Talk:Mizar and Alcor

Mizar is four stars

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/uor-fkb120909.php 70.179.127.14 (talk) 13:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

• I didn't think this was new information. I'm pretty sure I read a popular astronomy book back in the 1980s that described this as a sextuple system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitroglycol (talk • contribs) 00:57, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Broken Link

The link to the "Extensive article on Mizar" gets a "page cannot be found message." Has it been moved? 4.243.146.153 19:25, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

If anyone is willing to write it could we have a separate page for alcore? --jim

I rewrote this sentence because as far as I could google there is no consensus on whether Alcor is orbiting Mizar at all, the Hipparcos data still has error bars which could place their separation over several light years.

The two stars lie more than a quarter of a light year apart but proper motions show they actually do form a binary star system, not an optical binary as previously thought.

If new astrometric data has appeared that changes this uncertainty then my change may need to be revised.

I also named the probable discoverer as Benedetto Castelli and not Riccioli and failing that, Galileo Galilei. Most sources and books appear to have erroneously copied assertions that Giovanni Battista Riccioli was the discoverer from his much-quoted note. See Umberto Fedele's Italian 1949 article and [1].

What's more there are several quotes in books and online that Alcor is a spectroscopic binary, and the above article disputes this, claiming that sources are merely copying earlier writings without determining the original source. -Wikibob | Talk 08:42, 2004 Aug 14 (UTC)

• Shouldn't this article be called Mizar and Alcor? 132.205.15.43 03:28, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In light of the fact that Alcor's disambiguation page links this article and not an article proper on Alcor, it seems that either this article should be renamed to include both until such time as an article can be written for Alcor.rmagill 20:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article be a disambiguation? --Devnevyn 20:31, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• There is a "Mizar (disabiguation)" page. This article was an exact word-for-word duplicate of "Zeta Ursae Majoris." Have changed this article to a Redirect there. It contains an "Other Uses" link to the Mizar dab page. "Alcor" already redirected to "Zeta Ursae Majoris." B00P 17:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Mizar-Alcor Distance

This article states The two stars lie more than a quarter of a light year apart and yet, Mizar's distance is given as 78 ± 1 ly, and Alcor's is given as 81.2 ± 1.2. Even if you take the maximum estimate for Mizar's distance and the minimum for Alcor's, you get a 1 light-year distance, and if you take the mid-range for each, you get a distance of about 3.2 ly Nik42 05:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The latest (refined) reduction of the HIPPARCOS data (van Leeuwen, 2007) gives distances of 85.8 ly and 81.7 ly for Mizar and Alcor, respectively. With the error bars, their distances are Mizar: 82.1 to 89.8 ly, Alcor: 81.5 to 82.0 ly. Thus, at the very least, they are 0.1 ly apart, although it's likely quite a bit more. The distance to Mizar as determined by the USNO's optical interferometer, however, is 82.8 ly (error range: 82.2 to 83.4), so indeed, Mizar and Alcor would appear to be at least 0.2 ly apart. The entry should probably be revised to give a distance to Mizar of 82.8 ± 0.6 ly.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.60.233.2 (talk) 16:48, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Third Paragraph

I find the third paragraph confusing. It probably should be clarified. Hue White (talk) 17:13, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Space direction??

The following sentence is really weird:

With normal eyesight one can make out a faint companion just to the east, named Alcor or 80 Ursae Majoris.

Recomend rewriting it, to something NOT east, because east is relative to the way you are standing on earth, and therefore also the way you are looking at Ursa Major. --Faina windu (talk) 08:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I edited the text to remove "east." (One *might* say it's to the north, since it roughly is; but I didn't.) Mcswell (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

For astronomical objects, east is definitely not relative. Alcor is to the east of Mizar. Assambrew (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Beware of Japanese Intruders!

I was reading along in an astronomy article and suddenly found myself reading about Japanese culture (complete with accompanying kanji for the uberliterati), including manga culture. After I got through that, I found myself reading about astronomy again. Am I an astronomer who dreams he is a Japanese, or a Japanese who dreams he is an astronomer? Writtenright (talk) 21:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)Writtenright

Mizar companion

According to this article October 1894 - Mizar's companion is called "Jack by the horse's head" in common language... would this be Alcor? 76.66.194.32 (talk) 13:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved (non-admin closure). Jenks24 (talk) 03:34, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

---

Mizar (star) → Mizar and Alcor — This article deals with the subject of both Mizar and Alcor, which are thought to form a single gravitationally-bound system. In the case of this system, the proper names of both subsystems (Mizar and Alcor) are of roughly equal notability, so it makes sense to refer to them both in the title. --Icalanise (talk) 19:31, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Since they've been found to be gravitationally bound, this seems reasonable. When they were thought to be separate systems, splitting into two articles would have been the better option. Has anyone disputed the recent finding at all? If not, I support the move. Modest Genius ^talk 23:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

As far as I am aware no-one has disputed it, going by the ADS citation queries for the relevant papers [2] [3]. Even if they weren't bound I'd suggest that Mizar and Alcor comprise a sufficiently notable optical double to warrant a combined article anyway. Icalanise (talk) 23:54, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Certainly "Mizar and Alcor" is much more common than "Mizar-Alcor system", and the former seems to satisfy WP:TITLE. As long as the page is discussing the system as a whole, the suggested name makes sense to me. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 20:39, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree on the move. Besides, whenever some talks about one of them, the other generally comes up. -- Kheider (talk) 22:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Article should be split into two separate articles(mizar/alcor)

I think that this article should be split into two separate articles, and Alcor B should be combined with Alcor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.40.92.133 (talk) 04:31, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm planning on performing this split, with separate articles for Mizar and Alcor, leaving this article to discuss mostly historical information relating to the two as a pair. Speak up if you're opposed. Lithopsian (talk) 17:41, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Split done. Mizar and Alcor are both disambiguation pages. It might be nice to grab one or both of them, but I'll leave that for others to decide. For now, I've put the split content at Zeta Ursae Majoris and Alcor (star). There is certainly scope for some renames, retargets, and hatnotes. Both articles can now be expanded at leisure to describe the stars in detail. I envisage this article as a resting place for anecdotes, history, maybe some amateur astronomy tips, mythology, etc. Lithopsian (talk) 21:10, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

History

The History section is interesting but needs work - the meaning here is difficult to penetrate (almost as if its been translated from another language) and there's an unattributed quote in the middle of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.56.198.62 (talk) 14:57, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Etymology?

A couple of issues: First, the section entitled "Etymology" does not actually include the etymology of the names Mizar and Alcor (which is actually including in a preceding section, "Nomenclature"). The "Etymology" section, instead, discusses other names that have been given to this pair of stars. In comparing articles of other stars in the Big Dipper asterism, the Arabic etymology for the common name is given under a section heading "Nomenclature" (or similar) and alternate names for the star are discussed in the same section. In comparing articles on other well-known stars (specifically, Arcturus, Sirius, and Betelgeuse), the etymology of the primary common name is given under a section entitled "Nomenclature" (or similar) and a separate section treats the other names, but is more correctly titled "Other Names" (or similar). One convention or the other ought to be adopted for this article, but clearly the title "Etymology" needs to be eliminated as it doesn't accurately describe the content of the section.

Second, the construction of the paragraphs in this section is somewhat telegraphic. There isn't enough background information given to transition between one brief statement and the next for many of the alternate names. I don't think there needs to be much more than a sentence or two added for most of these, but as it reads right now it is difficult to understand the origin and significance of all the alternate names. Perhaps even just some careful editing of the currently present material might be adequate for the passage to read more clearly. El piel (talk) 19:07, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

You're right. I've renamed it "Other names"; added in the military namesakes as a sub-section, and separated out the 'test of eyesight' material to a new section. It now more accurately reflects the contents; and it's difficult to think of a better title. As to readability, I suspect that arose from ad hoc additions over time. Perhaps a list of bullet points would be preferable, at least in part? Cuddlyopedia (talk) 08:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Data in info box?

The data in the info box show identical mass-radius etc values for Aa and Ab. This surely is not the case; the source given (Hummel) has nothing about Ab. Who can correct that?Kipala (talk) 17:06, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Hummel certainly does say something about Mizar Ab: "In Table 6 we list the derived physical parameters for Mizar A based on the assumption of identical components." So that's why the properties (except mass) are identical, straight from the horse's mouth. Lithopsian (talk) 18:06, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Name of article on Mizar

Last year Lithopsian split the article Mizar and Alcor into two, but he gave the one on Mizar the name Zeta Ursae Majoris. Shouldn't it have the common name "Mizar"? Do we have a policy on this? Please ping me if you reply. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 09:01, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

We have a policy, at WP:TITLE. Basically the article title should be the most recognizable and commonly-used name. For stars, that is a proper name for only a few dozen of the best-known, despite several hundred having proper names of some sort. Mizar might qualify. I picked Zeta Ursae Majoris, largely because Mizar (star) had previously existed and been renamed and I didn't want to override that without further discussion. I know that you tried to rename Zeta Ursae Majoris once already; I reverted that because it was a cut'n'paste move instead of a proper rename. Since none of us probably have the permissions to move Zeta Ursae Majoris over Mizar (star), it might make sense to have this discussion in a formal requested move so that the move will happen properly at the conclusion. Consider carefully that Mizar exists and is a disambiguation page, but the star could be considered to be a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (similarly, probably more so, Alcor). Lithopsian (talk) 12:18, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Dubious "discovery"

• It is absurd to credit Riccioli or anyone else as the "discoverer" of stars that have always been visible with the eye.
• If it remains open whether M and A are gravitationally bound, then neither can anyone claim to have discovered that they are a binary system, and the article should not describe them as one. Surely Riccioli, who had no concept of stars as interacting masses, could not make that claim. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 20:03, 8 July 2023 (UTC)