Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RU Andromedae (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Sandstein 12:00, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

RU Andromedae[edit]

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Doesn't meet the notability criteria of WP:NASTRO, it exists just as a database entry Psyluke (talk) 16:50, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Astronomy-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 16:57, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Ok, the page for deletion was actually RU Andromedae but I typed one wrong letter. So embarassing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psyluke (talk • contribs) 16:58, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator note I have fixed the above nomination, as well as putting this AFD in the right place. Primefac (talk) 16:06, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Fails WP:NASTCRIT. Not naked eye, not discovered before 1850, not in a catalogue of high historical importance, no popular coverage, no technical coverage specific to this star or a small number of stars including this one. I tried to expand the article and came up with virtually nothing except the bare facts of its existence. Lithopsian (talk) 19:48, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: To ensure adequate time as there was a problem with the original listing
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Provisional keep. The previous AfD claimed that an entry in General Catalog of Variable Stars met NASTCRIT criterion #2. The nom has offered no counter to this. There is not much turning up in online sources, but there is some coverage [1][2][3][4] ([5])[6]. SpinningSpark 01:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The GCVS doesn't meet criterion #2 (IMO, and the opinion of those who have previously deleted dozens of variable star articles). It is a catalogue of some 90,000 stars, the majority of which are very faint and many with tiny amplitudes. Most amateur astronomers would struggle to tell you what the GCVS is and it is hard to claim historical significance for something that didn't exist until 1948. Entries are increasingly being bulk added by methods such as statistical analysis of space-based photometry, for example the 3,000+ stars added from analysis of Hipparcos photometry. For a reductio ad absurdum argument, it would be easy to pick a GCVS star which never gets brighter than 25th magnitude and couldn't possibly be considered notable - try V711 Cas just for fun. Like you, I found a number of mentions for RU And, but couldn't come up with enough for an article. Lithopsian (talk) 16:32, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You may be right about the current contents of the GCVS, but I'm betting its contents when first created were much more select. Observations of RU And. actually predate the catalog's creation. The first ref I gave, for instance, is dated 1905. This is not a star that is "faint and...with a tiny amplitude". It is bright enough for amateur astronomers to find and has an amplitude of nearly five magnitudes. At its brightest it may even be visible with binoculars. SpinningSpark 17:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Citing NASTCRIT, only objects discovered before 1850 are eligible for an article of their own, regardless of how much they were studied. The first reference in 1905 doesn't mean anything to astronomical object notability. Moreover, a previously deleted article (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/V Andromedae) shows a clear counter-example for the notability of GCVS.Psyluke (talk) 19:44, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just for completeness and history geeks, there were around 10,000 entries in the original GCVS publication. I haven't done a statistical study, but inevitably their average brightness would have been much higher than the current catalogue, and unlikely there were any 25th magnitude objects. All of which is irrelevant to this discussion. We're not considering deleting RU And because it is very faint (although if it was a naked-eye object, ever, then it would be automatically notable), and we're not discussing it because it has a small amplitude (there are no criteria relating to amplitude of variability and notability), we're deleting it because an entry in the GCVS is not sufficient to make a star notable, as per previous AfD discussions and my reductio ad absurdum example. Lithopsian (talk) 21:23, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My argument is essentially that when it was first catalogued it was in a much more select group. According to an article in Baltic Astronomy, the 1943 Astronomische Gesellschaft catalog of variables had 9476 entries. In 1905, the catalog would have been substantially smaller and the star's discovery clearly occured well before that. The 1905 paper is a report of observations made in 1904, and it refers to "previously measured light curves". I can't manage to find the year of discovery online, but it has to predate 1904. SpinningSpark 22:47, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merge: I only found a couple of data entries in published papers. It's non-notable by itself, so I suggest a merge/redirect to List of stars in Andromeda. Praemonitus (talk)

Comment. The star appears in Edward Charles Pickering's list of long-period variables magnitude 9 or brighter from 1911. The list has 372 entries; much shorter than the 1948 GCVS's 10,000 entries. This index shows that the star has discussion in Popular Astronomy on at least two pages in 1903, and one in 1904. This gets it much closer to NASTCRIT criterion #2, "of interest to amateur astronomers". SpinningSpark 09:49, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:21, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per spinning spark. FOARP (talk) 18:50, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.