome with uncorrected information (the info applied to the first article created, not the current article). He also created categories that had stub templates applied to them. And many articles don't comply with WP:LAYOUT or MOS:HEAD, having clear or - for no reason, with data placed after every other section (references, see also, external links occur BEFORE a data section) and use badly formatted tables that occupy full width for no reason, or float for no reason. Multiple star system articles also don't use the standard star component infoboxes, instead he made his own table format (which should use "class=wikitable" but instead uses his own formatting, which causes some layout problems). 76.66.193.69 (talk) 10:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese star names
Traditional Chinese star names has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.193.69 (talk) 11:39, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

List of stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue
List of stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue... does this list make much sense? 70.29.213.241 (talk) 22:07, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't think of any. It would probably be better to use redirects to the star articles.&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Anti-objects
The Requested articles/Natural_sciences section has request links for Antigalaxy, antimatter comet, Antiplanet, Antistar and Antiuniverse. I think these could be made into redirects to the antimatter article and discussed therein. Is there any reason to create separate articles? Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I reckon Antistar should redirect to 100th Window personally... Icalanise (talk) 22:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Aren't Antistars something you find in astrology? 70.29.213.241 (talk) 08:40, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It looks like there are several papers that cover the topic of anti-matter stars. I'm going to set up a disambiguation page for that one.&mdash;RJH (talk) 15:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Any such articles should take note of the fact that gamma-ray backgrounds and cosmic-ray studies have strongly limited the possibilities for such objects except in extremely distant regions of space, almost certainly not in the Milky Way. Anti-protons (&  positrons) are seen (which can be produced in high-energy cosmic ray collisions with normal matter) but no anti-He or more complex nuclei (which we think could only be created in stars) have been observed. There was a review on this subject about thirty years ago in Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, I think by Gary Steigman (OK, it's Gary Steigman, Observational Tests of Antimatter Cosmologies. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 14:339 (1976)), that was very negative.  As far as I know, nothing has changed since. The new Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) being sent up for the ISS might bring new light, with its new data, to this situation, I guess. Wwheaton (talk) 01:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

FAR on Comet
nominated Comet for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.Cirt (talk) 12:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

FA Review
nominated H II region for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -- Roberto  Segnali all'Indiano  10:44, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Feedback
I want to nominate List of Messier objects to featured list, any suggestion to make it better? Locos ~ epraix Beaste~praix 03:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You could consider adding a column for angular size. Please convert the "Galaxia lenticular" entries to English. Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk) 18:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

"Super-Pluton"
Once of the requested astronomy articles is Super-Pluton, which would essentially be a translation of the French-language Super-Pluton wikipedia article. (The latter appears to be based upon the Lykawka and Mukai (2008) paper.) This topic is covered in low detail at Planets beyond Neptune. Would it be better just to redirect Super-Pluton to the "Planets beyond Neptune" article, or put in a request for a translation of the French language article? My preference is the former, as the latter seems rather conjectural at this point. (The wikipedia translators have been very helpful in the past, so I didn't want to end up wasting their time.)&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * As there was no reply, I was "bold" and made it a redirect. Somebody can always generate an article if they have the interest.&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed planetbox characteristics change
We already have minimum_mass and minimum_mass_earth attributes for Planetbox character, does it make sense to add optional maximum_mass and maximum_mass_earth (or maybe a mass range attribute instead), for example for the cases where the maximum inclination of an extrasolar planet's orbit is known and therefore the upper bound on the planet masses can be given as well? For example see Gliese 581 d. unsigned by user:199.248.185.22 at 22:22, 21 April 2009


 * Considering that most exoplanets are compared to Jupiter, there should be Jupiter based parameters. 76.66.196.218 (talk) 04:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Planetbox discovery question
The Planetbox discovery template's self-referential documentation of the  parameter is not informative. Is the discovery site supposed to be the country, some smaller geographic subdivision, the observatory (and device?), or something else? Another editor at Talk:Gliese 581 equestioned how the parameter was used in that article, so I went to the template to find the answer, but the answer isn't there. Could a project member please document that parameter with more specificity? Thanks. Finell (Talk) 21:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Note that confusion (or ignorance) about this point is causing inconsistencies. For example, each of the discovery sites indicated for the four planets associated with Gliese 581 are different, even though they were all discovered by the same team, at the same locations. &mdash; Aldaron &bull; T/C 22:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I always thought it was supposed to indicate the observatory... 76.66.196.218 (talk) 03:44, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I would suggest using the observatory where the measurements were made (which would be La Silla Observatory, Chile in this case.) Spacepotato (talk) 04:56, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Solar system basic nominated for deletion at AfD
Solar system basic has been nominated for deletion, see Articles for deletion/Solar system basic. Note that the creator of this article has recently created a sandbox article User:HarryAlffa/Solar System synopsis that he categorized into article categories, so I expect the article to be recreated if deleted... 76.66.196.218 (talk) 13:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Lead section of Solar System
There is an active discussion on rewriting the lead section of Solar System, as Solar System is a featured article, more participants might be a good idea. See Talk:Solar System and Featured article review/Solar System/archive1 76.66.196.218 (talk) 14:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Alternate exoplanet designations in main text?
What is the correct way to handle exoplanets with multiple designations? Given that the data templates associated with both stars and exoplanets have fields for alternative designations, is it necessary to also mention these designations in the text? Since lists of alternatives could easily get out of hand (and quickly lead to silly edit wars) I would argue that, as a rule, alternative designations should be kept out of the text, and limited to the appropriate place in the data boxes. Are there general guidelines on this point? &mdash; Aldaron &bull; T/C 16:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're referring to Gliese 581 e, I had a pretty reasonably contention to your unreasonable example. Gl 581 e is used in news articles in the real world (as opposed to Wikipedia & wikiworld), while your TYC catalogue example isn't. 76.66.196.218 (talk) 01:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You're demonstrating my point. We could argue quite a bit about each of many designations that could reasonably be included in the main text. (The TYC designation is the only way to find Gliese 581 in Starry Night, for example; what about GJ, etc.?) I'm just looking for general guidance so that your line of reasoning doesn't trigger a wave of edits adding awkward "also known as"s to every exoplanet article, unless that's the agreed to policy. Im also suggesting that the issue can be avoided entirely, while satisfying all reasonable need for alternate designations, using the data templates provided. &mdash; Aldaron &bull; T/C 03:33, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The TYC designation is not used to specifically refer to the planet in the _world at large_. Even though you use TYC in Starry Night, it is not something you find in a source where someone would type it into Wikipedia to see what it's about. While names used in news articles are, and thus should be in the text. We should facilitate people trying to find information from what they see in outside sources. The TYC example comes up with zero results in GOOGLE SCHOLAR, and doesn't work with SIMBAD, and nothing in GOOGLE NEWS. Which is why it is an unreasonable example. If a reasonable number of news articles use it to refer to the thing, it should be in the article, since it is used in the real world. 76.66.196.218 (talk) 06:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You're missing my point (while again demonstrating it). I think redirects satisfy your goal without cluttering the article. Because of the large number of alternate designations for most stars, I fear we'll end up with parenthetical lists of alternate designations in every exoplanet and star article, as well as repeated arguments like this one about which designations are important enough to put there. There's no need for that to happen, since the "alternate designations" section of the infobox has it covered. &mdash; Aldaron &bull; T/C 22:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It hasn't happened on other star articles. Most stellar designations do not show up in research papers, or news reports, only a few would. AND many star articles do indicate multiple names (ie. Rigel Kentaurus) so I fail to see why we should EVER restrict it to a single designation, if several are in frequent or common usage. I can't think of other classes articles are restricted in such a way as to EXCLUDE commonly used names from the article text. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok. &mdash; Aldaron &bull; T/C 13:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

SN 2005gj
A new article on an interesting supernova. I'm a bit of an amateur so I'd appreciate review from someone with more experience. Thanks, &mdash; Anonymous Dissident  Talk 20:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT
Apologies for the notice, but this is being posted to every WikiProject to avoid accusations of systemic bias. Hiding T 13:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well that's quite a bit odd. From my reading of WP:CANVAS this is indiscriminate canvassing... 76.66.196.218 (talk) 06:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Infobox magnetosphere
I created this infobox for the articles about planetary magnetospheres (currently used in two articles). Comments and suggestions are appreciated. Ruslik (talk) 12:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Asteroid infoboxes
Hi WikiProject Astronomical objects. I notice that a whole bunch of asteroid articles (e.g. 1851 Lacroute, 1854 Skvortsov, 1855 Korolev, 1857 Parchomenko, etc) are displaying "Ap" and "Peri" in their infoboxes rather than "Aphelion" and "Perihelion". From looking at Template:Infobox Planet, I think one solution would be to remove the "apsis" parameter from the infoboxes in the articles. But I thought I'd better check whether that was the correct/best solution before updating a whole bunch of articles only to find out I was wrong (e.g. perhaps the template could/should be updated instead). BTW, once the correct solution is identified, if someone else feels like making the changes, don't feel obliged to wait for me to do it. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 16:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The template is permanently protected, and you don't appear to be an administrator. Why would you want to remove it? 76.66.202.139 (talk) 06:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry, I wasn't clear. What I am suggesting is omitting the apsis parameter from the articles, not removing it from the template. (When I wrote "perhaps the template could/should be updated instead", what I meant was that perhaps an alternative solution could be to modify the way the template handles the apsis parameter when the specified value is blank, not that the parameter should be removed from the template altogether - although I can see how what I wrote may have caused confusion). The Usage Notes in Template:Infobox Planet/doc indicate that the apsis parameter should only be included (in the article) for bodies that orbit bodies other than the Sun (which is not the case for asteroids). Note also that specifying "| apsis = " (i.e. including the parameter but giving it no value) in the article does not have the same effect as omitting the parameter from the article altogether. I hope that clarifies things. DH85868993 (talk) 08:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You could just convert them to aphelion and perihelion parameter names, but as for the template, it's not necessarily true that we won't know an asteroid around a star other than the Sun any time soon... since there might already be one found around a pulsar (unconfirmed).
 * So, IMHO yes, you can just convert the peri to perihelion and ap to aphelion.
 * 76.66.202.139 (talk) 13:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Magnetosphere of Jupiter
I nominated this article for peer review. You can leave your comments here. Ruslik (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of commons images
It looks like there is a bot called "CommonsDelinker" that is deleting all of the Chandra images because "Only non commercial use is allowed: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/image_use.html." Unfortunately this bot is not doing a very good job and is leaving remnants behind (for example here). You may want to check the pages where you see that bot in your watchlist.&mdash;RJH (talk) 14:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't the images be restored locally here under fair-use? 76.66.202.139 (talk) 04:54, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Possibly, although the wording in Image_use seems uncompromising. Under fair use we would be limited to low resolution images. This is really most unfortunate, given the high value of Chandra's images for illustration purposes.&mdash;RJH (talk) 21:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

133552 Itting-Enke
133552 Itting-Enke has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 04:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Removed from prod list after some expansion. Wwheaton (talk) 23:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

OTRS permission for Italian website's photos
See WT:AST, apparently permission is granted for use of these astrophotos from Fotographie - Immagini CCD 76.66.202.139 (talk) 04:17, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Planetary moon categories
A bunch of categories have been proposed to be renamed: See Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_May_20
 * Category:Mars' moons to Category:Moons of Mars
 * Category:Jupiter's moons to Category:Moons of Jupiter
 * Category:Saturn's moons to Category:Moons of Saturn
 * Category:Neptune's moons to Category:Moons of Neptune
 * Category:Uranus' moons to Category:Moons of Uranus

76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:33, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

OTRS permission for the Space Telescope Science Institute's Digitized Sky Survey website's photos
See WT:AST, apparently permission is granted for use of these astrophotos from STScI Digitized Sky Survey 76.66.196.85 (talk) 06:53, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Moon images categories up for deletion
Category:Images of moons and Category:Lunar images (images of The Moon) have been nominated for deletion at WP:CFD on May 23. 70.29.208.129 (talk) 04:06, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

ESA image categories up for deletion
Category:European Space Agency images and Category:ESA multimedia gallery images have been nominated for deletion at WP:CFD. As I understand it, ESA images are not eligible for Commons... 70.29.208.129 (talk) 04:06, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Article suggestion: Lunar lava tubes
If somebody has the time and the inclination, then I'd like to suggest a new article on the topic of lunar lava tubes that may be interesting to develop. There is a fair amount of scholarly information available on the web, both in regards to the lunar geology of the tubes and their implications for habitation and archival sites. (I've got this conjecture about tube interiors accumulating some cometary volatile deposits as per the polar ice traps, but I couldn't find anything to support that. But think how interesting such deposit layers would be, scientifically. :) It could perhaps be merged with rilles. Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 21:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps a suggestion should also be made at WP:MOON, WP:AST, and WP:GEOLOGY 70.29.213.241 (talk) 22:08, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Does your WikiProject care about talk pages of redirects?
Does your project care about what happens to the talk pages of articles that have been replaced with redirects? If so, please provide your input at User:Mikaey/Request for Input/ListasBot 3. Thanks, Matt (talk) 01:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I certainly think we should care about them, since they keep coming up for deletion because people suffer from WP:IDONTKNOWIT in relation to astronomy. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 10:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The RDlog also tracks redirect related processes... 76.66.202.139 (talk) 10:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

How many artist's impressions are too many?
Take a look at the HD 28185 b article: is it just me or does the infobox picture give far too much emphasis to the fictional habitable moon? Just how many artist's impressions of a fictional habitable moon does an article about a gas giant planet (with no known satellites) need anyway? Icalanise (talk) 17:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, the way I see the picture, it's as if the Earth-like "moon" was the planet itself, and the main planet looks more like a dull grey moon... CielProfond (talk) 22:37, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Further objection is that the images imply that Earth-size moons are a likely possibility in orbit around a gas giant, which is far from the case. The studies of forming planetary satellites seem to suggest that it is very hard to grow moons much larger than a few lunar masses, which is far too small to maintain habitable conditions. There's an extremely well-known example of what a moon-size satellite in the habitable zone of a star looks like... Icalanise (talk) 16:29, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess you can blame me for the new image that was posted (it is my work). I didn't mean to put so much emphasis on the fictional moon, but trying to make the image look like the previous pic that was in the planet's infobox. So my apologies for starting this outrage (please don't be mad at me). I have cropped the image and made it show more emphasis on the planet, and only a small look at the moon. — Nuclear  Vacuum  17:28, 1 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not so much a problem with your artist's impression (actually I quite liked it as an artistic piece - do you have a gallery website of your own?), but the point is that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia not an art gallery, and the images need to be as relevant to the subject matter as possible. The issue was more about having two images both pushing the habitable moon idea, which is in no way proven. Yours had the significant advantage of having the planet's appearance vaguely similar to how a gas giant at that distance from its star is predicted to look, so I got rid of the other one, despite my personal preference for depictions of barren habitable planets (consider what Earth would have looked like for the majority of its history, before land-based plants evolved). Icalanise (talk) 17:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Bottom importance rating
The 'Bottom' importance rating has been added to WPAstronomy and the category Category:Bottom-importance Astronomy articles has been established. I populated it with a few articles. Please add some more if you know of suitable pages.&mdash;RJH (talk) 23:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Cepheid variables infobox data
Does the information on the various articles in Category:Cepheid variables need reviewing? I tagged a few because the absolute magnitude figures looked quite wrong, as if the figures applied to a faint companion, or maybe were confused with apparent magnitude. For examples, see U Aquilae and 3 Camelopardalis. 84user (talk) 10:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * These numbers are apparent B magnitudes, mistakenly entered by an editor as absolute V magnitudes. Unfortunately, many of our star articles have this problem. Spacepotato (talk) 20:05, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

3621 Curtis
3621 Curtis has been prodded for deletion. 70.29.212.226 (talk) 12:17, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It was de-prodded by an anonymous editor without comment.&mdash;RJH (talk) 18:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It was reprodded by another user, and deprodded for being a reprod by a fourth user. 70.29.212.226 (talk) 06:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Once a PROD is removed, the policy says that if an editor feels it should be deleted then the article should be taken through the AfD process instead.&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Per the discussion at Talk:Earth, I'd like to suggest that we consider modifying some of the astronomy object templates to accommodate pronunciation information. The problem with interruption of flow exists on other astronomical object pages besides the Solar System planets. Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 18:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * For the starbox templates, I'd like to propose introducing a pronunciation row into Starbox observe. Any objections?&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As there were no objections, this has been implemented. A 'pronounce=' option has been added to the Starbox observe template.&mdash;RJH (talk) 17:38, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Infobox Planet has also been updated to include the "pronounce" field. Unlike the Starbox template, no link to WP:IPA for English is provided, as it is anticipated that users will pass a suitable template, such as IPA-en to this parameter. The intent is to get pronunciation information out of the lead sentence of articles, and put it in the infobox instead, which is a better place for it.--Srleffler (talk) 04:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I had thoughts along the same lines afterward. If the pronunciation article was expanded, then we could perhaps use that for the link. Right now it's pretty bare bones.&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The planet, star and constellation infoboxes have all been converted over to include the pronunciation. It seems to help the layout of the lead quite a bit, at least IMHO. :-) –RJH (talk) 20:29, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Alpha Pyxidis
Asking here because it doesn't look like many people come by the Alpha Pyxidis article, so putting a citation needed tag would be useless. Any source available for the name "Al Sumut"? Google searches are primarily turning up Wikipedia mirrors. Icalanise (talk) 23:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * From a non-RS forum post... ... " السموت " seems to be azimuth. 70.29.212.226 (talk) 06:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * But is it actually used as a name for Alpha Pyxidis? Icalanise (talk) 07:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Not that I could find.&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Well I've removed it from the article as it was unsourced (and in a WP:WEASELly statement to boot). Icalanise (talk) 19:24, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Makes sense to me. I sometimes move such entries to the talk page and ask for verification, but those inevitably lie dormant.&mdash;RJH (talk) 21:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Asteroid

 * (Duplicated from WP:Astronomy.)

I have done a GA Reassessment of the article, Asteroid as part of the GA Sweeps project. I have found that the article does not meet the current GA Criteria. As such I have held the article for a week pending fixes. My review can be found here. I am notifying all interested projects about this. If you have any questions please contact me on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 22:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that the article needs work. It's probably a strong B class article at present.&mdash;RJH (talk) 21:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Sigma 1694 / Σ 1694 / Struve 1694
Sigma 1694 (Σ 1694) has been requested to be renamed as Struve 1694

70.29.212.226 (talk) 04:08, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Article was moved. Icalanise (talk) 18:22, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I wonder why there are two infobox templates on that page? They give the page an ugly layout on my browser. Is this an optical double? Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:51, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * According to the article it is, one is almost twice as far away as the other. 76.66.193.20 (talk) 04:22, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, according to Tokovinin's catalogue of physical multiple stars, it's a physical triple. Icalanise (talk) 23:17, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Something appears to be amiss then, because the parallax values check out at SIMBAD (assuming the HD catalogue numbers are correct).&mdash;RJH (talk) 17:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Starbox changes
In Starbox observe and in the other applicable Starbox templates, I suggest that we, in the #if parser functions, change the parameter names in this way: →. This will make the infobox rows visible on the template page, but in articles they will still be visible only if they are specified. Iceblock (talk) 13:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea. I agree.&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I made a change. Ruslik_ Zero 04:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the positive response! I meant to suggest changes to all the Starboxes with #if parser functions. I am sorry I got my wording wrong. I hope it's OK with similar changes in the other Starboxes. Iceblock (talk) 19:55, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * When I read your comments a second time, I interpret them as an OK to change the other ones too. Just now, I changed Starbox character and Starbox reference, but I'm unsure about the best way of doing it in Starbox orbit, Starbox detail and Starbox relpos as they offer different parameters for the same facts, e.g. axis and axis_unitless in Starbox orbit and moreover, the computation in Starbox astrometry presents a case neeeding consideration. Iceblock (talk) 22:20, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I made changes. Ruslik_ Zero 08:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Why does Starbox detail list star ages in years and not Gya? -- Kheider (talk) 23:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Volcanically active worlds
Volcanically active worlds has been prodded for deletion. 70.29.208.69 (talk) 05:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Over-linking?
I've created a series of typing aid templates today in order to represent the Lagrangian points: Since the template is also a link to the Lagrangian point page, replacing existing text in order to use the template has created a possible issue. There are many instances where the text is now. So, I wanted to gather some opinion on whether or not this is Over-linking. I was considering going back and delinking Lagrangian point, so that they would all look like, but the point templates are fairly small so I'm uncertain about what would be best. For a "live" example of this, take a look at 2005 TO74 (the last sentence).
 * L1
 * L2
 * L3
 * L4
 * L5

This discussion is also posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Space — Ω (talk) 20:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * These don't seem work work properly inside links. For example:
 * and points
 * compared to:
 * L4 and L5 points—
 * Please fix if you can. Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 18:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I didn't really intend for them to be located inside of links... removing them from within linked text is something that I edited while converting a bunch of existing text to use the templates, yesterday... really, these were only intended to be typing aids anyway (they save from having to type and, which also makes reading the source text easier). I/we could just remove the linking in the templates, if this is going to be a continuous issue... — Ω (talk) 18:19, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, in retrospect that was a bit of a brain fart on my part. It was an edit from the Neptune article that I reverted, and was clearly not going to work in its current form.&mdash;RJH (talk) 17:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No, that's OK. This is actually a good example of what brought this subject up here. I've edited the Neptune page myself to look like all of the others now do (see: Neptune). The link to the Lagrangian point page is there, but after the linked and, which is what this topic was started about. — Ω (talk) 17:38, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it would be better handled by one template, using some form of syntax based on Lundefined -- G W … 22:45, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what I was going to do at first (as a matter of fact, I had almost that exact same code written out early on), but then I realized that in order to use it we would need to type, wich pretty much defeats the purpose behind creating a typing aid template...
 * One of us could create a Lagrangian point template in addition to the L1 to L5 templates, of course. — Ω (talk) 22:59, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * has just been deleted, that might be a better option for naming a universal template. -- G W … 10:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

The list of extrasolar planets
I have started a discussion about the status of the list of extrasolar planets article and ways to improve it. Discussion welcome at Talk:List of extrasolar planets. Icalanise (talk) 21:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I've updated this to put an RfC to attract more feedback (hopefully!). Icalanise (talk) 21:28, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Peer review on Beta Pictoris
Hello, I have requested a peer review of the Beta Pictoris article as a preliminary to attempting to get it to featured status. Icalanise (talk) 18:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Changes to popular pages lists
There are a few important changes to the popular pages system. A quick summary: -- Mr.Z-man 23:51, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The "importance" ranking (for projects that use it) will be included in the lists along with assessment.
 * The default list size has been lowered to 500 entries (from 1000)
 * I've set up a project on the Toolserver for the popular pages - ~alexz/pop/.
 * This includes a page to view the results for projects, including the in-progress results from the current month. Currently this can only show the results from a single project in one month. Features to see multiple projects or multiple months may be added later.
 * This includes a new interface for making requests to add a new project to the list.
 * There is also a form to request a change to the configuration for a project. Currently the configurable options are the size of the on-wiki list and the project subpage used for the list.
 * The on-wiki list should be generated and posted in a more timely and consistent manner than before.
 * The data is now retained indefinitely.
 * The script used to generate the pages has changed. The output should be the same. Please report any apparent inconsistencies (see below).
 * Bugs and feature requests should be reported using the Toolserver's bug tracker for "alexz's tools" -

WikiProject Astronomy/Image Review
WikiProject Astronomy/Image Review was used in 2007 to both request and review images that could appear on articles. Nothing new has been discussed since 2007, but it seems to me it was a better way to review controversial images and their placements than edit warring.

WikiProject Astronomy's second paragraph links to it; should this project do so too?

What prompted me to add this note is Talk:Gliese 581. 84user (talk) 21:22, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It probably should be indicated here... (the review page)
 * As for Gliese 581.. that isn't an image dispute, it's a caption dispute...
 * 76.66.192.91 (talk) 06:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move VB 10→Gliese 752
Discussion here. Icalanise (talk) 17:57, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Age of 61 Cygni
The papers I checked for the age of the 61 Cygni system seem to be all over the map on the age of this system, ranging from 10 Gyr based on kinematic data down to an upper bound of below a Gyr from the isocrone method. I just wrote up a comparison of the different estimates in the Properties section para. 6. Is there a more authoritative value I should be using, or is that good enough? Thank you!&mdash;RJH (talk) 18:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Would be better to explain in the article how each of the methods works, especially to emphasise the difference between methods that take the intrinsic properties of the star and the kinematic method which relies on the galactic motion. There's also this paper about interferometric measurement of the stellar radii which uses evolutionary models to get 6.0 Gyr. I'm also not convinced that quoting only the kinematic age in the infobox reflects the debate too well. Icalanise (talk) 20:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The value in the infobox is just a legacy of previous versions and hasn't been updated since I didn't know what value to replace it with. Yes I agree that the techniques can be better explained in the article, but I was hoping to get past this issue first. :-) Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 21:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)