Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy/Archive 11

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Credo and Questia

FYI, there are free accounts available to qualified editors to access the Credo and Questia online e-Libraries

Wikipedia:Credo accounts & Wikipedia:Questia

-- 70.24.247.242 (talk) 04:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

There's also this: m:Wikimedia Fellowships/Project Ideas/The Wikipedia Library -- 70.24.247.242 (talk) 05:00, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:JWST

{{JWST}} has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 13:03, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

interstellar fluorine?

Could someone astronomy-smart, please take a look at the sentence in fluorine regarding elemental fluorine in the interstellar medium?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorine#In_the_universe

Does it mean difluorine (F2) or monofluorine (F)? Or is it just saying atoms were seen with no info about what bonded to?

The 1981 paper is available on the web:

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1981ApJ...247L..39S/L000041.000.html

Also, I wonder if there is any later confirmation or refutation of this "seeing elemental fluorine in the interstellar medium".

TCO (talk) 23:38, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello TCM. I'm not the best person to answer this, but I'll tell you what I know. It doesn't look like diflouride has even been identified yet.[1] According to Snow et al (2007), large amounts of the Flouride in the ISM are in the form of atomic flouride or HF, with lesser amounts of CF⁺. Lodders (2003) looks like a good source for Solar System abundances. Is that any help? Regards, RJH (talk) 03:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

That is a nice paper. I would prefer some super smartie to go fix the assertion in the Fluorine article, but will give it a try myself (but am not an astrochemist). I worry a bit that the article has places where people have stuck in little bits of fact that they don't 100% understand or are not 100% supported by refs. (Not that everything is knowable, but we should still represent the state of knowledge appropriately).TCO (talk) 04:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Understandable. Wikipedia is rife with that sort of thing. But I've found that one of the key benefits of reliably sourcing articles is that it tends to make the text more likely to be cross-checked by expert readers. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:55, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Great Red Spot

Shouldn't the Great Red Spot have a separate article? I notice that the Great Dark Spot has one, but that has a much smaller observation history. The current section the redirect points to could be greatly expanded in an article, particularly with observational history. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 11:17, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

It was at one point. It makes sense to cover it on Atmosphere of Jupiter, but personally I would have no problem with that page covering the topic WP:Summary Style and performing a WP:SPLIT for more in-depth coverage. You might want to contact User:Ruslik0 first though as I think he's a primary author. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:52, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Image:Mercury Caloris Basin2.jpg

File:Mercury Caloris Basin2.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 04:42, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

PD-NASA files nominated for deletion under F4 (no source)

I nominated multiple files - now waiting in Category:Wikipedia files with unknown source as of 20 August 2012, Category:Wikipedia files with unknown source as of 21 August 2012 and Category:Wikipedia files with unknown source as of 22 August 2012. At least part of them are almost certainly from NASA but I was unable to find sources Bulwersator (talk) 08:33, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this, I'll have a go at sourcing them and moving them to Commons as time permits. — Huntster (t @ c) 11:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

It's easier looking at Category:All Wikipedia files with unknown source -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 08:28, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Several more images have been tagged for immediate deletion. Considering that some of these are high-rez images of the terrain of Saturn's moons, they could only have come from Voyager 1,2 or Cassini, so can't we remove the DI-no-source because it is impossible for it to come from any other source? -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 06:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Hubble photos

https://www.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&topic=snc&ncl=dGjHWEgorbtGoWMb2YnTlHKdn5vHM -- the recent news stories about impressive images from the HST store of images might make good uploads. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 06:21, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

commons:Category:British Astronomical Association

It would be great if someone could help with finding media on Commons for the BAA category, or generally helping to categorise it. I'm afraid I only know about trains. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

You should also post a notice to WP:UK -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 04:37, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Corona Australis.......

....is at FAC - see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Corona Australis/archive1 Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Researching star names

For those interested, here's an interesting resource on star names that I've not seen used before. It was created by Professor Mustafa Pultar and is entitled YILDIZ ADLARI SÖZLÜĞÜ (Dictionary of Star Names). The only problem is that it's in Turkish, although Google Translate does a decent job of translating. What's interesting is Prof. Pultar researched Ottomon seafarers from way back and compiled a list of names used from that era. My question is whether it's a credible enough resource to use in referencing star names. Any thoughts?--Sadalsuud (talk) 15:43, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

My knee-jerk reaction is to say yes, it's reliable, because he's a professor and this is probably published in an obscure Turkish journal none of us have access to. But I would have to look deeper to see if that's really the case. So, maybe? Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 16:03, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

His bio looks promising as a person that could be considered a Reliable Source....see Mustafa Pultar Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:00, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

space probe collages up for deletion

Several NASA space probe collages have been put up for deletion, see Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 August 30 -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 07:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

{{JPL small body}} links

There's a discussion going on about whether or not to include links to discovery/orbit diagrams/physical parameters/etc... in the JPL database ext link template.

• 2867 Steins at the JPL Small-Body Database

i.e. [2] vs [3]. Please comment at Template talk:JPL small body. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:46, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

File:EN Hassan crater.jpg

File:EN Hassan crater.jpg has been listed for immediate deletion as being unsourced -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 14:32, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

SIMBAD down

Is the SIMBAD site not loading for anyone else? Or is it just my computer. StringTheory11 (t • c) 00:05, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

SIMBAD is working for me. -- Kheider (talk) 00:16, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, it's working for me now also, after two days of not working. Who knows what the problem was. StringTheory11 (t • c) 00:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes it was down for me too, but thankfully now back....Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:20, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

ULSN

Do we have an article on ULSNe? I saw it come up on news reports recently, and couldn't find it with a cursory check of our articles. [4][5][6] (I believe the news article is for the most distant ULSN known, since the most distant SN known is much farther away) -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 10:29, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

J0651

J0651 has been requested to be renamed to its catalogue entry in the SDSS, see Talk:J0651 -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 23:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:STARNAMES

STARNAMES was recently modified, per comment at Talk:J0651, which also contains other discussion. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 06:18, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

I have nominated Category:Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for deletion, as an unneeded level of categorization, that crosses the spacecraft tree with the astronomical survey tree. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 07:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

File:Cererian movie052706.gif & File:Bigmelt.jpg

File:Bigmelt.jpg and File:Cererian movie052706.gif have been nominated for deletion as well... -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 06:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:ROSAT objects and Category:IRAS objects

I've removed these categories from the telescopes category tree, as they are not telescopes. -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 04:07, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:Chinese telescopes

I was wondering if Category:Chinese telescopes is redundant to Category:Astronomical observatories in China ; except for the space telescopes, which could have the category renamed to match the Soviet cateogry as Category:Chinese space telescopes ? -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 04:35, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

File:Coronal-seismology-simple.png

File:Coronal-seismology-simple.png has been nominated for deletion because of licensing problems -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 06:10, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a good call this time around. Even if the account is run by one of the authors of the paper the figures are from - which is far from proven at this point - published papers are usually copyrighted by the journal they were published in. Figures can't be reused for other purposes even if the author wants to (instead you rebuild them from raw data). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 06:50, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Vetting needed at heat death of the universe

A recent edit by Chjoaygame (talk · contribs) has drastically altered the content of at least one portion of Heat death of the universe (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I have doubts about the new content, but I don't have the expertise to vet it. Would anyone with a better thermodynamics background than mine care to do so? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:03, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

User:Cadiomals

Talk:White dwarf#I don't think white dwarfs are true stars

The above linked comment is by a registered editor, and comments from people who specialize in astronomy/physics are needed for this discussion. 217.147.94.149 (talk) 02:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Someone might also want to examine the changes made to Star and Sun -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 03:48, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

EN003 Degraded Craters on Enceladus.jpg

file:EN003 Degraded Craters on Enceladus.jpg has been nominated for deletion as unsourced -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 03:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

image:Craters of the Far Side of the Moon.jpg

File:Craters of the Far Side of the Moon.jpg has been nominated for immediate deletion as unsourced -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 04:47, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The person tagging these (Bulwersator (talk · contribs)) has been on an automated or bot-assisted tagging spree for a few days now. People have challenged them on their talk page about it already, without any response visible. Given that the image above is already flagged as NASA-derived, and threads on their page refer to other images that had rationales but were marked as "unsourced", it's looking like it's WP:AN/I time. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 05:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

He's even renominated an image for deletion the day it was closed in a previous deletion discussion as "keep", which I find very weird. Wikipedia_talk:FFD#renomination -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 06:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The person doing it, Bulwersator, has been indef Topic-Banned from XfD at ANI, but given certain leeway at WP:AN for Commons duplication, his own userpages. (though he is active on Commons deletions as well...) -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 23:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific at WP:FLRC

I have nominated Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:59, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Need a dark matter/baryonic matter simulations expert

Please come to galaxy rotation curve and offer a third opinion. Junjunone (talk) 18:26, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Focus on the content.

Yes, please do. We have been having a content dispute at galaxy rotation curve, and IMO I have been editing in good faith, see Talk:Galaxy_rotation_curve#Further_investigation. But Junjunone just tries to close the discussion down by attacking me rather than engaging with the topic. By accusing my good faith edits of vandalism [7], by doubting my ability to understand the technical literature ("It appears that Aarghdvaark is not capable of understanding the papers beings cited" [8]), questioning why I consider myself competent to edit the article: "What is your expertise in physcs? I have worked for years in the subject field and follow the literature closely" [9], then going for a topic ban Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Topic_ban_User:Aarghdvaark, and finally going all the way to the top at User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Expert_third_opinion! N.B. all this escalated very quickly with hardly any contribution by me. He has also accused me of being a fringe advocate "promoting an idea which is contrary to the mainstream understanding of the subject" [10], which incidentally I refute, but I think his tactics are far more representative of the worst type of fringe advocacy. Aarghdvaark (talk) 02:57, 18 September 2012 (UTC) This page is cross posted, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics#Expert in numerical simulations of dark matter and baryonic matter large scale structure and galaxy formation needed. I have suggested that the page here be used to discuss this topic. Aarghdvaark (talk) 04:27, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

file:Peratt-galaxy-formation-simulation.gif

image:Peratt-galaxy-formation-simulation.gif has been nominated for deletion. There is a dispute as to the owner of the copyright. -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 03:44, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Astrobiology Portal

The project's astronomers may wish to comment at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Astrobiology Portal. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:45, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Third opinions needed at Heat death of the universe

There's an ongoing debate at Talk:Heat death of the universe#entropy and the future of the universe as stated in this article. Third opinions would be welcome, as it appears to be deadlocked between two participants. I don't have the expertise to contribute usefully myself. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 06:44, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Betelgeuse...

...is still at a mammoth FAC, but has 2 supports and one "lean towards supporting" but has had little input from folks familiar with astronomy. Some review of comprehensiveness and weighting might be best placed coming from someone here....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

David Southwood

Could someone take a look at David Southwood? Both primary contributors to the article (including myself) have close links to the RAS, so there's a possible conflict of interest. It would be good if someone could check that we've given him a fair treatment. Modest Genius ^talk 16:51, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

It is not that bad, but requires more citations. Ruslik_Zero 18:52, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I added {{cn}}s where I thought they were needed. If there are any others then please place them. But does this really need a drive by {{COI}} tag, with no concerns actually raised? Thanks for taking a look. Modest Genius ^talk 21:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I was the one who put the COI tag on the article. As you can see on my talk page, I'm currently busy, so I didn't have the time to do a thorough readthrough of the article, so I added the COI tag, as it makes it more likely that some editor who just happens to see the article would do a readthrough. That's why I added it. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

So you added the tag without having read the article? That's extremely unhelpful, and goes against the template documentation. I raised the article on this talk page a) to declare the issue and b) so someone could read it through and check if there was a problem. Ruslik has done the latter, and didn't find a problem (I would appreciate further opinions). In the absence of any specific problems that can actually be dealt with, the tag should not be on the article. Modest Genius ^talk 22:10, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Wow. Just...wow. AstroCog (talk) 20:08, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

After reading the article and seeing no sign of non-neutrality or conflict of interest, I removed the tag. James McBride (talk) 04:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Modest Genius ^talk 13:08, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Proper names (astronomy)

At Talk:Halley's Comet, it has been bought up that Proper names (astronomy) is missing comets. -- 70.24.247.66 (talk) 02:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Comet#Nomenclature seems to cover this, so I'll add another stub section to Proper names (astronomy). Modest Genius ^talk 19:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Triangulum Australe....

Is at Wikipedia:Peer review/Triangulum Australe/archive1. All input appreciated. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Peer review closed, now at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Triangulum Australe/archive1 Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

List of planets

Hi. I am involved in a dispute with another editor at Talk:List of planets about whether citations are needed to support the article. Input from third parties would be useful to help settle the debate one way or the other. Thanks. Road Wizard (talk) 12:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

What a mess. -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 06:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Year lengths

I have created a section on the variation in lengths of various years at User:Jc3s5h/sandbox2. I plan to insert this in the Year article. If you have any sources to compare these results to, I'd appreciate it. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:36, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Minor planet stubs

I remember there was consensus to get rid of the stubs over a certain number. Does anyone remember what the cutoff was? Gigs (talk) 15:57, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It was discussed at WP Astronomical Objects (as they are objects...) 2000 was the cutoff (further discussions 2009 , 2008 ) -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 18:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I may pick up the torch on that. It's something that's been nagging in the back of my head for a while, and I have the skills to write the bot to finish the task. I think Christopher Thomas was being a little too conservative there. Any "collateral damage" of accidental redirection of a notable object could be easily undone by any non-admin, and I have a few ideas in mind for some improved automated ways to identify probable notable objects numbered >2000. Gigs (talk) 19:57, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting student projects?

Hi all,

I had a discussion today with a couple of academics from the University of Glasgow, who have organised for two students to work on improving small sets of physics articles as part of an assessed project. The project is likely to involve each one taking a particular low-quality core article and working on improving it to a reasonably good standard, along with its related articles, for a total of about a hundred hours of research/writing over several weeks; they'll be shown how to edit Wikipedia in advance and given plenty of examples of "good articles" to work from, so hopefully it should go reasonably smoothly.

At the moment, though, the supervisors are looking for subjects. Are there any standalone articles or groups of articles that you would suggest as potentially interesting topics for this sort of project? I'm quite aware that a well-chosen topic at the outset will make the project much more likely to succeed, and it'd be great to have input from people who're currently working in the area. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

You mean astrophysics articles? How wide a net are they casting? -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 08:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, missed this! Physics and astronomy/astrophysics are usually conjoined departments over here (my degree years back was in both), and one of the two supervisors is an astrophysicist. I don't know the specialisation of the undergraduates, but they certainly seemed open to astrophysics topics as well, hence the crossposting. 17:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't expecting physics students to be especially keen on expanding the history of articles for astronomy, or ethnoarchaeoastronomy, so that's why I asked about how wide a topic area is being asked for. -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 17:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I follow you now. I asked about the "history of" articles at the time, and they seemed keen to focus on something with significant technical content rather than historical or biographical pieces, which is what a lot of student projects end up focusing on. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

How about XMM-Newton? There's tons of information out there on it, but our current article is very poor. Possible expansion to related target articles and/or other X-ray observatories. Or if you want a science topic rather than a facility, I suggest R Coronae Borealis variable and the individual articles on each of the ~30 known stars of this type. Other possibilities would be Tarantula Nebula, Kitt Peak National Observatory (plus articles on each telescope), Red Rectangle, Cepheid variable, or any Top- or High-rated but low quality (C or below) article on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Astronomy/Article_ratings. You might also find Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Worklist useful (though those topics may be too broad). Modest Genius ^talk 11:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! We had a skim through the top-rated low-quality articles - it's an interesting bunch. Types of variable stars might make an interesting collection, with a decent bit of variety. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

constellation box woes....

I am frustrated - see Leo Minor, the infobox of which uses this chart, whereas I modified it to show the brightest stars with Flamsteed numbers (given the constellation has only one damn star with a Bayer designation :P - see this one. Question is how do I get chart #2 into the infobox......Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:46, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately the image selection is hard coded. However, adding the Flamsteed numbers is a sufficiently minor tweak that you could just upload it over the existing file name (provided it was suitably tagged as retouched). Otherwise someone would need to modify the template to allow the image to be overrided in some cases. Modest Genius ^talk 12:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, might just do that. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for re-review: Alpha Centauri Bb

Hello,

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this request. An article has been created for the recently discovered exoplanet Alpha Centauri Bb. Early in this article's genesis, this was tagged at being of "Start" class. However the article has had considerable attention from a number of editors in the following days and is much improved. Please may I request a re-assessment of the article's quality, and advice on how it may advance in quality from its current status.

Many thanks LukeSurl ^{t c} 14:55, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Done, as B class, mid importance. The text is roughly GA standard, though I didn't do a full assessment. You could nominate for GA, but there might be an issue with the stability. That is, scientific consensus on this planet is changing month-by-month, so you might have to wait 6 months for things to settle down and update the article accordingly first. Either other scientific teams are going to confirm the existence of the planet, or challenge it. Modest Genius ^talk 14:22, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Astrostudio

Do we think this is a Reliable Source folks? Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:33, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It's a publishing house... [11] ; that data seems to be used to make their starmaps -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 08:37, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I would say no, in general. But almost all of that information comes from the XHIP catalogue and SIMBAD, which are RSs (although admittedly not always correct). So does it matter? Modest Genius ^talk 14:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Future of an expanding universe

I raised a concern on the talk page a few months ago, the gist of which is that I suspect some of the source info is outdated and didn't account for dark energy. My amateur guess was that all gravitationally unbound structures eventually become causally separated, and ultimately, everything becomes gravitationally unbound, so, ultimately you wind up with each stable elementary particle alone in its own universe.

One response suggested I ask WT:AST for updated sources, and thus far it is the only response, therefore and thusly, I ask this August Assembly to Ponder this Imponderable, Yours etc, --174.118.1.24 (talk) 19:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

For a modern undergraduate-level treatment of lambda-CDM cosmology you could try this book, though I don't know if this specific topic is included. Modest Genius ^talk 21:02, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Though as to this topic, the table of contents doesn't look promising. --192.75.48.150 (talk) 16:09, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

All gravitationally bound structures will remain bound. Dark energy is not going to rip them apart. Ruslik_Zero 10:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Strictly speaking you mean a cosmological constant isn't going to rip them apart. Some of the less popular competing explanations for dark energy do ultimately tear apart gravitationally bound structures in an outcome known as the Big Rip. Dragons flight (talk) 10:32, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

And that's not really what I meant anyway. To elaborate on my thinking:

• Even ignoring dark energy, gravitationally bound structures still deteriorate. This is already in the article:
  • Just with Newtonian mechanics, orbits get perturbed, and objects get ejected.
  • With GR, there's decay from gravitational radiation.
  • With quantum stuff, there's black hole evaporation, plus various quantum tunnelling things I don't get. And, perhaps, proton decay.
• The difference is that, rather than having remnants wandering about around occasionally interacting with each other as the article suggests, the cosmological constant permanently separates them all.
• Also, this separation happens on a much shorter timescale than many of the decay processes we are considering.
• Separation, then decay, then further separation, until finally we are left with stable remnants in their own universes.
• Not much is actually stable, it seems, we're talking photons, (anti)electrons, and (anti)electron neutrinos. (Gravitons?)

--192.75.48.150 (talk) 16:04, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

survey acronym article titles

MAssive Cluster Survey & Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble

I was wondering if this should be renamed to some other capitalization? -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 09:28, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

renaming of a large number of WISE surveyed objects

See Talk:WISEPC J150649.97+702736.0 where a large number of articles are up for renaming. -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 06:47, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

template:Virgo

{{Virgo}} has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 08:17, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

radial velocity method

This might be useful http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/ID/2305106236/ in expanding the radial velocity method planet detection, since it covers some of the engineering/technical details of an early form. -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 11:04, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 51#Meteorites

I've been working on the category tree of Category:Meteorites for the last few days and have now requested that a bot check that all the articles and categories in the tree are tagged with {{WikiProject Geology}} (amongst other things). Full details at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 51#Meteorites. -Arb. (talk) 00:16, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Seems like we're missing a category for meteorites not found on Earth (since we have found them on the Moon and Mars) also the main article intro at meteorite says they are those found on Earth, but later says they are also found on the Moon and Mars, so is misleading. -- 70.24.250.110 (talk) 00:35, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Did you see Category:Meteorites found on bodies other than Earth‎ under Category:Meteorites by find location? That would seem to cover your first point. As for your second, feel free to fix it ☺ -Arb. (talk) 09:35, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps an organizational category be created for meteorites by origin as well -- 65.94.77.181 (talk) 21:26, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Orbit modeling

So far only one article links to Orbit modeling, a new article. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:39, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Equinox and Solstice articles

While doing some assessments, I ran across this article today: March equinox. I thought it odd for it to be a stand-alone article, and sure enough, I found September equinox, which is pretty much an identical article. The fun doesn't stop there, though. There's also Equinox, again with much of the same information, and Equinox (celestial coordinates). For a laugh, take a look at the comical disambiguation language on Equinox. These pages seem to have been created a long time ago, and there was even some discussion of mergers in the talk pages for March equinox…but nothing happened. The same story occurs again with Solstice - there are a handful of redundant pages.

I think these pages ought to be merged into just two: Equinox and Solstice. What do fellow astro editors think? Should discussions happen on each article, or can we do one discussion for a bulk merge into the two relevant articles? Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 03:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

It does seem silly to have separate articles for Equinox and the March and September events. But I think Equinox (celestial coordinates) should remain a separate article, as it's a related concept but used in a slightly different way. There are also hundreds of incoming links from coordinates in other articles, for which it is helpful to have an article which concentrates solely on this usage. Equinox could have a paragraph or two on this and link to Equinox (celestial coordinates) as part of summary style. There would need to be a careful consideration for how exactly to split the content and avoid repetition.

As for where to discuss this, I'd be happy with a centralised discussion, so long as there were appropriate merge tags and notifications on the talk pages, linking to the discussion (here?). Modest Genius ^talk 23:53, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I started to have similar thoughts about keeping Equinox (celestial coordinates) separate. I also agree that a centralized discussion for how to merge all of the others together is best - and should probably be here. I'll look into setting it up. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 03:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I support these mergers. --Lasunncty (talk) 12:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Which set of articles is currently covered by this proposal, the equinox articles, or the solstice articles as well? As I see it, the only discussion currently occuring is for your listed equinox articles. -- 70.24.250.110 (talk) 19:39, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

No formal proposal has been made yet. For my part, I'm still considering what exactly to propose and how to word it. However, it will likely involve both the equinox and solstice set of articles. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 02:38, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

the merge proposal was placed on the Winter Solstice page. Both the Winter Solstice, and Midsummer Pages address the connection between solstices and symbolic ceremonies, rituals, holidays, and traditions that have come to define each solstice and thus should not be merged into one article. The sheer volume of cultural data in each of these articles would overwhelm the scientific subject of the Solstice/equinox pages. winter solstice addresses the physics of the solstice and provide links to the main article in it's intro but the bulk of the article is history and anthropology, which is appropriate for a specific holiday page.Some thing (talk) 17:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

WP Astronomy in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Astronomy for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 01:04, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I might be able to provide some comments, but won't have much to say on some of those. What's the time scale? Modest Genius ^talk 10:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Meteorites collaboration

Over at WikiProject Geology they're running a December collaboration to improve articles in Category:Meteorites and its sub-categories.

WikiProject Astronomy members are welcome to participate.

There is a task list and discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology#Collaboration for December.

-Arb. (talk) 23:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Meteorites have their own task force now (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Geology/Meteorites). Right now the task force has only two members. Anybody that would like to join is welcome! --Tobias1984 (talk) 09:59, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Quick question on spectral type

Can someone help me make sense of the spectral type of Delta Normae? I can't figure out what is being said here, and it would be nice to know for categorization purposes. Thanks in advance. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:54, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

One of the strangest classifications I think I've seen...and I've classified dozens of stars! I know the astronomer who classified this one, so I'll shoot him and email and ask for an explanation. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 23:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I sent an email and maybe will get a good explanation. I see three different classifications listed: A3, A7, and F0III. "m" presumably means there are absorption lines from elements heavier than helium (metals), but I don't know about the k and the h parts...makes me think of calcium lines, but I'm not sure. Stay tuned! AstroCog (talk) 00:08, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, so I got the straight dope on this star. It's an "Am" star, with peculiar chemical signatures in its spectrum. It has weak calcium II lines (hence the "k") similar to A3 stars, hydrogen lines (the "h") similar to A7 stars, and the metallic line pattern similar to F0 III stars. I would put it in Category:A-type stars. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 00:54, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks! It's now in the correct category. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Can you gloss the classification into the article to explain that. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 06:02, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

PH1

Having a bit of a disagreement on Talk that could really do with other interested voices chipping in. It concerns the reporting of certain exoplanet names as "official". ChiZeroOne (talk) 20:29, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I've replied there. StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:52, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:Meteorite journals

Category:Meteorite journals has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 20:39, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Length of day at the Equator

Hi, I figure that astronomers are as likely to know as much about this as anyone. A question has arisen at Talk:Equator#Not sure about these statements about whether places on the Equator have theoretically exactly 12 hours of day throughout the year, measured by when the centre of the sun crosses the horizon, and ignoring refraction effects. Any expert comments there would be welcome. 86.160.216.227 (talk) 03:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Upsilon Andromedae c

Apparently the article on Upsilon Andromedae c wants to claim this object is a star. I'm not sure any serious source has claimed this object should not be regarded as a planet, and certainly the "13 Jupiter masses = brown dwarf boundary" is not a hard-and-fast rule, even some of the exoplanet catalogues use higher masses (usually based on the brown dwarf desert). Not sure how best to proceed with this.

Also it looks like the astrometric masses have been systematically replaced with RV minimum masses in the infoboxes, not sure what's going on there... 84.73.25.195 (talk) 19:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Talk:List_of_brightest_stars#Request_for_comment:_Listing_individual_components_of_stars_which_are_seen_as_single_points_from_earth

See the above link - Talk:List_of_brightest_stars#Request_for_comment:_Listing_individual_components_of_stars_which_are_seen_as_single_points_from_earth

and vote discuss away....Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:12, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Perseus

Hi, there's a discussion going on at Talk:Perseus (constellation) about a particular section - people here may be interested. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:43, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Asteroid Wikipedia

Well, here's an interesting development: 274301_Wikipedia.

...I'm not touching this with the notability stick, no way, no how. But I will sit back and watch any discussion. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 21:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC) ....That made me chuckle I must concede......Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:36, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Brilliant April Fools material :) I'll take the Ukranian sources on good faith as significant coverage. Modest Genius ^talk 22:19, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Haha, this is hilarious. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:08, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Requests to move Luminous blue variable star

WPAST members may be interested in talk:Luminous blue variable star#Suggested move. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:07, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

XingXiu(2).png

file:XingXiu(2).png has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 07:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Unless there's an English-language version, this shouldn't be linked to from the English Wikipedia.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Julesmazur (talk • contribs) 03:20, 7 February 2013‎ (UTC)

It should be on commons instead of English wikipedia. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:38, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Units to be used for distances and sizes in infoboxes

It's my belief that authors and editors should only use one unit (either ly or pc) when referring to distances from Earth, or radii of nebulae, in the infobox. For example, in the infobox for the Carina Nebula, the radius is shown as being "~10 pc." Conversely, in the article about the Tarantula Nebula, the radius is given as being "300 ly." Despite the fact that both units are commonly used in the field of astronomy, I think we should define guidelines denoting standards, for consistency's sake. I personally cast my vote for using ly as the standard. Julesmazur (talk) 01:57, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Part of the problem here is that many peer-reviewed sources will use parsecs and the average reader does not know what a parsec is. -- Kheider (talk) 02:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

That's what parsec is for. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:24, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

But, keeping ease of use in mind, a user shouldn't have to go to a separate page to look up the definition of something as trivial as a unit of distance, when there's a much more common, equally viable alternative. Julesmazur (talk) 03:16, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

True enough, but at the same time we should assume clue in our readers, and not "dumb it down". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I think we should always use {{convert}} and use both ly and pc. If we use the convert template, we can consistently display both values, for nearby objects. As for distant objects, I don't think your suggestion is practicable. If something is z=4.5 away from Earth, neither the ly nor the pc value is all that useful, and we should stick to redshift. If the source material uses redshiftspace dimensions, we should use that, since we'd have to do original research to specify the conversion parameters (ie. Hubble constant) to ly or pc. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:40, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I've been using the convert template and both ly and pc. Looks fine. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:34, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

That could work. Question is, which one goes first? The one known to the general public, if by no other definition than "really, really far", or the one used in the amateur and professional community, as "even farther?" Julesmazur (talk) 04:54, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

huh? could you specify what you mean by "even further"? As for ly and pc, many of the infoboxes have parameters to enter each in separately, so just use the existing parameters. If they're missing, then we could just add them into the infoboxes, so that stylistically they will all be the same, without making the editor remember how to conform in placing one or the other first, as the infobox formatting itself will do it. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:09, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I generally list first "whatever the reference lists" so that it can be verified by casual readers quicker. -- Kheider (talk) 16:45, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

By "even further," I mean that a parsec is equivalent to just over 3.261 light years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Julesmazur (talk • contribs) 16:23, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Parsecs are in universal usage in the scientific literature, including textbooks, journal articles etc. Most cited references will be using parsecs. The term 'light-year' is more familiar to the general public, although I would guess that the percentage of people who actually know what it means is quite low. Use both, with {{convert}}. Which comes first should be consistent within an article, but I don't think we should impose any blanket rule. (Personally I prefer parsecs, but I am an astronomer!) Modest Genius ^talk 14:18, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh and 65.92.180.137 makes a good point regarding redshift as a measure of distance. At cosmological scales the precise meaning of 'distance' is complicated, see Cosmological distances. Modest Genius ^talk 14:19, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Another astronomer chiming in, in full agreement with 65.92.180.137 and Modest Genius. - Parejkoj (talk) 17:00, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Optical telescope

FYI, there's a notice at WT:PHYSICS about a query at Talk:Optical telescope about the strength limitations of telescopes. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Notability (astronomical objects)

WPAST members may be interested in the discussion here, about an element of our notability guidelines. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:26, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Question about distance in light years in the infobox

Sorry I couldn't find the answer to this anywhere, but why don't the infoboxes on stars contain their distance in light years from earth? Wouldn't this be information someone might want to quickly reference? I notice that most articles mention the distance in the body, but not the infobox. --BHC (talk) 05:27, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

They do contain the information. If someone puts it in there :) It will be calculated automatically (in both light years and parsecs) if a parallax is entered, but can also be entered manually if a better value is available. If you know the distance, with a reference, then stick it in there. Lithopsian (talk) 22:25, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Stars notability

I've recently learned that stars that are visible to the naked eye are automatically notable. I'm curious as to what the policy is for stars that aren't visible to the naked eye. Can someone point me to the relevant policy? I tried searching for WP:NSTAR but that didn't take me anywhere. Ryan Vesey 20:04, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Depends how and what is written about them. Using the global unofficial tidal "significant discussion in two sources" seems to work ok. I've written some when I've found some interesting papers. Have you a specific star in mind? Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The policy is at WP:NASTRO. You'll find it fairly comprehensive - it covers not just stars, but any astronomical object. Always start with the general notability guideline. If the star doesn't meet the GNG, then it's not going to meet WP:NASTRO, which sets some additional constraints on notability. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 22:32, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

There's some discussion on object notability generally and the application of Wikipedia:Notability (astronomical objects) at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects#Megamerge. Comments very welcome there. Andrewa (talk) 14:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the responses here. I don't actually have a specific article in mind. An article on a star was deprodded because it could be seen with the naked eye which got me thinking. In my opinion, a star should be notable if it's existence can be verified whether it can be seen by the naked eye or not. I'll have to look at the link you added soon. Ryan Vesey 17:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

NASTRO covers the existence argument. In short, verifiable existence doesn't provide inherent notability. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 19:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

There are about 300 billion stars in our Galaxy alone. That's about 40 stars per human being. Since not every human being is notable, it's hard to argue for the inherent notability of every star. Reyk _YO! 22:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if we allowed articles on every verified star, we would end up with an absolutely insane amount of articles that no one other than an astronomer would care about at all. Although WP is meant to be comprehensive, there's a point at which it becomes too comprehensive. I would actually be for relaxing the guidelines to include all stars within about 20 parsecs and all stars with an HD number, but we certainly can't have an article on every star. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Probably not even an astronomer would care too much; there are so many stars that we know of from the 2MASS and SDSS surveys that do not have a paper associated with them. At this stage, inherent notability is not even given to stars with confirmed planets (the notability for these objects deriving from the standard WP:GNG and WP:NASTRO). Wer900 • talk 02:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

As an experiment, I picked a few random HD numbers and used SIMBAD and NASA ADS to see what coverage they have in the literature. HD 1567 supposedly has just one published paper which mentions it (as one of 79 objects), but when I went through the paper itself I couldn't find it at all. HD 208794 also has just a single paper listed, where its one of 46,902 (yes, really) stars mentioned. HD 169442 was at first glance slightly more encouraging, with 6 papers listed on SIMBAD, but all of them include the star as one of thousands in catalogues (all related to FK5). Those were just the first three random numbers I entered. None are remotely close to passing WP:GNG, so a we shouldn't be adding HD numbers to WP:NASTRO. Modest Genius ^talk 12:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Luckily the the General Notability Guidelines use the words "Significant coverage" - hence not just an article with a list of 79000 stars in it. Hence for stars below naked eye visibility, I've hesitated if I can't find significant coverage. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:46, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. I was just demonstrating why the cut-off should continue to be HR stars in, HD stars out. Modest Genius ^talk 18:08, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

There are plenty of HD, and not HR, stars that are notable although most of them will also have some other designation. Increasingly stars discovered in other galaxies, supernova progenitors, can be considered notable without having any designation you would recognise. Lithopsian (talk) 22:28, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Of course. We're discussing which stars should be notable by default. Significant coverage would also make any star notable enough for an article, regardless what what catalogue (if any) it appeared in. Modest Genius ^talk 23:57, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Called

What is the name of the hypothesis that says the big bang was sparked by an event in another universe? Pass a Method talk 13:52, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's the cyclic model, but that doesn't seem exactly what you're looking for. Are you looking at, for example, the possibility of extraterrestrials creating another universe by concentrating large amounts of energy at a single point? Wer900 • talk 18:04, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

There's several different theories/hypotheses that do that. eternal inflation, cyclic brane collision, cyclic bang/crunch, black hole budding universes, etc. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Astronomical transit has been proposed to be renamed to transit (astronomy)

Astronomical transit (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been proposed to be renamed to Transit (astronomy) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:36, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

File:VtransitsJ.jpg

Is File:VtransitsJ.jpg correct? Would the apparent dimensions of Jupiter and Venus allow for such a configuration to occur? (Do you have to be at the distance of Proxima to see this being the relative sizes of the discs overlapping? ; obviously, if you're close to Venus, Venus would be much larger than Jupiter, and Jupiter would be a dot in the sky) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Venus is 11 times smaller than Jupiter. Ruslik_Zero 11:16, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Notability of asteroid stubs

Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability from February 2012 has something like 5000 articles (mainly stubs?) tagged as questionable notability. That is an astronomical number of tagged articles. (sorry...) It would be good to get a decision on what to do with them. Listify maybe? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 08:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

This has already been discussed extensively, at WT:ASTRO, see the multiple topical archive pages devoted to asteroids (hundreds of k's worth of discussion). Objects numbered below 2000 were to be postponed from cleanup to ease the workload since below 2000 there's a bigger likelihood of notability, and work would be needed to bring those articles up to snuff, while objects 2000+ that fail WP:NASTRO were to be redirected to the existing lists. (List of asteroids subarticles) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 06:03, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the plan is to redirect to the relevant lists. But it requires some manual or semi-automatic oversight, so is a big job. The category isn't doing any harm, and it's useful as and when people have time to work on it. Modest Genius ^talk 23:27, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

I've noticed that there's a {{chemical-importance}} so perhaps we should have a {{astronomical-object-importance}} template, with corresponding category Category: Astronomical object articles with topics of unclear importance -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 07:20, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

{{Notability|Astro}} does the same thing. And I notice that the chemistry version is currently a candidate to be merged into {{notability}}. Modest Genius ^talk 22:39, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't add a specific cleanup category for astronomical objects -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 09:45, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

OK. Is that desirable? I never look at categories so don't know. If so, {{notability}} could easily be modified to do so. Modest Genius ^talk 00:51, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

It'd sort out the astronomical objects from everything else. (you can't do WhatLinksHere with just {{notability}} ) Any of us that would work on notability issues for these articles can go through a pure listing from the category then. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 03:20, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't {{notability}} emit a category for that? If not, it could easily do so. Modest Genius ^talk 13:05, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I am looking for the original

Project Daedalus is the name chosen for the British Interplanetary Society's Starship study. - apparently this article from British Interplanetary Society, but I can not find the original. please help. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 15:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

You're at the wrong project, see WT:SPACEFLIGHT instead -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Admins please move Comet Siding Spring

Can an admin move the current Comet Siding Spring to C/2007 Q3? There are 11 comets + 1 asteroid known as Siding Spring, and the potential Mars impactor C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) is drawing a lot of attention. -- Kheider (talk) 16:03, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done Ruslik_Zero 11:57, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I guess the idea was that Comet Siding Spring should redirect to C/2013 A1 instead, or be a disambiguation page. I have redirected it to C/2013 A1 which currently gets around 1000 times as many page hits as C/2007 Q3. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if it would not be a good idea to create a Siding Spring (disambiguation) page (since there are a number of articles with this name or nickname) and redirect Comet Siding Spring there, possibly to a comet (or astronomy) subsection? — Huntster (t @ c) 00:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Should Hypothetical types of stars be a list?

Hello! I was reviewing the page Hypothetical types of stars and I wondered if it qualified as a list and should be called List of hypothetical types of stars. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It should just redirect to the older article Hypothetical star -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 06:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I am the creator of Hypothetical types of stars. I am not a member of WikiProject Astronomy, so I am not familiar with it's specific preferences. However, I personally think the new article Hypothetical types of stars is a bit more organized than Hypothetical star, so I think the missing content from Hypothetical star should be merged into Hypothetical types of stars and Hypothetical star redirected (I don't propose this just because I created that article, I don't care whether I am the creator of the article that is kept or not but because I think it's just a bit better organized and formatted). If others disagree, we can discuss it. Best. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 20:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I also am not a member of WikiProject astronomy. Both of the pages look good to me, although in general left-justified text in tables is easier to read. I am wondering about the title, though. "Hypothetical star" is singular and doesn't really describe this list. Will astronomers or other users type the phrase "Hypothetical types of stars" into the search box? Once the page has been merged, one way or the other, I feel that is is a WP:LIST and that the title should be "List of hypothetical stars" or "List of hypothetical star types". —Anne Delong (talk) 21:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:SINGULAR -- article titles are to be singular. WP:PRECISE -- use shorter titles. {{db-a10}} newer duplicate articles may be speedily deleted. 65.92.180.137 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, in normal circumstances. Anne is correct though, these are lists more than articles. They really should be merged and moved to List of hypothetical star types. If there is consensus for such an action, it will be fairly trivial to take care of. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:26, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Except that hypothetical star covers not just star types, but hypothetical individual stars as well, so List of hypothetical star types does not work. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 00:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

A better title is what I would hope discussion would bring about. List of hypothetical stars could work, but I admit I like "star types" better, even with individual stars mentioned. Anyway, the three specifically mentioned hypothetical stars are rather secondary to the types of stars listed; hypothetical star would redirect to the list, which would cover anyone searching for the term, and could redirect to a specific section or anchor for those stars. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:37, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:Star systems within 5 – 10 light-years

I've added the brown dwarf WISE 1049-5319 to Template:Star systems within 5 – 10 light-years however it doesn't appear on the template. I don't know why it doesn't work. I've used the same format as appears in other templates - for example L-class dwarfs appear ok in the template Template:Star systems within 15 – 20 light-years. Nestrs (talk) 15:17, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

It's working now. Must have been some sort of cacheing issue. Nestrs (talk) 21:20, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Adding &action=purge makes the most recent edition appear so one can be sure an edit was correctly saved and it's not data loss (though that happens very rarely). Hekerui (talk) 15:00, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Angles of Inclination, Right Ascention and Ascending node

I have several questions, but I'll start with this one –

Mercury's orbital inclination is 7° to the ecliptic. Its axial tilt is nearly 0°. How then can its north pole declination be 61°? Based on this idea, is it not logical that the declination be 81°? Same goes for all the planets. BigSteve (talk) 15:17, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Have you gone through all the planet articles and found similar discrepancies? I notice that the north pole right ascension and declination are taken from one source, and the axial tilt from another (Margot et al. use the term "obliquity", not "axial tilt") the axial tilt source is a rather specialized article focusing on the nature of the interior of Mercury. Maybe the two sources are using different definitions. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

You're assuming the north pole declination of the planets is being measured against the ecliptic ;) Lithopsian (talk) 16:14, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I think I get it – since the Earth is itself tilted at 23°, the declination of each planet can be anything up to its tilt + its own orbital inclination + 23°. Right? BigSteve (talk) 15:23, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Another question – Longitude of ascending node is measured against the ecliptic. But wouldn't it be more logical if it were measured against the Invariable plane? Does anyone know where such data for the planets' orbits can be found? After all, if the earth's own "–11.3°" is (I'm assuming???) based on the Invariable plane. Surely then the other planets' ascending node longitudes can be, too...? BigSteve (talk) 15:23, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to try to answer, because I think it is more important to realize that there are many different coordinate systems in astronomy, and every single number must be referred back to where it came from so the coordinates in use can be found. Now the obvious place to look for the –11.3° you mention is Wikipedia's "Earth" article, but the characters "11.3" do not appear in the "Earth" article, so your question is invalid. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:04, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

The –11.3° is shown as 348.7°, which is the same. But where you say "it is more important for you to realize that there are many different coordinate systems in astronomy" – that's my point – so many systems are used that no single system is used for enough pieces of data for that data to be internally consistent... BigSteve (talk) 21:15, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

The RA and declination of planetary axes is clearly measured relative to the Earth's equator. That makes it somewhat difficult to compare the planets with eachother, but there are other metrics if you want to do that. Similarly, the ascending node and other similar data is measured against the Earth's orbit. More helpful since this is at least one plane within the solar system, and actually quite close to the invariable plant. The invariable plane has the difficulty that it is calculated from many other things (mostly gas giant masses and orbits), things that were not well known until quite recently. Even now the invariable plan should be regarded as a derived value rather than a fundamental one (not because it varies, but because our measurements of it will vary), so not the best basis for defining other constants. The ecliptic is very obvious to us (and fixed for us) and so makes a good basis for coordinate systems even if it is based on something that is actually wobbling all over the place. The Earth's own orbit tends to be defined relative to the sun's rotational axis, not relative to the invariable plane (although you can certainly find parameters relative to the invariable plane), for much the same reasons. Lithopsian (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Grey hole

So, we have Grey hole (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and a different Gray hole (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), should we just redirect the prodded grey hole to Gray hole ? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

That's so obvious of a hoax that I've redirected it. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:58, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

List of cloud types

List of cloud types has a section on "other planets", but it's rather sparse, do we have an article for Clouds outside the Earth ? Particularly, the cloud types article is missing Titan, Triton (cryovolcanic clouds), Io (volcanic clouds); not to mention clouds on brown dwarfs. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 21:59, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

U Andromedae

U Andromedae has been prodded for deletion. I think it's probably better to keep it around, to prevent someone from misconceiving it as Upsilon Andromedae, since inevitably it will end up as a typo-redirect to υ And - if it is deleted. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 02:49, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

As the one who PRODded it, I don't think it is notable (obviously), but I can see your reasoning. Maybe we should just have a clause that all single-letter variable stars are notable to prevent this; many of them are notable anyways.... StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:15, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I observe variable stars but I'd still say three quarters of those single-letter variable stars have no notability. While the larger and brighter constellations have their first ten or so variables that are at least bright, and occasionally interesting for other reasons, many others don't. Andromeda is an example of a fairly large constellation where perhaps only one or two of those stars (S And and Z And for sure, but is there anything else?) deserve an article. Do we really need a bunch of article stubs about meaningless variables in Musca (although several of them are borderline naked eye) or Vulpecula? Lithopsian (talk) 21:57, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

If they are borderline naked-eye, I would say they should have an article, since they can conceivably be seen by the naked eye under ideal conditions. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 01:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Such a change would be fine by me, it only adds a very few stars per constellation. Should I go ahead and deprod U And then? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 06:11, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

"Stars of X" templates

The templates like {{Stars of Andromeda}} are unsatisfactory, as they don't give a full list of notable stars in the constellation. In addition, the layout for non-bayer and non-flamsteed stars is a problem; simply lumping them into a "nearby" and "other" category is not good, as if all notable stars were to be added, the "other" category would become extremely large. At User:StringTheory11/sandbox, I have put together a draft layout for the template that I think works much better. It would be appreciated if someone could give me feedback on it, so that we can figure out what to improve. StringTheory11 (t • c) 19:03, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Might still be worth having a "nearby" category. Lithopsian (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Although a nearby category does sound like a good idea, there's two reasons why I don't like it. One, the definition of "nearby" is completely subjective, and thus the template will be prone to edit warring to change this. Second, and more importantly IMO, is that I think it is best to stick to one scheme on how to organize the stars (currently it is by designation [note that I have also removed all duplicates]). With the addition of a nearby category, another organization scheme would be introduced, which could potentially be confusing to readers. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:09, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't HR instead of HD be better? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 00:36, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Probably not. After Bayer and Flamsteed there isn't an awful lot of HR left. Except in the southern hemisphere, where there would be a lot of naked eye stars without a Flamsteed number? Notable stellar objects are very likely to have an HD number since it is complete(-ish) to about mag 9.5. Lithopsian (talk) 15:48, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

It'd be a useful breakdown, to split off from the potentially larger pool of HD, so perhaps having both HR and HD then. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 00:32, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I can do this; it should be fairly straightforward. StringTheory11 (t • c) 05:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

There should be a "Former" category as well, since the boundaries of constellations have shifted, and some stars have actually had the proper motion to move from one constellation to another, during their recorded history, a separate list of those would be good -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 00:32, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I could add a former category, but there is one problem: it will be nearly impossible to find sources that tell me that a star was in a constellation. Since I have no knowledge of stars that have changed constellation, it will take a lot of just going through a ton of articles to figure this out. In short, I will attempt to add this, but it will take some time. StringTheory11 (t • c) 05:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Morton Wagman's "Lost Stars" (I think User:Casliber has a hard copy, here it is on Gbooks) is a great source for stuff like this. It's not got everything but it's a good start. Hope this helps! Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 15:06, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Testing

Ok, I have finished the templates for all constellations starting with "A". I was thinking of deploying them on these constellations as a sort of test to see how they work. If they seem to work well, I will make templates for the other constellations (slowly). What do other people think of this? StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

deleted asteroids

Can someone rebuild the recently PROD-deleted asteroid articles as redirects to the list, such as they are supposed to be?

4692 SIMBAD (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) , 19433 Naftz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) , 18106 Blume (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) , 12909 Jaclifford (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

-- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 03:08, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

 All done. Modest Genius ^talk 13:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Kenneth G. Carpenter

[12]: worthy of an article or not? I know him, so I'm probably not the best situated to make the decision, but I was a little surprised not to find a Wikipedia article on him. - Jmabel | Talk 03:20, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Probably not, as he doesn't meet any of the criteria listed on WP:ACADEMIC, at least as far as I can tell from that link. Modest Genius ^talk 13:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

template:Starbox character 2s

{{Starbox character 2s}} has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 00:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Bortle Dark Sky Scale

See talk:Bortle Dark-Sky Scale where this has been proposed to be renamed -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 07:13, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact

There's an FAC review currently in progress for Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact. Anyone is welcome to join and contribute their thoughts. Wer900 • talk 18:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Book: Quasars

Can someone go over this wikibook? I just removed an entry for a 1-line stub article on a quasar from the list of pages to print to create this book. Shouldn't we be publishing the more substantive and/or important quasars only, and not just any old quasar article? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 08:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll be going through and removing all the 1-line stub articles listed as to be printed into this book. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 08:26, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

HEC: Top 10 Lists of Exoplanets

Is http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog/top10 an acceptable source? It has a note

“ A similar List of Extrasolar Planet Extremes is available in wikipedia but needs to be updated.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These lists were automatically generated by HEC for all confirmed exoplanets. Radius or mass was estimated when not available from mass-radius relationships. This page is only updated when necessary.

”

Which seems to make this a rather poor source to use. It's being used to update List of extrasolar planet extremes, which the source claims is in need of updating... so seems to be soliciting edits to Wikipedia... -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 09:00, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

List of extrasolar planet extremes is being updated, and the HEC says that that page needs to be updated. How does it make the HEC unreliable? All that it means is that our article needs to be updated.

Besides, "updated when necessary" means that it is updated only when new planetary parameters are published. In short, your reasoning seems quite flawed, and the HEC is a perfectly reliable source. It is NOT WP:CIRCULAR with our own article. Wer900 • talk 01:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say it wasn't reliable, I asked whether the source was acceptable. The note about Wikipedia's list solicits edits to conform Wikipedia to a specific source, instead of our using a variety of sources, makes our page much more {{one source}} problematic if we conform our list to their list blindly. The fact that the page is updated periodically also makes checking facts back to the time they were updated problematic without someone archiving the copy of the time. And if the update to our list does not make a new reference with a new accessdate, then our references are also wrong, as they would have the wrong accessdate. We can't simply change the accessdate without checking every use of the reference and making sure it still applies in all instances, so we'll need to make sure we make new references for each access. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

File:C925ota.jpg

File:C925ota.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 17:20, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

stars in constellation X lists

I have a suggestion, that the stars in constellation x list articles be expanded to include HR and perhaps Gliese designations. Since they now contain traditional names, Bayer, Flamsteed, Gould, HD and HIP. Harvard Bright Star Catalogue is also rather widely used. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 03:52, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree with this, but it would probably be a task better suited for a bot to perform (from my endeavors recently I have learned that working to correct the names of various stars and other similar tasks are not for the faint of heart). If no one objects in a few days, I'll post a request at WP:BTR. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:27, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Copernican principle

Could someone please review recent changes to Copernican principle by Wyattmj (talk · contribs) (see its history and last thread on the talk page). Grammar and formatting aside, I see it as WP:OR, where an editor draws conclusions from primary sources. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 05:27, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Twaddle, twaddle, and more twaddle. The axis of evil was at best something curious at the limits of detection and now widely thought to be a statistical anomaly in the way the data is analysed. It is still being studied because the implications if it actually existed would be huge, but only conspiracy theorists and religious nuts actually believe in it. The paragraph as currently written should be removed, it is biased and misleading. Lithopsian (talk) 12:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Looks like this is the latest "creationist" target. You'll have your work cut out with these guys. They've been told by a higher authority that the Copernican Principle is wrong and nothing is going to change that opinion. Lithopsian (talk) 10:56, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The article still seriously misrepresents the published papers, but I clearly don't have the diplomatic skills to correct it. Sorry. Lithopsian (talk) 15:18, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Solar eclipse

Could someone verify the accuracy and relevance of this 2009 addition to Solar eclipse, which is still present in a slightly modified form in the article today. I've caught one of the authors spamming citations to his papers on Wikipedia for the past few years (the author in question also is a computer scientist, not an astronomer of physicist.) —Ruud 23:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Judging from the Allais_effect article, this should probably be at least re-worded to reflect that recent experiments give rather prosaic explanations. The section in the Solar Eclipse article could certainly also be removed re: WP:FRINGE without too much loss. I'd vote for rewording: it's something that people might have heard of and come here looking for more information. I don't know enough details to do the rewriting myself, though. - Parejkoj (talk) 18:16, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

asteriod around the moon

See http://earthsky.org/space/proposed-budget-includes-100m-to-place-asteroid-in-orbit-around-moon

Is this reflected anywhere in wiki? Tkuvho (talk) 10:38, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes; in fact, I created Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization specifically to deal with that subject. You are welcome to expand it with new information. Wer900 • talk 23:36, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Perhaps some redirect pages like Asteroid around moon etc would be helpful for finding this. Tkuvho (talk) 09:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

No, that wouldn't since you can have an asteroid around the Moon without human intervention. -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 07:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Celestial observation

The Celestial observation article is in dire need of a rewrite. It is currently the result of a student's work, one who was unversed in the subject. I analyzed the first part of the lead (lede) on its talk page, but it is not my subject area. --Bejnar (talk) 04:58, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Should it even be an article? The phrase "celestial observation" is more frequently used to mean something else and the entire article on celestial navigation doesn't mention the term. The use of "celestial observation" to mean measuring the altitude of an object seems merely to be an application of a general term within a particular discipline. Lithopsian (talk) 11:57, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

New article High-Velocity Clouds

Hi

I was doing NPPs and came across this gem. I have had a quick look, but it may need a bit more going over - I will look in more detail later tonight though.

In any case it could do with a basic assessment (I have put the astronomy banner on the talk page but without params), and I have added a cl-span to the lead(/lede) and a note on the talk page for someone with more knowledge to have a look if someone can spare a few minutes.

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 21:17, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

There's some bias in the article as well, as it's a claim of Milky Way related clouds, but fails to consider known HVCs around Andromeda and others discovered at high redshift. -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 06:05, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I was a little concerned about bias as it seemed to only give one aspect and thanks for taking a look.

The main sources seem to take info from Putnam mainly, as later material appears to be based on her work.

Is this Shull source a fairly good overview as a general source? (NASA link from [13])

I will look again over the weekend and try and expand it a little further Chaosdruid (talk) 17:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

What are LPVs called?

That might seem like a dumb question, but bear with me. The article long period variable was recently renamed to long-period variable and discussion on the merits of this doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. I have my own opinion, but I'll go along with what other astronomers think. Lithopsian (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Replied there (note that I'm not a professional astronomer, and I'm going off what is more common in technical texts, which are the authoritative sources). StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:22, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Kepler-62

Although I didn't originate Kepler-62 and the pages related to its stellar system, I would like to ensure that building these pages is not the crusade of a small group. Please help to document the latest major exoplanet discovery. Wer900 • talk 01:39, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Suspected error

Suspected error in this file: .

1. Red giant fill Roche lobe early then O-star
2. When Red giant eclipsing O-star it must be the deepest minimum. Because the component with lower temperature eclipse the higher-tempreture component

I suggest switch colors of components, then all be correct.--Abeshenkov (talk) 13:23, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

The picture is misleading but your interpretation is also not correct. Beta Lyrae binaries are too close for the primary to become a red anything. It starts hot and stays hot, while any attempt to expand simply leads to rapid mass loss. Models for Beta Lyrae itself suggest that the temperature of each component hasn't ever dropped below 10,000K, and they are currently both B class stars. There are a few O class, and a few cooler, but these are typically B class stars a few times the mass of the Earth. Lithopsian (talk) 13:51, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

If it's Beta Lyre then are both should be blue (and of course not Earth mass, but Sun). But in many articles it's a example of common close binary star.--Abeshenkov (talk) 14:06, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of what the colors/temps of these systems actually are, the figure's light curve is just plain incorrect. A dip in the light curve is always deeper when the hotter surface is eclipsed. The figure should have either the light curve fixed, or the colors changed to be physically consistent. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 15:46, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Are red and blue representative of temperature, or were they just chosen to give contrast to the two different stars? Remember, diagramatic representations do not need to use color as indicative of temperature, they could just be used to indicate that there are two different stars. (such as in chess, one side is black, the other is white, but on the real life battlefield, few uniforms are just black or white on two opposing sides; or in military exercises, where you have team blue and team red, but again on the battlefield, both are usually mottled green) -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 07:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Point of order, the original author of the image seems to have departed wiki in the summer of 2010, as such replacing it would be non-trivial.

That said, the color scheme and accompanying light curve seem to be contradictory assuming color=temperature. It would be a shame to have to remove it -- it's a pretty neat little animation. Sailsbystars (talk) 07:26, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

But should we assume that color=temp? In a high-contrast illustration, it is common to use red and blue as the two differentiating colors, to represent two different items. A note on the image saying that the colors do not represent temperature can be implemented. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 07:34, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, color is definitely indicative of temperature for stellar surfaces - for any incandescent object really. Cooler temperature surfaces are redder in color than hotter temperature surfaces. Noting that the colors are opposite would just add to the confusion. If it's not possible to modify this images specifically, I advocate deleting it from the article altogether. It's a shame that such a nice animation has such a fundamental error. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 12:09, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe should ask in Wikipedia:Graphics Lab?--Abeshenkov (talk) 12:42, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

But it isn't, in the general world of diagrams, indicative of temperature, in real life star color is indicative of temperature, but this is a diagram, not a photograph of a star. Red and blue are also used to indicate approach and recession of stars in other diagrams (from doppler shift digramatic colors) and age diagrams (with blue young stars and red old stars with diagramatic colors). At any rate, we should keep the file on commons even if we don't use it (with the appropriate note on the meaning of the colors) -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 23:28, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Now you're just making stuff up. Old stars coloured red and young ones blue? In a colouring book from which century? The diagram is misleading, no matter what someone in another discipline might use red and blue for. The light curve is awful and it isn't a good representation of a Beta Lyrae type star. It is an animated GIF so it should be pretty easy to manipulate the palette to change the colours, but the light curve is still pretty poor. This type of star has fairly circular orbits and fairly symmetrical light curves. Lithopsian (talk) 13:57, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not making stuff up. I have seen several maps of star distributions, where age is indicated with blue and red (red old stars in halo, central bulge, blue stars sprinkled on spiral arms) . As for the light curve, we can edit the image to remove the light curve as well. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 00:12, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstand those diagrams. It is true that old stars are red and blue stars are young. However you have extrapolated to the untrue conclusions that red stars are old and young stars are blue ;) Lithopsian (talk) 13:44, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The blue star in this picture is the secondary (with accretion disk), which is less luminous than the less massive primary (shown red). So the brightness curve is correct. As to colors, the real spectral class of the secondary is not known. It may, in fact, be hotter than the primary, or cooler. So, switch of colors is a possible solution. Ruslik_Zero 06:55, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Certainly, a red giant overflowing it's roche lobe would be more luminous on basis of size than a similar mass star in an earlier phase of stellar evolution but a.) blue stars are almost always as big or bigger than red giants (excepting a few stages of young white dwarfs) and b.) in the animation the stars are the same size. Pretty much any way you look at the diagram right now it has something that doesn't add up, unfortunately... Sailsbystars (talk) 07:24, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

What? I don't believe what I'm reading. Most obviously, blue stars are *not* by any stretch of the imagination always "as big or bigger" than red giants. In fact they are almost always smaller, with only the most extreme blue supergiants being as large as some of the smaller red giants. Second, as already alluded to, in an eclipsing binary the eclipse of the hotter star creates the deeper minimum (assuming circular orbits, which is true here). Which star is the more luminous is not relevant since the larger star is only partially eclipsed. The eclipsed area is equal in each case, with the depth of the minimum depending on the luminosity per unit area of the stars, which depends entirely on temperature. Lastly, Beta Lyrae type eclipsing variables almost always have two stars of similar temperature. By necessity! The evolving star simply cannot expand and cool to red giant status because of the size of the orbit. So switching colours on the diagram doesn't really solve much. Lithopsian (talk) 13:44, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yikes, yes, you're right. It was late at night and I forgot where the line of constant size fall on the HR diagram. Stuck the factually mistaken assertion. Sailsbystars (talk) 15:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

This light curve is not correct for the given stars, configuration, and viewing angle. The luminosity (TOTAL energy output of the entire surface area) of the individual stars is NOT the determining factor in the depth of each eclipse in the light curve, as Lithopsian said above. It's the temperature of the surface blocked during each eclipse. I'm not an expert on systems of this type, but I know how eclipsing binary light curves work pretty well. My comments are directed at the figure itself. As for the incorrect ideas stated above about colors and ages of stars, I have to say this: young stars can be red, blue, yellow, whitish...whatever. It all depends on mass. It is true that all regular stars age into Red Giants, and perhaps that where the above confusion originated. Color alone is not an indication of size. Color alone is not an indication of age for stars, but it IS an indication of temperature. Blue is hotter. Red is cooler. Period. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 14:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Removed this image from Beta Lyrae (simply not representative of this star or the class) and Binary star (bad light curve and a poor representation of a Beta Lyrae class star). The image remains and if someone has the time to edit it, we can put it back later. Lithopsian (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

On 4 October 2012‎, I had removed a similar illustration by the same author (File:Eclipsing binary star animation 2.gif) from the article Algol because, like the illustration currently under discussion, the illustration that I removed showed pronounced perspective effects, which are absolutely absurd to contemplate. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 00:22, 9 May 2013 (UTC)