Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy/Archive 21

Questions on Radial velocity
Hi, there are two questions at Talk:Radial velocity (about the definition and the intro paragraph) which could use an eye of an expert. Thanks, AxelBoldt (talk) 23:10, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * , you sure about that? Neither page has been edited for weeks (the Talk or Article). Primefac (talk) 00:16, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Oops, I'm sorry, the page I had in mind was Talk:Velocity dispersion. Cheers, AxelBoldt (talk) 19:08, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I tried to shed some light on the issue on the talk page. Gap9551 (talk) 21:31, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Conversion between units of angle
I've asked for convert to support angle conversions (radians, gradians, degrees of arc, arcminutes, arcseconds, DMS, hms); since some astronomical sources use arcminutes and others milliarcseconds (mas); and our sky coordinate system uses hmsDMS, while some sources provide decimal degrees instead; it would be useful to have convert output something acceptable. (ofcourse, that wouldn't help with measurements expressed as the size of the full moon) For the discussion, see template talk:convert -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 06:12, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Apparently, parallax, angular separation, right ascension and declination measurements have infinite accuracy, thus need perfect conversion to infinite precision, so cannot be added to CONVERT? -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:22, 17 September 2015 (UTC)


 * There is a recent re-definition of parsec as an exact number of meters, rather than the angle arctangent. Would that satisfy the conversion concerns? The actual difference in measure is quite miniscule. Evensteven (talk) 05:49, 17 September 2015 (UTC)


 * That would need to be an additional request, to add astronomical parallax to/from distance conversion. The current request is simply to support units of angle and conversion between them (such as between arcseconds and arcminutes; or between mas and arcseconds) I figured it would be a good first step if we could change measured angles to consistent units, but apparently it does not make sense to the people at CONVERT. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 03:00, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Infobox colors
All articles about minor planets use the template Infobox planet which has an optional "background" (or bgcolour) parameter to set a bgcolor for the subheadings or section titles within the infobx. In most cases, this, while and  have different ones. I also encountered some articles with another or no background color at all. (PS: comets using the Infobox Comet template use a hardcoded, yellow background (e.g. 81P/Wild), while several others, such as Tempel 1 and 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko use the Infobox planet template instead and without any defined color for the subheadings).

Question: Is there a concept behind the choice for these colors (and the different templates used for comets)? If not, wouldn't it be a good idea to define a consistent color scheme that corresponds to a given classification? For example: main-belt asteroids, dwarf planets (and candidates) KBOs, comets, centaurs, trojans, NEOs. For such a color-classification scheme, a few simple rules would suffice to resolve any ambiguity. -- Cheers,  R fassbind  – talk   14:19, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is anything consistent. Good idea to set up such a scheme. --JorisvS (talk) 15:29, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thx for the reply. Here's a draft. What do you think? --  R fassbind  – talk   00:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Let's make "Asteroids" explicitly the belt asteroids, the trojans also include the other groups of trojans, and explicitly have the dwarf planets include the possibles. Why should we separate NEAs and PHAs? And could we separate the (possibly) round moons from the non-round ones? And how should we handle the trojan moons?
 * I was thinking, to increase consistency, we could hard-code the colors from a category entered into the template, maybe generate an error or something when a non-valid category is entered. --JorisvS (talk) 09:03, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm having difficulty seeing a benefit for readers from this fine-grained color coding. Could you clarify what goal you're trying to achieve? Why not one color for all minor planets? What the articles would seem to need more of are solid references, not old school color coding. Praemonitus (talk) 15:42, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Praemonitus, color-coding seems to me a useful thing (as explained in my first post) and one thing is not mutually exclusive to the other, I presume. Also, comets are not minor planets, despite having currently the same color. Besides not seeing a benefit, do you see anything potentially detrimental? Otherwise I prefer to decide for myself how to spend my time on wikipedia. --  R fassbind  – talk   16:45, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi JorisvS, thx for the feed-back. I agree with your feed-back regarding the classification and divisions I proposed (i.e no NEA/PHA distinction, trojans are not just Jupiter-Trojans, DPs include a certain group of candidates, and asteroids are in fact those from the main-belt as I can't think of any other group not mentioned in the list above). There are just four fall-backs or default categories: asteroids, comets, TNOs and moons. They will absorb everything that is otherwise not clearly classified (an example would be binary asteroids). As to your question about trojan moons, I'd say they are first and foremost satellites, their category is therefore (the grey-scale allows different types of moons to be distinguished in a more refined way, if that should ever be desired one day). Last, does your "round vs non-round distinction" only consider "moons"? If so, the grey-scale would allow for several subdivision for the moon-category. However, concerning your suggestion for a more sophisticated implementation, I do not agree. I've studied the templates, their history and documentation, as well as a hundred articles that use them. For a number of reasons I think the simpler the better: the proposed color-scheme is completely unaffected by the template. I'd really like to keep it that way. The color-scheme is optional, and, if consensus can be reached, only recommended in the documentation of the template. Articles like those of the Galilean moons (e.g. see Europa (moon)) can keep their "group"-color, that's not a problem.
 * Classification system:
 * Implementation:

It seems like the template Infobox planet is about 3,300 times transcluded. In addition, there are also articles about comets using the Infobox comet template. As most of the articles will be belt-asteroids, I guess the color-scheme will require 1,000 to 1,500 articles to be edited. That's actually not a lot and I could do that myself (exoplanets use a different template and the color in Infobox comet is hardcoded). I plan to take a closer look at the exact number of articles involved and find out whether a bot-request would be any good. If you have any further suggestions, please let me know. Thx. --  R fassbind  – talk   16:46, 18 September 2015 (UTC)


 * You said you wanted a consistent color scheme, but all one color is a consistent color scheme. I'd like to understand why you think it's a good idea to have all these different colors? Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 17:04, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There is an option to color the background for the headings, which currently has no consistent usage. All one color is better than the current situation, but standardizing it with different colors can make it a visual aid to an object's classification. --JorisvS (talk) 18:05, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * A visual aid to whom? If you don't already know the color code scheme, then it has no apparent benefit. Anyway, the classification should be mentioned in the first sentence. Can't we standardize that? Praemonitus (talk) 19:36, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Since I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, I have great difficulties to imagine how such a thing could possibly be feasible. Maybe you want to post a specific proposal for the standardization of WP:LEADSENTENCE for these articles? --  R fassbind  – talk   21:51, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmm, well that's not what I'm saying. Suppose an article says, "Object X is an asteroid". Now you want to add a color code to make sure the reader isn't confused by that? The object type should be sufficiently explained by the lead, and that is all you need. By standardizing that, I'm saying the lead should provide sufficient information to explain what the astronomical object is. Praemonitus (talk) 21:56, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The colors are not meant to compensate for insufficiently explained lead-sentences (on the contrary) here are some real world examples such as 4179 Toutatis and (208996) 2003 AZ84. While you consider the color-scheme "fine-grained", I can assure you that they are quite the opposite. You may have a point about the lead-sentences in general, but that's hardly relevant for my proposal. I'm not very good at explaining, so I have to accept your rejection of the color-scheme-idea in principal. Noted. Thx for your interest in the topic. -- Cheers,  R fassbind  – talk   23:53, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 02:43, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Why do we have a distinct Infobox comet anyway? What purpose does it serve that cannot be subsumed under Infobox planet? --JorisvS (talk) 18:05, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I had the same question. My first thought was that it's a legacy thing, but I could be wrong of course. It is currently 241 times transcluded and almost as old as the infobox planet template. --  R fassbind  – talk   21:51, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't see any harm from a colour scheme -- I have wondered about it previously -- but I think the one you show above is too fine-grained. The effect is distributed across pages, with no to-hand legend for readers and editors (on each page using it -- there should be one, somewhere, maybe Solar system, at least so editors can find it), so I think it should be kept to a small number of distinct colours. The scheme as presented also invites contention: is 19521 Chaos a DP? There are also competing schemes for the organisation of TNOs. Maybe planet/moon/comet/minor-planet, possibly splitting the last into cis-jupiter/trans-jupiter/trojan, for 4-6 colours. I.e., something simple that has a reasonable chance for a reader to deduce even without a legend. Even with something that simple you have to make a decision on Chiron and the like. Tbayboy (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe we could add question mark with a link to the legend? I would have Chiron as a centaur rather than a comet, seems more sensible. Chaos is very possibly a DP, so it would use the (possible)-dwarf-planet color. Anything that is listed by a reliable source as a possibility should get that color. --JorisvS (talk) 07:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * A legend link is fine (if not too obtrusive), but the category information should be in the lead or infobox, anyway (as Praemonitus says, above).
 * Re Chiron and Chaos, you're then adding more categories, which (in that context) I was proposing to restrict. And also hoping to reduce the arguments over whether a particular body should be in this category or that; DP is just the most obvious.
 * All that said, I don't really object to Rfassbind's proposed scheme. From the reader viewpoint, if it's too complicated, it can be ignored with no consequence. The only (slight) downsides seem to be on the editing side, for maintenance and category determination. Tbayboy (talk) 15:11, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What more categories? I mean simply give Chiron the color all centaurs get and Chaos the color that is given to dwarf planets and possible dwarf planets alike. Giving them the same color avoids that. --JorisvS (talk) 15:27, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Thx for all the brain-storming guys. Very much appreciated.

Here's what I came up with: All sums up, as already said, to a total of nine colors. I'm still assessing the number of involved articles for each category. Any feedback is appreciated -- Cheers  R fassbind  – talk   19:19, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a 9-color-scheme. Take a look at the examples without referring to the legend and tell me if it makes sense to you or not.
 * I don't see a maintenance issue (since I'm prepared to do these changes until each and every article is covered) and the categories hardly change except for dwarf planets.
 * By the way I have no clear idea about an appropriate limit (diameter) for dwarf planets. It certainly won't be IAU's official classification. What do you propose?
 * I'm also against any additional features that may or may not complicate the implementation. There are easily 1,000 edits and follow-up fixes to be done. My focus is to do a simple task well (not the other way around).
 * I think the color-scheme should be displayed on the template's documentation page. That has to be enough. It's a visual short-link for regular visitors of these kind of articles, not an introduction about the classification of the bodies in the Solar System.
 * I have also formulated the rules to specify the color assignment: there are comets, moons and dwarf planets; everything else is either a TNO or a CNO. In addition, there are a few (hopefully) obvious subdivisions for these two groups.
 * Look goods, the nine colors and the rules. I'd say that because the dwarf-planet color is meant to include candidates, we should make this actually include all reasonable candidates. This means everything estimated above 200 km in diameter, the delimiter for the 'possible' category in Brown's list. Although we can expect some not to be dwarf planets, anything above this size could be round, which is, after all, what it means be a candidate. It also means that we can base it on (a) source(s) instead of Wikipedians' preferences. --JorisvS (talk) 20:31, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * So 200 km? You're an optimist, I like that! Based on Tbayboy's mentioned maintenance argument, I'd presume the threshold should be where the least number of future edits are required. Well, nobody knows that of course. For the color-scheme it's a minor issue: about 100 articles would be labelled dwarf planet for a threshold at 200 km; about 50 articles, if we opt for the likely ones at 500 km; and only 10 articles for a limit above 900 km. The differences (and therefore potential changes) are small compared to 3,000+ of articles. -- As always, thx  R fassbind  – talk   22:37, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Since the legend isn't likely to be seen by readers, I don't think it really matters where the cut-off is, it's not an assertion of any sort. I would prefer something more in the 400-500 range just because: 1) I suspect there aren't many TNO articles for objects smaller than that (do you know how many there might be?), and 2) it seems weird that a 200 km TNO gets coloured with Pluto but Vesta gets coloured with Itokawa. But don't take that as an objection to 200 if you prefer that -- any rational scheme is better than what we have now. It will be interesting to see how long it takes until somebody changes Pluto's colour to "planet". :-) Tbayboy (talk) 05:12, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thx. Agreed, a higher limit is more likely to find consensus. Are those 9 color still too many? Are they sufficiently distinct (links above)? Your question: no, I don't know yet the exact number of articles. The estimate above is based on the list of possible dwarf planets. Also, I think people who have an issue with the DP-status of Pluto are generally too "superficial" to notice the implicit discrepancy of size you mentioned. If you find article that don't fit or contradict the color-scheme, please let me know. -- Thx,  R fassbind  – talk   11:39, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * But what should the cut-off be then and the rationale for excluding some that really are candidates? --JorisvS (talk) 12:53, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If 200 can be a candidate, why not 199? (There is one at that size in Brown's list, and a few at 197.) Any cutoff size either potentially excludes some DPs or potentially includes some non-DPs. That's why my proposed colour-scheme (above) didn't have a DP category: it's easier to stick to dynamics, which are reasonably well known. Tbayboy (talk) 14:14, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Tbayboy, your proposed divisions "planet/moon/comet/minor-planet" is hardly a division at all, since a guesstimated 90% of all articles would fall into the category "minor-planet". So your additional "cis-jupiter/trans-jupiter/trojan" subdivisions are de-facto mandatory. Although cis-Jupiter (or cis-Jovians) is a completely unfamiliar term on wikipedia (at least according to wikipedia's internal search engine) it's similar to the cis/trans-Neptunian division and subdivisions I proposed (however the "Jovian-division" does not allow for trojans to be a subdivision, due to the Neptune-trojans). Cis-Jovians would correspond to the main-belt and NEAs, and trans-Jovians to the centaurs, KBOs and scattered disc objects. In addition I chose to use a category "dwarf planets and candidates" which you rather prefer to ignore because it's hard to find a consensus on the limit. So my classification has four categories more than your proposal. Am I too complicated? I don't think so. Here's my rationale: Hope that wasn't too long, --  R fassbind  – talk   17:50, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * based on my preliminary guesses at least 60%–75% fall into the main-belt and NEO category. What good is it to have a giant cis-Jovian category?
 * Counting planets as a category is only a formality, increases the number of categories, while those 8 articles are completely irrelevant compared to the total of 3,000+ articles we're talking about.
 * ignoring DP because "it's hard" is not the way I approach things on wikipedia; this is true for all of us, otherwise we wouldn't be here in the first place. I have no problem to accept Brown's 500 km-"likely"-limit as clear delimiter of our color-scheme (500nbsp;km is an example only). It's only a convention we choose, and is indeed very helpful as a color to tell DP-candidates apart from all other TNO's.
 * Scattered disc. Looking into the future, this is probably a very helpful category as many more will be discovered and orbits will become less ambiguous. Currently it's the least useful category.
 * No color-scheme will ever be consistent and complete. Today, I came across this body: which seems to be a very difficult case.
 * To me, a consistent implementation of any color-scheme is as important as the scheme itself. The current system is inconsistent (see Custom colors used in articles)
 * The small number of categories was because Praemonitus asked why not just one, so a small number was intended as a compromise. Also, too many becomes too hard for general readers to deduce. I'm not sure where that line is, but 12 seems too many to me. Six seems easy enough, and maybe 10 is okay. I drew the line at Jupiter, rather than Neptune, because 1) roughly where the frost line is, so it generally separates rocky from icy (but not always!), and 2) centaurs are sometimes considered part of the scattered disc, scattered inward versus outward (see the MPC lists, amongst others). I was considering the Jupiter trojans as trans-, but there are also Earth and Mars trojans, so on reconsideration I would just drop the category (from the scheme I outlined, not suggesting you do it to yours) and treat them as any other resonant MP.
 * ER61 is extreme, but there are other scattered bodies that blur the centaur/SDO division, dipping inside Uranus but with semi-major outside Neptune (37 non-comets from my grab of the MPC list, but I don't know how many have pages, if any). Looking at the MPC tables, there are also a bunch (looks like scores) that blur the centaur/main-belt division.
 * All that just for your amusement. Nobody else is chiming in, JorisvS likes your scheme, and I'm good with it, so go for it. Even in the worst-case, it's better than the status quo. Tbayboy (talk) 22:06, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify things: the color-scheme contains 9 colors, not 10 or 12. I wrote an entire page with a section displaying 9 examples to get that point across. Also, when you drop the "trojans" in a cis/trans-Jovian-division there is no "resonant" attribute for minor planets and even more than 90% of all articles will be simply cis-Jovians (as previously estimated). Last, I would be out of my mind to attempt editing 1,000 articles with follow-ups when only 1 single fellow editor really supports me. I obviously need to rally for support differently.--   R fassbind  – talk   23:25, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Galaxy cloud
The AFD Articles for deletion/Galaxy cloud looks like it needs some subject matter experts. Would anyone mind taking a look? shoy (reactions) 20:41, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Was the Gliese consensus not closed properly?
I noticed that Legobot Removed the RFC tag for GJ, Gl, or Gliese (Star Catalog) and didn't seem to archive it or post what the resolution is. I can't undo it due to other edits taken place so can someone look into this?? -Davidbuddy9 (talk) 22:20, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure there was a complete consensus, but then I'm not sure it matters all that much anyway. If a star article is currently named using its GJ designation then it seems like there's not much benefit in renaming it to Gliese-Jahreiss, any more than changing HD to Henry Draper or HIP to Hipparcos. We've got bigger fish to fry. Praemonitus (talk) 02:46, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It clearly was not about renaming GJ to Gliese-Jahreiss. You should read over it again to get the full picture. Also this is a pretty big fish as some are possible habitable and have high ESI's and are not to far away. Anyhow the issue is apparently fixed. Actually now that I think about the bigger fish could be that a bot closed it incorrectly??? Davidbuddy9 (talk) 05:00, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Right. I did read the discussion and I presented my perspective. I'll add that renaming a GJ article to use Gliese when the star was never in the original Gliese catalogue is deceptive and wrong, at least to me. Nor does it need to be renamed to Gliese-Jahreiss. If it was in the original catalogue, then either form is valid. I'm not intending to be offensive here, but to me the entire topic is marginal to the point where it is almost indistinguishable from irrelevance. We've got bigger fish to fry, like much more critical articles that are in marginal shape. Praemonitus (talk) 22:25, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Historically relevant, or listcruft?
A recently closed TfD has called for the substitution and/or deletion of the distance tables (which are made by templates) in a number of stellar articles. Some, such as Alpha Centauri or Arcturus, are fairly large, but others such as at GJ 1002 have only two or three entries. The templates are ugly and are nearly impossible to directly subst. Are these tables particularly encyclopaedic? There does not seem to be any particular "historical" significance to them, since it's really just a case of people getting more accurate with measurements. Plus, the distance value is already in the starboxes templates.

TL,DR: These templates will be a royal pain to substitute, but do we really need to keep the tables? Primefac (talk) 22:12, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * My perspective is that the tables are at best the equivalent of an appendix, as they don't belong in the main body of the article. For that reason I've been moving them to the end when I happen upon them. If it were up to me, I would yank them all out with ruthless dispatch. But, judging by the TfD discussion, at least some people seem to find them interesting, even though they're a nuisance to maintain and nearly off topic. Wikipedians seem to love collecting minutiae. Praemonitus (talk) 22:34, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think in most articles they are contraventions of WP:NOT not being a datadump, not covering everything. If the parallax measurements are important, they can be sustained in a paragraph to explain why the measurement is important. Alpha Centauri (and a few others) is a special case, as one of the first stars to have its parallax measured, indeed very few were measured before 1900. But modern measurements are not of such importance as to be in that table at Alpha Centauari. The important measurements at AlphaCen are all 19th century ones, the other ones are WP:TRIVIA -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 06:43, 26 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Listcruft in almost all cases. If it's important, we can always bring it back, but I can't see it worth the hassle to keep those in 99%+ of cases. Alpha centauri might be an exception, and maybe in the case of the Pleiades where the distance is a bit controversial (is it parallax based however?). But other than that, I can't see this stuff belonging here. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:09, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Notable or cruft?
Someone is on a not-obviously-notable article creation spree: Special:Contributions/Willhsmit Lithopsian (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Probably worth pointing them at WP:NASTRO before they create an army of non-notable stubs. Modest Genius talk 14:07, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * That's some weird edit history... after 10 years of mostly politics and military, it's like they suddenly got religion (astronomy), and started star articles... -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 06:04, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The absolute magnitude values are probably being computed based on parallax, and so are likely wrong in most cases. Praemonitus (talk) 20:13, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I would tell them to at least keep it to stars brighter than vmag 6.0. I assume Wikipedia still has many missing articles for stars brighter than 5.0. -- Kheider (talk) 20:23, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I already did that, and Willhsmit responded with magnitude 6.5 on my talk page. So there is probably a limit for them that is a bit dimmer than what we would choose. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:06, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Given my experience with main-belt asteroids this year, I would not expect every vmag 6.2 star to pass an AfD since the limit of the naked eye is highly depend on the site conditions and the observers experience/eyes. Stars brighter than 6.0 should be safe. -- Kheider (talk) 21:13, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Perhaps NASTRO should explicitly state the 6.0 mag cutoff. Otherwise we're open to claims of stars having been spotted down to 7 or more (by naturally talented and experienced observers at extremely dark sites...). Our article on naked eye even claims some visual observations at mag 8, which I simply don't believe. Modest Genius talk 11:14, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I see no reason that a young person with exceptionally sharp eyes and large pupils could not see mag 8, so I do not think you can just "make-up" a NASTRO mag 6 cutoff without a vote. Besides you can AfD any article. -- Kheider (talk) 15:51, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This is a point to consider. Mag 6 is average. But when I was young, I looked at the Pleiades on a clear night in a medium-sized town at low elevation (good, but not optimum conditions) and with the naked eye counted 24 stars. No one else with me, young or old, could do the same, but my eyes were very good then. It was well beyond the 7 or so stars I was told was pretty average. I'm not sure what the faintest mag was, but 6 is supposedly an average only. I don't know where a cutoff should be, but it's worth considering going beyond just average. Evensteven (talk) 20:07, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Are we seriously suggesting that there should be a hard cutoff? Whatever it is set to will just be a red flag for people to create stubs for every star they find down to that limit.  That already happens with the current passing reference to magnitude 6.5.  Moving it doesn't really solve the problem.  Not that I think there is a real problem with the notability criteria, but further emphasizing a magnitude limit is the wrong approach.  Magnitude 6.6 is hardly more or less notable than magnitude 6.4, and without anything else interesting to say about the star probably neither are notable.  Lithopsian (talk) 21:15, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, my, no, not on my part. I'm truly sorry I used that word "cutoff", and wasn't thinking in those terms at all. I was only thinking that somewhere there is a boundary between "visible to the naked eye" and "not visible", and even that that is a region with no clear boundaries. No policy implications whatever. Evensteven (talk) 23:04, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm a little late to this discussion, but I've gone ahead and demoted these stubs to list redirects based on the negative feedback (without regard to magnitude, but excepting several binaries and exoplanet hosts that look fixable). I will chime in that the explicit reference to the HR catalogue in NASTCRIT is misleading since it's such an exact criterion, but I don't have a suggestion for what you might replace it with (or remove and not replace?). Willhsmit (talk) 09:10, 26 September 2015 (UTC)


 * On a semi-related topic, it would be useful to have a template similar to NRIS-only for astronomy articles that rely entirely on SIMBAD. There is One source, but it is too non-specific. Praemonitus (talk) 22:05, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's a test case: HD 155951, magnitude 6.49; nothing shows up on Google scholar and SIMBAD shows only catalogue entries. It looks to me like it would not satisfy WP:GNG, and hence should fail AfD. To me that's enough to suggest that dropping the magnitude to 6.5 may be going too far in terms of "assuming" notability. We don't need to be particularly lenient on the magnitude range—it's incumbent upon the article editors to demonstrate notability. Praemonitus (talk) 03:16, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, notability. Let me support that comment. And given my comments about visibility above, let me say that I don't think notability depends on visibility at all, except to the individual stargazer some fine night. Looking back, I did seem to imply something else in that visibility discussion above, but was actually just off the track. Sorry for the noise. Evensteven (talk) 05:23, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You're correct about that, and it says as much in WP:NASTCRIT. To me at least, the main benefit of the criteria is in avoiding unnecessary notability checks, because that makes it easier to narrow down the set of articles that need checking and hence lower the editor's workload.
 * However I think the criteria needs to be conservative, in that 99.9% of the articles meeting that criteria should be intrinsically notable (in the Wikipedia sense). To be thus, the magnitude range needs to be kept reasonable, rather than dropping it to the absolute lowest visible naked eye magnitude under ideal conditions. I'd say no lower than 6.0, and preferably 5.5. Based on the Bortle scale, that means stars visible from suburban (or bright suburban) skies. Praemonitus (talk) 16:39, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment on draft
Your comments on Draft:SDSS J102325.31+514251.0 are welcomed. Use, or use directly in the draft. Thanks, -- Sam Sailor Talk! 15:09, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, here are a few suggestions:
 * you could mention that J102325.31+514251.0 is the identifier for the quasar that is associated with the SMBH you discuss
 * Simon and Hamann (2010) suggest that the metallicity measurements are consistent with a host galaxy that already has passed its main episode of star formation
 * the first sentence is missing a period at the end
 * solar masses and red shift are technical terms that should be wikilinked (WP:UNDERLINK)
 * in the last sentence, punctuation should go before the citation (WP:CITEFOOT)
 * please use a template such as citation or cite journal to format your references (WP:CITESTYLE)
 * I hope these help a little. Good luck with your article. Praemonitus (talk) 19:06, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Technically,, it's not Sam's draft; he is one of the AFC reviewers and deferred to this project for thoughts on its notability. Your comments are appreciated, though, and I'll see about integrating them into the draft. Primefac (talk) 19:19, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

NGC galaxy images at commons with no Wikipedia article
I compared what we have at Commons with what articles we have here:


 * User:Anna Frodesiak/Yellow sandbox

If you'd like a copy of it for the Wikiproject, please feel free to copy paste it. (Please don't do a page move.)

Cheers, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:51, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * That's quite interesting... Huritisho (talk) 14:25, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I boldly created WikiProject Astronomy/Images needing articles and added it to WikiProject Astronomy/Sidebar. I hope that's okay. It appears as a redlink in the sidebar for some reason, but the link works. Odd. Anyhow, please say if you want it gone. Cheers, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:42, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Anna. That looks like it could be useful. Praemonitus (talk) 21:20, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I intended to create a few NGC articles but I got lazy and I'm hungover. I'll create a few later Huritisho (talk) 21:51, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You are most welcome. Feel free to start a few if and when you feel like it. Best, :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:37, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Content discussion at Rosetta (spacecraft)
There is a discussion currently taking place upon the inclusion or removal of a section of content regarding this spacecraft. Your input is requested. Primefac (talk) 21:26, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Discussion at List of exoplanets
A user violently removed all my huge work. I'm trying to solve this by discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_exoplanets#No_reliable_source Huritisho 02:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * In a more diplomatic vein, I have officially started a redirect discussion here. Primefac (talk) 02:30, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

White House Astronomy Night
I've created a new article on White House Astronomy Night.

Suggestions for additional WP:RS sources would be appreciated, at Talk:White House Astronomy Night.

Thank you,

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 15:09, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Listification of nearby star navboxes
You commented at the "Nearby" star navboxes TFD which closed as "listify". I have started a sandbox and am wondering how you might like it to look; whether the same divisions by distance should be kept for the series of articles; and whether there is other data of interest for such a table. The current columns represent the data that appears to be represented in each of the templates plus a "generic" column. --Izno (talk) 15:45, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * A list with that much detail is going to be a headache to maintain and cite. I'd try to keep it as simple as possible. Praemonitus (talk) 16:26, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Praemonitus; I think a list containing just best-fit distance, spectral type(s), and a link only if the system is notable would be sufficient. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:12, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree on the point of "no red links". Lists are the best place for them, as those usually provide the best ways to organize a topic from a content generation point of view. For those that don't presently have an article, is there a more "canonical" list to which we might generate redirects of certain star systems? --Izno (talk) 19:40, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * , I never said "no red links". I said that only objects that meet WP:NASTRO and WP:GNG should be linked. Certainly there's objects without articles that are notable, and those should be linked, but those with no articles and that aren't notable should not be linked. I can provide a list of the notable objects in the range, if you want. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:10, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The easier way is probably for me to link all the blue links in the templates presently, then you can link any remaining desired. --Izno (talk) 13:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Cool. Any comment on the distance divisions? --Izno (talk) 19:40, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * With equal divisions of distance, the number of stars in each block will increase by the distance cubed. The last block will be much larger than the first. (The only work-around for this is to somehow reduce the membership with increasing distance. Say by eliminating red dwarfs beyond distance X; K-type stars beyond distance Y, &c.) Praemonitus (talk) 15:45, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If by "increases with the distance cubed" you mean $$N_s = \frac{4}{3} \pi (r_o^3 - r_i^3) \times \rho_s$$, sure. At the density provided in the TFD, that's ~1350 star systems in the 70-75 ly shell (which is the highest value). Probably too many for one page. In the 45-50 ly shell, that's ~570 star systems, which is acceptable to me. Maybe take the larger shells to TFD again and keep the smaller? --Izno (talk) 15:55, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Although, List of PlayStation Portable games contains nearly a thousand entries, so maybe an even 1k star systems is about right for the "final" shell. That's the 60-65 ly shell at 982 star systems. --Izno (talk) 16:01, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Another possibility is to do a split by RA coordinates. But that's probably far too much work. Praemonitus (talk) 18:24, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I saw the edit; I deliberately represented the distances in that fashion because a user might have an interest in sorting by closest/furthest possible location. Some star systems when I took a look at the template had vastly different tolerances on their location. Comment? --Izno (talk) 19:40, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It's so weird to do it that way that I at first didn't realize these were the minimum and maximum in the uncertainty range, but something like a historically minimum distance. Of course, when I looked closer I saw that that was not possible. Aside from this, separately it is also more difficult to maintain those values. --JorisvS (talk) 08:45, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed on the second point. I have no objection to leaving your edits; certainly easier to copy-paste the values now. --Izno (talk) 13:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * My question at the tfd was exactly that - a question to folks less ignorant of the subject than I. I hadn't been aware of List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, only that I'd run into a long series of unopposed prods of vaguely-nearby stars, a few of which transcluded a navbox currently up for deletion.  So far as I'm concerned, the navboxes were already listified to the extent practical when the TFD began. —Cryptic 21:42, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It looks like that that article only goes up to 5 parsecs; there's plainly a desire to retain a list of stars and others which are outside that distance. Storing that list on Wikidata might make more sense than here I suppose, but Wikipedia is the real UI for a whole lot of people. --Izno (talk) 22:02, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * NOTE there's also a discussion section about this at WT:ASTRO -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 07:57, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry about my late reply, So far the sandbox list looks good but I feel that a few key rows such as how many planets and just a simple yes and no for potentially habitable ones should be added just for aesthetics and sorting purposes. Also I would like to know if I could help you with listifying some stars because if more people work on this it will get done faster. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 14:01, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no objection--that was part of the point of posting here. I can probably work through a navbox or two over the next couple days. As for stars etc I wouldn't have a problem if someone extended the tables but I think implementing the consensus from TFD makes more sense to start with (and is something that I a mere non-SME can do ;)). --Izno (talk) 14:29, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply, I have already made some changes. Changed some of the titles and added a column dedicated to the number of planets in the system and the colour is red/green depending if there is a habitable planet or not. I have also added some popular stars in the Gliese catalog that fit this range. :) Davidbuddy9 (talk) 14:56, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I removed the enumeration of planets (and corresponding column) since that doesn't seem sensible. But maybe it is? If we include planets/habitable planets, you need to provide WP:Accessibility: colors alone are not sufficient to indicate the data for habitable planets. --Izno (talk) 15:11, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Adding the number of planets to this list is a terrible idea! Considering the number of stars on the list with planets is incredibly small, this adds an extra column that displays nothing for the vast majority of systems, and causes large amounts of clutter in the list in most cases with no benefit. For smaller screens like mine, this is a real problem. Also, for a list of nearby stars, planets are not a defining characteristic, and this obsession with exoplanets on WP needs to stop. It's like including the radial velocity of the system! Sure, for a list of stars with exoplanets, it's a good idea, but this isn't such a list. Maybe include it in a "notes" column, along with more important characteristics such as variability, but no more. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:28, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I've also done a little improvement myself, reordering the columns to a more logical order, adding the full spectral types, and adding some notes. Revert if you disagree Izno. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:36, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That was not my intended use of parallax -- the current templates only list whether the system in question has one or doesn't (through the use of italics). I have no objection to numerical values. I do not think it's a good idea (even though it may be more important to an astronomer) to have those in the second column since the reason the lists exists is distance of star rather than parallax. I would recommend real words for the spectral types since that is more parseable for the ordinary human. I at least have a vague understanding when the term "supergiant M-type" is invoked; the letters and numbers presently in the column I do not implicitly understand. --Izno (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with the 'real words' proposition, but I think that technical spectral designation should also be included (perhaps in parenthesis) to differentiate properties. Although this is a beneficially simplistic list, from just the term "M6V", properties like radius, mass, temperature, and luminosity can be differentiated from another star of "M4V"; this would also maintain the list's thorough integrity for those stars without articles. Additionally (but very off-topic), could we condense the V-band apparent magnitude values for multiple star systems, like was done with EQ Pegasi? As with the spectral type column, the separate values could be kept in parenthesis. I'll put up the condensed values (based off of formulas at Apparent Magnitude and Absolute Magnitude) tomorrow. Jacob S-589 (talk) 00:21, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That should be V1054 Ophiuchi at magnitude 8.9356, Xi Boötis at magnitude 3.8398, and Gliese 105 at magnitude 5.8150. Jacob S-589 (talk) 12:51, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:Be bold, so long as WP:RS has some idea of those magnitudes (and we're not just creating them out of thin air). As regards designations, maybe two columns; one with the "supergiant"/"white dwarf" etc. piece and another with the technical designation (i.e., keep the current column and add a second)? --Izno (talk) 03:04, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Keep parallaxes?
I think the User:Izno/Sandbox/List of star systems within 20–25 light years now contains every star! (There's a few in the template that I excluded because their parallaxes would suggest that they are actually in the next or previous block). However, I'm thinking the parallax column is unnecessary as it just repeats the distance column, and the fact that a star has had its parallax measured isn't a noteworthy property by any means. Thoughts? StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:21, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * StringTheory left this on my talk page. My opinion is this:
 * My goal in this was only to listify the templates.
 * To fully listify the templates, whether a system has a parallax should be included.
 * So from this point of view, I think we should have an explicit consensus of more-than-one-or-two-bodies on whether to continue to include a parallax value in the list. We can vary the way we present that information if we desire (a column for "has one/doesn't have one"/a column for an actual value/italics on the name of the system as in the templates presently) if we want, or if consensus decides otherwise, then we choose not to continue including it.
 * On that point, there is some discussion above that seems to indicate parallax is more important (if perhaps less "noteworthy"), so there doesn't seem to be a consensus on disincluding it. I personally have no informed opinion; as an astro-layman with a chunk of science and engineering background, with only our article on stellar parallax to go by, the notion of a parallax is an interesting one but doesn't mean as much to me in the context of the table as the distances and their precisions.... --Izno (talk) 03:04, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * , there's been no response here for several days, unfortunately. One thing that I think we could do is remove the parallax column, but add something similar to what is already in the template and italicize any systems that do not have known parallax (with an explanatory note, of course). That way, we keep the info on whether or not the system has a parallax, while reducing the clutter of an unnecessary table column. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:32, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No objection. We should re-add the uncertainties to the distances then. --Izno (talk) 04:15, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I just took a quick look at the sandbox for the first time. Certainly a step forward from all those lists that become out of date the day after they are created!  I'm not a layman by any means, but I feel parallax is important.  It may or may not be exactly equivalent to a distance, but in the case of this table it does not seem to be an exact equivalence.  The distance column is headed "Median distance" (although I don't know if that is really what it is) while the parallax column appears to be a single (Hipparcos, I guess at this point) value with an error range.  In this condition, I'd want to keep the parallax.  If the distance was really just a direct derivation from the parallax, then perhaps it could be dropped. Lithopsian (talk) 13:08, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, since there's been no comments here now in nearly a month, what do you think about mainspacing the article? As there's no consensus on whether or not to remove parallax, we should probably keep it for now. We can add the stars (accompanied by a page move) down to the end of list of nearest stars after it's been mainspaced (although my free time is about to dramatically decrease, so I most likely won't be able to until no earlier than November). StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:04, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The only thing left for this list is to add references, after which I fully support moving it to mainspace. Primefac (talk) 03:29, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I would leave parallax out of the template, even though parallax is very important and the most precise way to measure distances in astronomy. But ultimately distance is the interesting property of the astronomical object, and parallax is just an intermediate result on the way to determining distance. Distances determined by parallax are more precise that those measured otherwise, and for that reason one could be inclined to list parallax in the template, but on the other hand the error estimate in the distances already reflects this precision. I could imagine that it would be worth mentioning in the template that the distance has been determined from parallax without actually mentioning the parallax value itself. Gap9551 (talk) 21:13, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Distance chunks
Presently our List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs includes objects up to 5 parsecs away, while List of star systems within 20–25 light years is obviously from ~6.132-~7.665 parsecs. There's a gap between the two lists. A couple of mutually exclusive options to take care of this:


 * 1) Expand list of nearest stars to 20 ly.
 * 2) Expand list of stars in the 20-25 ly down to 5 parsecs.
 * 3) Divide the buckets by parsecs rather than light years.

Thoughts? And should that necessarily constrain how we deal with the larger volumes of space, or just play that piece by ear? --Izno (talk) 03:11, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what is happening here. Is this simply a one-off list with a specific range, or one of a number of ranges?  Do you specifically not want it to overlap with the other article? Lithopsian (talk) 13:12, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The sandbox is a sandbox to do a series of articles to replace the the "nearby" star navboxes. So a number of ranges, and I do not want it to overlap. I also want to ensure a full distance coverage i.e. make sure an article is taking care of the space between 5 parsecs radius from our system and 20 ly. --Izno (talk) 13:33, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Is this really worth it?
As mentioned above, the further away from the Earth one gets, the larger-by-volume the sphere of stars becomes. The List of star systems within 20–25 light years is now live, but I'm wondering if it's worth converting the remaining templates into lists. If it's still decided to go ahead with the listification, I'll do what I can to help, but I thought I would bring up the rather daunting task set before us. Primefac (talk) 01:15, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If it really wasn't worth it why was it done in the first place? We can call it a day at 100 ly just for those nearby stars that would be excellent candidates for exoplanets (as with futuristic technology we could possibly get there within a lifetime)Davidbuddy9 (talk) 23:21, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The table wasn't particularly unwieldy. My suggestion would be that we go by 5 ly increments until we hit articles that are breaching the WP:SIZE concern (which is in the 30-40kb region, and I've seen a few lists in the 3k lines, which probably translates to 150-200kb region). --Izno (talk) 03:07, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Complaint: too many images in the articles
The astronomy related articles seem to have way too many images in it. Now that a user recently added two more images in the Venus article, I decided to break the silence and speak out against that. For example, see this section of the Mars article: Mars. Is that large image really necessary? What about all the other images in the same article that are suffocating the text? The articles really need a cleanup. We should remove lots of images, especially those that are centered and split the text. Wikipedia should be about the text, not a bunch of images. Lastly, should we remove such infographs from the planet articles? They are too loud, confusing and exaggerated. I'm feeling an irresistible urge to do a cleanup myself but I want to ask you guys first what you think Huritisho 05:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I absolutely agree, but somewhat differently. Yes, some articles are absolutely overrun with images...see Curiosity (rover) and Mars Science Laboratory for example. I've tried...unsuccessfully...to passively express this to certain editors in the past, especially with regard to inserting images relating to every new discovery or milestone. Some folks just want the pretty pictures, but that's what well-curated Commons categories should be for. I differ in opinion with you, however, in that I think those infographics (both the quadrangle map and Jupiter system diagram you point out) are particularly valuable and data-rich, and help summarize the prose better than any other random image of a planet surface or bit of spacecraft can. Regardless, the stuffing of pictures into every nook, cranny and gallery of an article is nearly epidemic levels. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the infographs are too distracting, loud and confusing to look at. I suggested in the talk page that two infographs in the Cassini-Hyugens article should be removed, and some other editor removed it for me, thank god. Regarding the quadrangle map, that's way too in-depth. The image takes up much space and the content is kind of complicated and is not of much interest anyway. It definitely should go. So, let's wait for more opinions so we can start a major image cleanup. Huritisho 16:05, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Another thing that annoys me is that some articles are so full of images that the images aren't even next to the section of the article that talks about them. Huritisho 17:35, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I've indeed seen cases of articles overcrowded with images. Often, there a pretty pointless images that can be removed without any loss of information (and hence should be removed, images are supposed to support understanding of the text they accompany). However, sometimes, there is really just a paucity of text such as in Charon. I strongly disagree with removing those infographics, I consider them quite useful (but we may want to check them to make sure that they're accurate). --JorisvS (talk) 18:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for sharing your concerns before performing an images cleanup on the articles - I *entirely* agree with the views of User:Huntster and User:Joris re images - esp re the infographics - perhaps images cleanups may be best performed re specific images on a collaborative article-by-article basis? - in any case - hope this helps in some way - Thanks again for the comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 19:22, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Wow... and I thought we had a lot at the tennis player articles with our project limit of ten pix. I assume the same standards apply here though? It needs to be a great photo, it needs to convey information that none of the other photos do, it needs to be placed in a section where it is unobtrusive and not overrun by other photos. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:33, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * We could start by the main planet articles: Mercury (planet), Venus, Earth, Mars, etc... then we move on to the moons Huritisho 19:37, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest WP:BEBOLD, clean up by judiciously culling less useful images, and mention WP:PERTINENCE in the comment. Praemonitus (talk) 22:21, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree - each image should add some unique information to the article, and each should have a reason for being there. If in doubt, just ask here or on article talk page. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:14, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

So apparently Drbogdan is the great image-adder. He added yet another image in Pluto. Drbogdan, would you mind... taking it slow? Anyway, I've recently tried to be bold and remove the Mars, but I got reverted. It turns out Mr. borgdan was the one who created and added it, but that is secondary. The thing is that the section really should go. It isn't important enough for such a large image. Sigh. And mr. bogdan, please stop. Huritisho. 17:24, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments - no problem whatsoever - yes - less images may be better of course - although a "WP:CONSENSUS" (per "WP:BRD" & related) in some instances may be indicated as noted in earlier posts above - in any case - Thanks again for your comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:58, 8 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , you need to slow down, take a break, and please try to be civil. I have yet to see you make a pleasant exchange of edits with anyone since you've joined. You either throw your hands up in the air and give up dramatically or start arguments in the edit summaries (narrowly avoiding 3RR in some cases). Wikipedia wasn't built in a day, and it's never going to be fixed in a day. While this project is related to the pages you're editing, you must discuss controversial edits on the Talk pages of the articles in question. Don't just make a few edits, get annoyed, and come to WP:AST thinking they'll solve all your problems. We're more than welcome to give advice or comment on an idea, but if you throw a hissy fit every time something doesn't go your way people are very quickly going to stop wanting to help
 * TLDR: If someone reverts your edits or does something you don't like, bring it to the talk page and try to start a discussion. Primefac (talk) 17:48, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm trying to start discussions. I didn't re-revert the user who added the map of quadrangles, instead I came here. The thing is that many editors appears to understand that there are too many images in the articles, and I was expecting I wouldn't be the only one cleaning up images. And relax, I'm not angry or anything. The images aren't much of a problem. If you have a television-sized monitor, they are barely noticeable anyway Huritisho 18:22, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I gotta apologize (especially to Drbogdan) for being a little impatient. Editing wikipedia can be rather frustrating sometimes but I'm pretty sure I'll get the gist of this place and its rules. Cheers, Huritisho 19:45, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

being bold
I decided to do an image cleanup in the NASA article. I removed bad or unnecessary images, and gave an edit summary for each removal. I also left a message it the Talk:NASA. I intend do do the same in other articles but first I wanna see how that goes. Huritisho 00:58, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Gallery pages
Wikipedia has several gallery pages, we can split off excessive content by organizing images into gallery pages Special:Prefixindex/Gallery of -- they are usually called "Gallery of xyz" such as Gallery of flags of dependent territories -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 04:25, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Most of those are redirects. --Izno (talk) 03:03, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a naming convention. Many galleries are located in the main articles and the gallery-form names redirect back to the main article, but as we are discussing excessive images in the main articles, then they can be split off into gallery pages -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 04:14, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

No subclass values for K, G, F, B, O class stars?
On the red dwarf page and on the A-type star class page it has a nice chart just like the one beside this post. However K, G, F, and O do not have a handy chart like this that shows all the sub class (the number next to the main class letter) or the average characteristics. I tried googling around and I did not find anything helpful so I was just wondering if anyone that has information could kindly make a chart like this for each for everyone to use. Cheers, Davidbuddy9 (talk) 00:29, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * They have subclasses, and a table could be made for all of the other subclasses (OBFGKM), it's just a case of finding a reference as high-quality as the one used on the A-type article. Primefac (talk) 01:12, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not precisely what you're after, but potentially you could present tables of sample main sequence stars such as those listed in tables 9, 10 and 12 of Boyajian et al (2012). Praemonitus (talk) 21:50, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Template:Isaac Newton
I seem to have bitten off a bit more than I can chew in creating Isaac Newton. Are there any experts on the relevant subjects that could help to sensibly organize the template.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:59, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have cobbled together what I can for this template. It would help to have eyes on it. It would likely benefit from rearranging by an expert.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:19, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

user:DN-boards1
FYI, active astronomy editor,, has been indefinitely blocked. As there are several notices on his/her talk page, we might have to examine their edits -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 02:58, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The editor made changes to a number of minor planet articles. I did a few spot checks of the astronomy article edits, but didn't see anything blatantly untoward. Most of the comments seem related to edits on fringe topics as well as edit warring. Praemonitus (talk) 19:33, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * DN-Boards has this bad habit of not citing sources, but that's the only bad thing I know of him Huritisho 19:38, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * her. He's a she Huritisho 13:20, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Seemed to have some misunderstandings regarding notability. Geogene (talk) 23:05, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

HIP 1
Before I nominate this new article for an AfD, is there anything particularly interesting about it? Meridians and catalog numbers are both artifacts of categorization, not intrinsic attributes that would allow it to inherit notability. Geogene (talk) 23:05, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Not that I know of. Doesn't seem to pass WP:NASTRO. Primefac (talk) 23:44, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Do whatever you want. I'm not gonna discuss. However, I do intend to discuss the Draft talk:List of exoplanets. I wish you replied there. Cheers Huritisho 01:28, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No it isn't of interest. Praemonitus (talk) 15:54, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It appears that the article has been made into a redirect? Wouldn't you need an AfD for an article? Davidbuddy9 (talk) 20:37, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Instead of being deleted, the article became a redirect to a protein that, improbably, has the same name. Geogene (talk) 21:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Under WP:BRD this can happen as a bold step without the discussion. If someone reverts it back then a discussion is required,  But above is a discussion anyway, where no one supported keeping this, and the author gave up and blanked the page.  So is anyone objecting to the protein redirect? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I believe the matter is settled. Geogene (talk) 22:37, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Moon landing
I've started a discussion there. I'm wishing to hear a few opinions. My question: Does this article satisfy what people are really looking for?. Cheers, Huritisho 22:07, 17 October 2015 (UTC)


 * That's really more of an issue to be discussed with WP:SPACEFLIGHT and WP:MOON (and possibly WP:POLITICS or WP:HISTORY) -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 11:52, 18 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Those projects aren't nearly as active as this one. Also, I'm already familiar with some users here. Huritisho 12:42, 18 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree it's only obliquely relevant to this project. Praemonitus (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

user:Chermundy
appears to be making astronomy articles unmaintainable. S/he has a whole set of private templates that are completely undocumented, used for referencing articles, rolled out over a large number of astronomy articles.
 * odlist
 * odref
 * plxref

And related undocumented templates that do some sort of processing; making it even more incomprehensible how we're supposed to maintain things
 * Plxtod -- parallax to distance?
 * Discon -- some sort of distance conversion (but we have convert ...)
 * Pmcon -- does something with angles, I think, so may be a parallax template for something
 * Mwe -- does something with Pmcon
 * Stretch- -- ?
 * Rer -- does something with Stretch-

-- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 08:19, 9 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what can be done about that. The editor doesn't appear to respond to h{er|is} talk page any more. Praemonitus (talk) 15:25, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Somebody could make a report to ANI, detailing this and other issues. I would, but I don't have the time to write a good report. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:27, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Bloody hell. I don't even know where to start... I'll try, though I don't have much free time either. Primefac (talk) 18:39, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Different choice of epithet, but revulsion shared. No time for this here either, but might I suggest obtaining a list of at least some of the articles where these templates are currently placed, and some edits that placed them there? I assume Chermundy's signature will be on at least some of them, which would help to document this activity for editorial behavior examination. In addition, it would provide raw material from which active editors could go make revisions to the affected articles, effectively undoing the unmaintainable artifacts. If any of those edits get something wrong, due to lack of understanding of these templates, then at least the wrong info can then be corrected by normal means. Evensteven (talk) 18:51, 10 September 2015 (UTC)


 * See also several topics starting at Duplicate star maps, for more mayhem. The ones I see most are the tables with π and plxref, and the new celmap images, but there may be selection bias due to my choice of topics to edit.  Lithopsian (talk) 18:48, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm more interested in their unilateral decision to replace the "stars within X ly" templates with gaudy monstrosities such as Cobd6. At least those will be easy to find and revert. Primefac (talk) 19:53, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

TfD
There is a discussion on whether the parallax-table-template Πt and its related templates should be deleted. Primefac (talk) 01:37, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

There is also a TfD for Μt and related templates, which are motion-table-templates. Primefac (talk) 01:59, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As an update, the two TfDs have closed, both with the conclusion that the templates should be deleted after being converted either into a table or sucked into the starbox begin set of templates. However, I think that these tables are more-or-less worthless listcruft. The pi- templates are pretty wide-spread, but the mu- templates (usage can be found here) are in my opinion easy to delete and not particularly useful, especially since they do a bit of OR in calculating the values. I thought I would get AST's thoughts before wantonly deleting the tables altogether. As a note, these templates are stupidly convoluted, so keeping the tables means that (most likely) I will have to convert them all by hand. Primefac (talk) 01:07, 20 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Another TfD has been opened for the COBD templates -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 04:41, 29 September 2015 (UTC)


 * A new TfD has been started for the odref and pxlref templates -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 04:02, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * More TfDs have appeared at Templates for discussion/Log/2015 October 13 -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 04:21, 14 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Someone nominated mwe and rer for deletion -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:07, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * On a related note, is it safe to delete cobd now? -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:07, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * cobd is a redirect, so there's no reason to delete it. Primefac (talk) 14:30, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a meaningless redirect, thus a good reason to delete it, since "cobd" is a meaningless term invented by Chermundy. -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 07:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I need help in Charon (moon)
I've ran out of my revert quota, and I need someone else's help to make this guy stop deteriorating the infobox of that article. See this talk page discussion I started. He is now making personal attacks. He is incapable of listening to other users (I'm not the first one who had trouble with him). Anyway, that's it. Cheers :) Huritisho 05:10, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

The same thing might be going on in Nix (moon), Hydra (moon), by the way Huritisho 06:20, 16 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, he's disrupting those articles as well. — kwami (talk) 06:22, 16 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Please, stop with the infantile attacks. You've been reverted by two or three different users about the same issue and yet you continue to refuse to listen Huritisho 06:24, 16 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Interesting that WP:COMPETENCE is referenced, which is interesting because:


 * A) it's not a Wikipedia guideline or policy (The context clearly is being used as if it's a policy)
 * B) You cannot be efficient with data that doesn't exist (How can you cite that data doesn't exist?)
 * C) "Be very cautious when referencing this page, as it can be very insulting to other editors." That notice was overlooked in this case, as a person who writes and edits pages and articles for exoplanets I leave lots of those little data box things empty because the data is simply not available, so I feel the frustration going on here, although I don't think I can do anything to stop this I thought I would give my opinion on this reference. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 20:54, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Should K2 system and Exoplanet articles be included in the Catagory?
I would assume so as they are part of the Kepler 2 mission (Hence the name K2). Just asking if there is any opposition. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 21:21, 21 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Personally I think you should make it a subcategory just like how is a subcat of . QuentinQuade (talk) 21:22, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the speedy reply, I should've thought about that actually :P it's a really good idea. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 21:23, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅, see . Davidbuddy9 (talk) 21:29, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Listification of nearby star navboxes (part 2)
The post at the top of the page is getting long, so I figure I'll let that get archived now that work is actually proceeding. I've started working on listifying the templates, but it's going to be a lot of work so any help would be appreciated. Given that I'm cannibalizing the template itself to do this, I don't have the parallax/magnitude values at hand, but I do have spectral type and planets (if applicable), so that's something. To be honest, this note is mainly so that we don't end up starting four different versions of this (since I'd like to get my table tweaked on the first one before starting the rest), but I'll try to keep it updated about what sort of help is required.

Hopefully I can turn these redlinks into pages within the next few weeks. Primefac (talk) 03:12, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Draft:List of star systems within 25-30 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 30-35 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 35-40 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 40-45 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 45-50 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 50-55 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 55-60 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 60-65 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 65-70 light years
 * Draft:List of star systems within 70-75 light years
 * Should we also do some for 0-5, 5-10, 10-15, and 15-20 ly? Other than that it's good so far that people are still interested in converting the templates into lists. I'll do my best to pitch in. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 00:09, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * , it was decided in the TfD discussion and here (can't find that link though) that the navboxes were sufficient for the 0-20ly range, so I don't think there's really a need to create those pages since the navboxes exist. Primefac (talk) 00:18, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * So the navboxs are ok for under 20ly? Also I changed the formatting of the first two stars in the first stars so that the data is in the same row. Aka I changed it to the same system it was being used on the original List_of_star_systems_within_20–25_light_years formatting. If you don't like it let me know. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 00:22, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Tables are built, now they just need more information. To be completely honest, I'm probably going to nix the parallax since a) it's not in the original template b) filling in 600 lines of spectral type and magnitude will be annoying enough, and c) distance and parallax are directly proportional, so knowing one is essentially like knowing the other. Primefac (talk) 02:49, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * As I've previously said, I agree with removal of the parallax for that reason, so long as we know the range/tolerance in which the star resides. --Izno (talk)
 * We already have List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, which covers most of the <20ly range. As I commented at, we should probably do something to fill in the hole between 5 parsecs and 20 ly. My preferred solution would be to increase the range of that article to 20 ly, but no-one else has commented on it. --Izno (talk) 13:03, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Okay, need some input on these. I'm looking through the lists (as directly transcribed from the templates) and there are a lot of redlinks. There are also a lot of the stars that redirect to "stars of X" or "list of stars..." The 20-25ly list is pretty complete, but these lists definitely aren't. Do they just need more work and new stars added? Primefac (talk) 01:04, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Just as a note, I'm not looking to get out of this. I'm happy to make these lists acceptable, but I don't want to put in a massive amount of work if it's just going to end up being thrown away as a non-GNG list. Primefac (talk) 01:09, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't worry about the GNG; see WP:LISTN. "List of stars" seems sufficiently notable (the existence of catalogs alone should make this obvious); all we're doing here is subdividing the list into several pages by distance. As I requested earlier for feedback, we should have a discussion on the distance chunks--5 ly may not make a whole lot of sense. --Izno (talk) 14:00, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Since the last consensus we had it was closed to use Gliese over GJ (For consistency in categories mainly) so shouldn't we change them in the list (They are all GJ's right now)? Davidbuddy9 (talk) 01:02, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This seems to be only an issue with the first (25-30) one. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 01:04, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Issue has been fixed. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 01:11, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Good Article review needed
So I nominated the Juno (spacecraft) article for good article status here. If anyone has the time and patience, I'd like someone to review it. I believe it meets the criteria. Cheers, Huritisho 14:04, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You should also inform WP:SPACEFLIGHT and WP:SOLAR -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:15, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not go to perform a deep assessment of the page but I do think this is a great candidate. I could only imagine that the page will continue to improve especially when the spacecraft enters orbit around Jupiter and starts its mission. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 20:58, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * When the mission begins, there will be much more content to add, of course. But for now it is as improved as it can be, I think. My idea was to make the article good so when the probe arrives in Jupiter, the article will already be ready for people to read what the probe is and what it is doing, etc. Huritisho 02:49, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, it would be great if the article is already officially 'good' when many readers will read it. Gap9551 (talk) 16:03, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * We just need people with patience to go review it, unfortunately. There are many articles that have been good article nominees for months or maybe years. Huritisho 16:08, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

template:Constel
Constel has been nominated for deletion -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 07:40, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll comment there Huritisho 07:43, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's a direct link to the discussion. Primefac (talk) 12:47, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The template was created by Chermundy. He had lots of templates deleted in the past. Huritisho 16:27, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not really sure how that would be relevant to anything, even if I hadn't already nominated most of their templates for deletion. Primefac (talk) 16:33, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Notability for astronomers
There are articles appearing for postdocs Sarah Ballard and Tabetha S. Boyajian. This raises questions regarding what is and is not notable. Thoughts? Geogene (talk) 01:06, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * My opinion, Tabetha S. Boyajian is very notable as she is the one that has spotted the unusual light curve of KIC 8462852 which has literally exploded in the media in just a few days spurring around the idea of a Dyson sphere made by Aliens in orbit around the star. As for Sarah Ballard meh, if she has set a record for discovering the most exoplanets under the age of 30 then maybe. Davidbuddy9 (talk) 01:21, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's the whole aliens thing that made that article appear, and once the aliens are explained away, nobody will remember this. Geogene (talk) 01:32, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Still notable for being the first for discovering the pattern. Although no logical explanation currently works doesn't mean you have to be so negative about this astronomer. She has done notable works across the board (Hubble, University, light curve) and you are trying to shut the article down because she discovered a star with a strange light curve? Really? Davidbuddy9 (talk) 01:50, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * A fellowship doesn't confer notability. That's a typical thing that postdocs do before they have enough experience to become assistant professors at a university. Geogene (talk) 01:53, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not changing my stance, I dug up this showing that see is a Secretary of Division G Stars and Stellar Physics in the IAU, now that is notable. I am not going to argue further about this matter any further, you can take a look at the evidence for why she is notable and decide for yourself.

Davidbuddy9 (talk) 02:06, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That's also typical gruntwork for young academics. But I withdrew my nomination, it's clear that the notability guidelines won't be followed, I'm blaming the aliens. Geogene (talk) 02:18, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * So if people interpret guidelines differently than you do, they are not following them? That doesn't seem very objective at all. This notability issue has reasonable arguments both ways, which I have no problem acknowledging, so the word 'clear' is inappropriate here. Gap9551 (talk) 15:44, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter whether we like the reasons the media gave this so much attention. Gap9551 (talk) 15:46, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Both articles seems to be well referenced, so perhaps we should just leave them there. Huritisho 01:35, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit surprised why Tabetha S. Boyajian was nominated for deletion while Sarah Ballard was not. Between these two, the former is much more notable, in my opinion. I agree with Geogene that a fellowship in itself is not notable. Gap9551 (talk) 15:51, 22 October 2015 (UTC)


 * WP:ACADEMIC could be used. If not, then the more general WP:PEOPLE. Praemonitus (talk) 19:29, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Something that hasn't been mentioned that is related to this is that Tabetha S. Boyajian has been proposed for deletion. QuentinQuade (talk) 02:26, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * , you're a little late, it was Geogene that created the AFD before posting here. Primefac (talk) 02:46, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it was good to bring up that AfD here, since it gives relevant context for this discussion. Better late than never. Gap9551 (talk) 16:11, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I mentioned it because I did not see a post mentioning it. QuentinQuade (talk) 20:59, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

SVOM space observatory
The planned space observatory Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) will have several small telescopes for a broad spectral detection. I am at loss at how to fill in the Infobox for so many telescopes and their specifications. Your help will be appreciated. Thank you, BatteryIncluded (talk) 20:17, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅I had updated them as instruments since SVOM mission will operate a set of four instruments in space that constitute the scientific payload of the satellite.. - Ninney (talk) 21:07, 26 October 2015 (UTC)