Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 20

V4641

We have a redirect, V4641, which redirects to the binary star V4641 Sgr; it strikes me as not a wholly appropriate redirect. Any thoughts on it? 76.66.193.119 (talk) 22:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Checking the GCVS on VizieR [1], it looks like Sagittarius is the only constellation which has a variable star designated V4641. Whether "V4641" should imply a variable star designation is however another matter, and at the risk of falling into WP:CRYSTAL territory, it is presumably the case that at some point another constellation will also get enough variable star discoveries to get its own V4641. (This will probably not happen for a while: Ophiuchus, the constellation with the second-highest number of variable stars, goes only as far as V2671 Oph) Icalanise (talk) 20:15, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I've put this one up at WP:RFD to get a wider discussion. Icalanise (talk) 19:48, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Well it was closed as "keep". Oh well. Icalanise (talk) 20:47, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Planet sub-templates

The following suggestion was made at Talk:Earth#Template:Infobox_Earth.3F by User:Cybercobra:

Has there been any thought about splitting the infobox into a separate template ({{Infobox Earth}}) as is done on the chemical element articles? It currently dominates the lede of the article when editing it.

To me doing something like this would make a certain amount of sense, but I think we should apply the approach consistently across all of the Solar System planet articles. What do you think?—RJH (talk) 18:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem with that is that WP:TfD typically substitutes and deletes single-instance templates. I suppose if you placed a WP:SIZE argument in the template documentation for each template, it might not get them deleted. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 05:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to match any of the reasons for deletion given on WP:TfD, so it sounds like another undocumented insider tradition.—RJH (talk) 19:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... I must spend too much time on TfD. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 04:07, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I hope I didn't come across as too negative there. Perhaps I should raise it as a question on the TfD talk page? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

76.66.193.119 is correct about single use templates being routinely deleted at TFD. They don't reduce the size of the article, since the rendered HTML is unchanged. They also fork the edit history, and are typically viewed as unnecessary obfuscation, since one must go to the template page to edit the infobox, which is not intuitive. However, that's just my opinion. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe the counterargument is that the lede(s) are currently obfuscated by the big chunk of wikicode to fill in the infobox. I don't think anyone claims it makes the end-user article shorter, but rather it makes the wikitext shorter & more approachable. --Cybercobra (talk) 19:21, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. A question at TfD's talk page sounds like a good idea. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 03:52, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

And yet {{Infobox hydrogen}} and its many friends apparently manage to survive. --Cybercobra (talk) 19:18, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Checking the history, that one dates back to 2007. It probably wasn't forked from the article, but I didn't check. I actually don't have that strong of an opinion on the matter, so long as it continues to use the planet infobox as a backend, and there is consensus to move it. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:49, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox hydrogen was created on 18 March 2007, with some reverting. -- Kheider (talk) 04:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Solar System Infobox/Sun was created on 8 December 2006. -- Kheider (talk) 05:04, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Someone should be smart enough to scroll to the bottom of the infobox to edit the main text. But casual editors will have no idea how to edit an external infobox stored elsewhere on Wikipedia. To me, you are just trading one issue for another. -- Kheider (talk) 20:15, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Have to agree here that the lede is not particularly difficult to find. Personally I find non-WP:LDR-style references far more effective at obfuscating article text than a massive block template in a known location. Splitting out the template makes it harder to keep the information in the article and infobox synchronised. Icalanise (talk) 20:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

That can be fixed with a (view/edit/talk) linkbox, like many templates have. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 03:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the "(view/edit/talk) linkbox" listed at the bottom of the template confuses newbies when they click on "edit this page" thinking they will have access to all of the page (including the now-missing infobox data). I would tolerate a template for Earth as was done with the Sun, but I do not currently want to see separate templates for all of the planets. It would make it more work for new editors and regular editors to keep the infobox and article in sync. I would also require more editors to watch the template pages as well as the main article page. -- Kheider (talk) 04:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

It would be nice if we could have something like WP:LDR for the infobox template; moving it down to the bottom of the article might make editing more approachable. But that would require a code change.—RJH (talk) 18:29, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

If you only have one template to make, you can actually do that. Enclose the infobox template in an includeonly tagspace, and then transclude the article within itself. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 05:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

{{Trans-Neptunian objects}}

template:Trans-Neptunian objects survived deletion by TfD. The outcome was to rewrite the template. What should be included in the new version of the template? 76.66.193.119 (talk) 04:21, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

An example of the new template might be:

76.66.193.119 (talk) 04:57, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I would scratch the twotinos since they are Resonant objects and not as well known as the plutinos. I would link Double objects to Minor planet moon#Trans-Neptunian objects. I think we should include Detached object. -- Kheider (talk) 10:40, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

It has been revised... Template talk:Trans-Neptunian objects/workpage 76.66.193.119 (talk) 04:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

So is the newest revision good to go live? 76.66.193.119 (talk) 04:10, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I think so. It is far better than what we had. -- Kheider (talk) 07:22, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

It is now live (unless a bot or some edit patroller reverts me because I'm an IP user). 76.66.193.119 (talk) 07:07, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Charon plutoface.png

The fair use status of File:Charon plutoface.png is being debated. -- Kheider (talk) 19:05, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Portal:Astronomy

I've recently revamped the decaying Portal:Human spaceflight so that it now includes Random Portal Components, and therefore there is no need to regularly choose new articles, pictures, etc. At the moment Portal:Astronomy doesn't have a Picture of the Week. If there's interest, I could do a similar thing and install Random Portal Components in Portal:Astronomy, and therefore lessen (indeed eliminate) the burden of always finding new pictures, articles, etc? The portal would look identical.. but the pictures, articles, etc would change everytime you reload the page.

Also, I got Wikinews to add an Astronomy Category, so the Astronomy News section now automatically updates. Mlm42 (talk) 20:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

List of extrasolar planet extremes

The article List of extrasolar planet extremes is unreferenced and some of the records appear to be quite suspect - apparently this list is not well maintained. I'm inclined to regard the page as an article-sized trivia section. Icalanise (talk) 20:21, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Well... it's a list of notable planets and the reason why they are notable... but needs referencing. I think user:BlueEarth maintains the list. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 06:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

It also is a place where common questions from people at large can be answered, if my recent search for references is any clue, apparently some of what is featured on the page is data that is popularly sought. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 08:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Naming of (90482) Orcus I Vanth

According to the article Vanth (moon), the name of (90482) Orcus I Vanth was assigned in April 2010, but the reference is a blank page. However the name appears to be assigned in Minor Planet Circular 69495, available in a batch dated 2010/03/30 [2][3]. I'd update the article but I'm not particularly well-versed in the naming procedures, so I might be missing something here. Icalanise (talk) 00:02, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Pluto.jpg

FYI, File:Pluto.jpg has been nominated for deletion at WP:FFD. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 05:43, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

PROD'd

Article Astronomical bodies in pseudoscience and the paranormal (sigh) has multiple issues and has been PROD'd. FYI.—RJH (talk) 19:42, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

And what do you know, it was de-PRODded. Icalanise (talk) 20:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Another look at minor planets naming? Good idea?

Moved to WikiProject Solar System. Icalanise (talk) 19:08, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Starboxes and newlines

I've made some edits of a few of the starbox templates, converting them from Wiki tables to HTML tables, and commenting out the end of lines. As far as I can tell, this helps avoid the extra newlines that sometimes get generated at the top of the articles. Icalanise (talk) 22:25, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Newlines can be avoided easily enough with wikitable syntax, with experience. I'd prefer if wikitable syntax were used where possible because it results in significantly more readable code. Any particular examples of sub-templates known to have caused newline problems before the transition? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 07:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

90377 Sedna FAC

Now making its way through the turgid FAC process here: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates#90377 Sedna. =) —RJH (talk) 17:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

On come on now, FAC is upbeat and fun...think positive :))) 02:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

AfD for Cold Neptune and Cold Jupiter

I have nominated the articles Cold Neptune and Cold Jupiter for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cold Neptune. Icalanise (talk) 23:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

starbox template issue

• {{Starbox begin}} {{Starbox end}}, {{Starbox astrometry}}, {{Starbox detail}}...

In the Astrometry and Details sections of the starbox template, the inline references come before the units of measurement. I think I prefer them to come after, how do other folks feel about this? Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:00, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed it would be better for units to come afterwards. Question is how best to go about doing this: specify a references parameter for the whole block or references for each parameter, e.g. {{ref_mass}}, {{ref_luminosity}}, etc. Icalanise (talk) 20:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I am useless at code...but I can ask someone...hang on a sec.Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The templates for anyone wanting the links are Template:Starbox astrometry and Template:Starbox detail. Since you only pass a single parameter to each line and the template appends the units, it's simplest to have an extra parameter for each line that may use a cite (e.g. | radial_v_ref = ), a total of 7 extra parameters for 'astrometry' and 8 extra for 'detail'; or to have a single extra parameter for each template to hold all the references for that template. I suspect that as in Betelgeuse, most of the refs are the same, which would argue for the latter option. Either of the options are not difficult to encode into the template, but you'll have to agree first which of them is preferred. As an afterthought, I think it would be possible to parse each parameter's value and split it into the value and the reference, then output the two parts with the units between, but you still might want to consider bundling the ref(s) for each starbox. --RexxS (talk) 02:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)'d with ya...

Hmmm. If the extant invocations can be left alone and the parms parsed, it would ease deployment a *lot*. Just edit the template. I know just who to point at this, too; Thumperward and Plastikspork. These boxes seem all cluttered with inline refs; should be pushed forward to WP:LDR to de-clutter things ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think there are cases where a single ref. can serve for a block (orbital elements) and cases for individual cites. Personally though I'm fine with the way things are now. Fixing this seems like excessive attention to detail, when time could be better spent on improving article content. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Refs coming after the units would make sense. I'm looking at Alpha Centauri as an example; What's happening there is that the ref is being passed as as a part of the number; for Alpha Centauri A's mass:

• | mass = 1.100<ref name="eso">{{cite web | author=Kervella | first=Pierre | coauthors=Thevenin, Frederic | date=March 15, 2003 | url=http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2003/pr-05-03.html | title=A Family Portrait of the Alpha Centauri System | publisher=ESO | accessdate=2008-06-06 }}</ref>

The template emits the 'mass' as '1.100^[5]' with the '5' linking to the ref section; the template then auto-appends the appropriate unit. Well, appropriate from a Solarian POV. I very much doubt that the template could be adjusted to parse these and emit stuff in a different sequence. A better route would be a references parameter, or really ambitiously, discrete ones for each field, as Icalanise has said. Which looks messy. I've no idea of the history of these templates, or just how many are involved; I do see a bunch in just that page. The details template is used on most of 1500 articles, so this is a major thing to be talking of changing. The key thing to consider is whether one ref filed (which could have a fistful of refs passed into it), will be clear enough to readers and editors. Refs done as discrete sibling parameters would be able to appear after the unit; a catch-all ref param would likely display in their own field at the end of the subsection, not near the data cited. As is, it looks odd, some very odd: see 'age' 4.85 × 10^9[5] years, which can be misread as much larger number. Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The algorithm for parsing the value passed could just be: (1) Search for the position of the sub-string '<ref' in the string; (2) If the position is greater than 1 /*ref exists*/, split the string at that position, otherwise /*no ref*/ the first part is the whole string and the second part is empty; (3) output {first part} units {second part}. Searching for '<ref' is preferred to searching for '<' in case somebody has used a value like '< 1' (less than one). I'd normally implement that as a common function call, but I'm insufficiently well-versed in wiki-script coding to know whether that degrades performance. Also, I'd echo Jack's call for WP:LDR; it would make the boxes sooo much more readable. --RexxS (talk) 04:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I get the idea, but am less familiar with just what parsing is really available in the MW:Parser functions. Seems there would be some. I'm not familiar with enough of these pages to know what it really going to be passed. There are also templates such as {{ref}}, {{note}}, {{sfn}} that could be passed-in and they would have to be detected as 'refs' even without the '<ref'. I doubt we could key-off just '{{', as there are likely places using some other templates and parser functions on the main 'data' prior to the optional 'ref'. Mostly I would expect few with refs. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, the effort (both in terms of initial implementation and of the resulting increase in code complexity) in implementing conditional parsing of each of the attributes in question to filter out the refs isn't justified by the increase in value to our readers (a minor aesthetic improvement). Adding new attributes for each reference and then using a bot to fix the current articles would be trivial to implement, backwards-compatible and wouldn't result in a significant increase in code complexity. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 07:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Chris. It is technically possible to use str functions to split the reference from the number, but these are generally expensive for the server to execute, complex in terms of coding, and somewhat fragile. Creating a second field for the reference seems to be the better way to go. This is how it is done for things like elevation, area, density in templates like {{Infobox settlement}} for example. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:19, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Going to agree that string parsing is not the way to go, once you throw in the possibility of multiple references (e.g. if there is a reference and a note), etc. it becomes unwieldy and difficult to maintain. Better to use the individual fields and code a bot to do batch updates if desirable. Icalanise (talk) 18:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

New user renaming star articles

Supposedly new user Metebelis has been renaming a number of star articles to use Gould's Uranometria Argentina designation (with a "G"). While technically correct, in many of the cases I don't believe the new name is the most common. In many cases it is very obscure. For example: HR 5568 (or Gliese 570) is now 33 G. Librae. What do you think? I suspect this account is a sock puppet because the editor looks experienced.—RJH (talk) 19:29, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

He's not a new user as he's been editing since 2005. Looking at the logs, I see three star articles moved:

1. 41G. Arae to 41 G. Arae. This is only a formatting change.
2. 82 Eridani to 82 G. Eridani. This is not a change to the Gould designation as the article was originally titled with the Gould designation.
3. Gliese 570 to 33 G. Librae. This is I think not a good move as the Gliese designation is much more common. For example, a Google Scholar search gives 14 hits for "Gliese 570" and only one for "33 G. Librae". (Do not confuse 33 G. Librae with 33 Librae = HD 137949, which is a different star.)

Spacepotato (talk) 20:40, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

While it is probably more technically correct to use the "G.", what is the current usage. I have usually seen HD 156274 and HD 20794 referred to as just plain 41 Arae and 82 Eridani respectively. Not sure how much that would conflict with the actual Flamsteed designations though. I definitely agree that Gliese 570→33 G. Librae is a bad move though. Icalanise (talk) 21:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, maybe the red-linked user name just threw me off with regard to his status. He also renamed several star name links on List of nearest bright stars, which made me suspect he might have more moves in mind. Anyway I left him a note. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Supermassive_black_hole#New_letter_in_Nature

Comments/Assistance incorporating the information into the article would be welcome. NW (Talk) 01:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed wikiproject merge

Please take a look at the following discussion about a proposed merge of Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects into Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy:

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomy#Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects.23starbox_template_issue

Thank you.—RJH (talk) 18:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a bad idea, considering the amount, size and length of discussions on this talk page, it would just make the main talk page much more difficult to navigate, as this is already topic separated. 76.66.197.248 (talk) 04:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

NGC 3603 & John Herschel

NGC 3603 is an open cluster of stars which it is claimed was discovered by John Frederick William Herschel in 1834. Does any know how this can be verfied (or not)? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:02, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure, it's documented in the following: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1965JRASC..59...67S —RJH (talk) 18:54, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks, that is an excellent source. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

List of extrasolar planets

There is a request to split List of extrasolar planets with two sections suggested as becoming standalone lists. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Cold Neptune and Cold Jupiter categories

FYI, Category:Cold Neptunes (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) and Category:Cold Jupiters (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) have been nominated for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 04:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Large number of problematic edits

An anonymous user (72.254.128.201 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)) has been making a very large number of changes to astronomy-related articles (neutron star, active galactic nucleus, quasar, and several fusion process articles, to name a few). At best these are benign but not very useful typesetting changes. More often, they're problematic (replacing words with less-appropriate or outright wrong synonyms throughout the article). In several cases, the anon changed temperature values in the fusion process articles, without citing a source to back up their claimed values.

I've cleaned up the damage down to their 19:2x 25 Sept. edits to carbon burning process, but there's a lot more to be vetted (and possibly reverted). Help would be appreciated. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:45, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks like (64.34.172.46 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)) is the same user: they've been re-reverting the same articles. Just a head's up to everyone. --Parejkoj (talk) 16:37, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I just noticed that as well. I've reported them to WP:AIV so that someone with rollback privileges can handle the cleanup. It turns out they're an indef-blocked user coming back via open proxies, so this should get through the system pretty quickly. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 17:59, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Quasar references

An IP editor just added a couple of "citation needed" tags to Quasar. If anyone would be willing to dig up appropriate references, that would be handy, as the requests were attached to statements about a topic that's turned ugly in the past (evaluating quasar distance and Hubble's Law). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 00:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

ESO Image use question

Hi, I've ended up with a disagreement with User:SchuminWeb about ESO image credits on the Beta Pictoris article. The image license for ESO images [4] states that the image credit must be clearly visible. I interpret this to mean that the image credit should be placed in the image caption in the article. User:SchuminWeb disagrees and has removed the credit, stating that it is enough to put the image credit on the file page and that such image credits should not appear in articles. Any advice on this matter would be appreciated. Thanks. Icalanise (talk) 08:33, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

As I read it, WP:CREDITS is particularly applicable to GFDL or Creative Commons licenses. It says nothing about other licenses. I've had a similar issue with NASA credits for images, although their current wording is not as strict as it used to be.[5]—RJH (talk) 18:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Appending planetary system info to starbox

I propose integrating in to starbox a detail area describing its planetary system. Can be as simple as

Planets WhateverStar A, WhateverStar B, WhateverStar C

roughly speaking. It is increasingly clear that it will be more a rarity to find stars without planets rather than vice versa, and as the planet hunt progresses it is likely that more stars will become worthy of articles.

If there are no objections I'll begin work on the template to add in such a feature soon. It should be easy to implement and will be designed to follow standard lettered nomenclature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rockatship (talk • contribs) 00:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Considering that we are expanding catalogued stars into other galaxies, detecting planets around them would be hard... Though I get your point on having stars with planets more likely to become articles. 76.66.200.95 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC).

It may be better to make such planet sections collapsible to prevent overly huge infoboxes. At least this may be worth an experiment. Icalanise (talk) 06:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

To first contrib, it would certainly be an optional starbox entry, or default to 'Unknown'. To Icalanise, I imagine this detail would only take one line based on alphabetical classification, i.e. Known Satellites: A,B,C,D,E,F for example. rockatship (talk) 12:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Articles missing WPAstronomy templates

It looks like there are more than a couple of hundred star articles that don't have a completed {{WikiProject Astronomy}} appraisal template yet. Many of the articles are stubs from our old friend CarloscomB that are in need of cleanup (including an unnecessary image entry in the infobox, the use of periods instead of commas for the stellar properties, overly long name lists, and confusion about double vs. binary stars). I'm still slowly working my way through the star articles list, and I'm sure there are probably other astronomy sub-categories with articles that are missing wikiproject templates.—RJH (talk) 20:13, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If history is any indication, atleast a few of those are actually the same star, under different names, some of those not actual properly named anyways. I really hated rebuilding his articles, what with information below the categories, below the references, below the see also, below the external link sections, stupid floating tables that took full width for no reason, and needing total rewrites to place elsewhere... 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps there is a tool or script to look for articles under a specific category with content containing matching pattern strings fitting a particular regular expression? That would allow us to look for articles about the same star.—RJH (talk) 18:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah, as I recall, some of his infoboxes are completely wrong, being copies of some other article... or not completely about the current article. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 06:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was wondering where he had come up with some of the values for the physical properties. They don't always make much sense.—RJH (talk) 20:36, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Gliese 581GG.PNG

FYI Image:Gliese 581GG.PNG has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Huge "nearest stars" templates

I guess I've only noticed this because I have been browsing with JavaScript turned off, but the {{nearest systems}} and {{nearest bright star systems}} templates are really really big. They're also full of redlinks. (It isn't entirely clear what the "bright" criterion is, there are a lot of awfully dim red dwarf stars listed there). Not sure what to do about them really. Icalanise (talk) 18:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It's probably impacting the download times of all the pages where it is posted. When I look at Gliese 623, for example, almost 70% of the lines come from that one template. Not sure if that is a significant issue though. Perhaps it should be broken down into a series of smaller templates with links to the prior and next template in the series? (Maybe by RA and/or Dec. range?)—RJH (talk) 21:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, they've been enormous since they were created... how about restricting nearest stars to 10ly, and nearest bright stars to 25ly? Otherwise, they just replicate what should be on the lists. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 03:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Being too large and having red links violates two of the guidelines on Wikipedia:Navbox#Properties.—RJH (talk) 15:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding material deleted from Proxima Centauri

After this article came to the front page (which I always dislike) it underwent a few useful changes and one I had a concern about by a WP Administrator. This edit removed some content from the Possible Companions section that had been contributed by other authors. This material was fully cited and it concerned the topic; therefore it satisfied WP:TOPIC. Out of respect for the authors of the material, I restored the content and left a discussion topic on the article's talk page. I would appreciate it if you could contribute your thoughts on whether to keep the material or let it be deleted. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 20:09, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd say keep in, as habitability and comanions of nearest stars have certainly been discussed extensively, and by the subject's very nature much of it is speculative. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I had some concern about the material myself, at least at the beginning. But I think this is a special case since Proxima is the nearest star. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 14:43, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Photos of outer irregular moons of Saturn

I'm by no means an expert, but I noticed that a couple articles (Tarvos and Thrymr) have recently had photos added... sourced from Cassini's raw image site. However, when I've browsed that site in the past, I've found that small objects can easily be completely lost among cosmic ray hits and stars, even for the inner small moons. Considering that these moons are much more distant, I doubt that the photos really contain the moons they claim to be photos of at all. Can anyone help confirm or deny this? --Patteroast (talk) 04:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, they do contain the moons they reference. We regularly image distant moons in order to measure their phase function (how their brightness changes wrt phase angle) and rotational period (by measuring a lightcurve over 4-24 hours). However, the photos on the raw images site DO NOT identify which of these bright spots is a moon, a star, or a cosmic ray hit, since as you said, they are so distant and faint that there isn't much to distinguish say, Kiviuq, unless you blink multiple images and can tie the images to known stars. --Volcanopele (talk) 22:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting! Do the image crops used on the articles for Tarvos and Thrymr contain the right spots? I have a feeling they were simply zoomed into the brightest spot near the center. --Patteroast (talk) 17:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Moons of Neptune

I nominated this article for Featured List status. The review page is here. Ruslik_Zero 18:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

"Sun" and "sun" in Earth's shadow

Hello members of Project Astronomical objects. I am helping prepare a new article to be submitted for DYK. The article is about the Earth's shadow as it is visible from Earth at sunset and sunrise. I am checking to see when in this article we should use "Sun" meaning the astronomical body, and when to use "sun" meaning the everyday use of the term. If someone has a moment can they please take a look, please feel free to change the usage or tweak the content as seems appropriate. Many thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 14:26, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a complication in astronomy topics, "sun" also means the star of a planetary system that is not our Solar System... whereas "Sun" always refers to our star of our Solar System. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, good, thanks for your note. It has been accepted as a DYK. I am more concerned with the fact that in an everyday context people just write: "The sun is up now", or "no sun today". Would you take a look and see if you agree with the wording of the article? Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 17:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Abell 2218

Abell 2218 needs cleanup, it seems to use out of date science to claim that the most distant galaxy occurs in a gravitation lens image created by the cluster. However later galaxy discoveries with lower redshift claims have been acclaimed the most distant galaxy known. 76.66.198.128 (talk) 05:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Does citing the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia violate WP:BLP?

On Talk:Gliese 581 g, User:Viriditas is claiming that citing the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia note on the Gliese 581 system that the HARPS new data does not detect planet g [6] violates WP:BLP because we cannot absolutely verify that is what exactly was said at the conference. Is this correct? Extra opinions would be useful. Icalanise (talk) 12:43, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I have Ray Jayawardhana on my Facebook, who wrote on his own wall: “‎"We cannot confirm it [Gliese 581g] in our HARPS data" - Francesco Pepe (Geneva team) at IAU 276 in Torino.” I’m afraid, however, that we can not use this as a source… :-/ CielProfond (talk) 13:51, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

But more to the point. Can EPE be used as a source to claim this? Why isn't anyone else covering this? I don't rely on one source as a rule. Viriditas (talk) 14:00, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to use it, my suggestion would be to clarify the source of the information within the article body. I.e. "According to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, ...". The EPE article itself could use more citations to demonstrate that it is a notable source.—RJH (talk) 14:48, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

When I'm faced with a solitary source like this, I always check against a quote or transcript from the original. Since I don't have anything, I'm not going to use it. If it is notable, other sources will cover it. Viriditas (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

That works too. Better not to report it than to report potentially unreliable data as fact.—RJH (talk) 15:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Then again... Doubt Cast on Existence of Habitable Alien World.—RJH (talk) 22:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

That's the kind of secondary source we wait for, and when it comes, we use it. This isn't the first article I've waited for sources on, and it won't be the last. Viriditas (talk) 11:20, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Aye, you're welcome.—RJH (talk) 18:20, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

This is not related to BLP. (You probably meant WP:V?) Ruslik_Zero 19:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You'd have to ask Viriditas about this. They referred to the addition of the EPE reference as "unverified BLP material". This is all pretty much irrelvant now as Viriditas shifted their argument to brandishing the term "tertiary source" as though it were a synonym for "unreliable source", and I have retired from editing the article space because for now I find the entire process taking up too much of my time and far too tedious. Will probably still be creating planetary system orbit diagrams on Commons though. Icalanise (talk) 22:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

SAO 138238

FYI, SAO 138238 has been requested to be renamed. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 06:06, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

JKCS 041

Can someone clean up JKCS 041? Someone turned it into a {{quotefarm}} back in May 2010. I'd personally delete the entire quote section, but I'd get cited for vandalism, since edit patrollers seem to do that whenever massive amounts of text are removed by IP editors. 76.66.198.128 (talk) 04:59, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Eek! I’d also remove the whole quote section. Do others agree? CielProfond (talk) 01:41, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree and  Done. -84user (talk) 02:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Furthest star?

Does anyone know of a star inside of the Milky Way further than UDF 2457 @ ~59,000 ly? -- Kheider (talk) 18:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Some globular clusters are much further away than this star. In addition, some halo streams may be very far from the Sun. Ruslik_Zero 19:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Astronomical Objects articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Astronomical Objects articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 00:11, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The Astronomical object article seems to need a lot of development, although I'm not quite sure how it should be expanded. Perhaps it needs a discussion of the hierarchical/fractal nature of the Universe and the role of gravity and other forces in the formation of objects? Perhaps something about entropy, and the history and future of object formation? I think a graph of object size versus mass would be informative as well.—RJH (talk) 16:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

List of most luminous stars in the local area

FYI List of most luminous stars in the local area was recently created. However it seems highly inaccurate. The local area is undefined in the article, and several stars on the list are thousands of light years away, one not even residing in the Milky Way. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 09:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a list of stars which have greater bolometric luminosity than any other star within the same distance of the Sun. I renamed the list. Spacepotato (talk) 15:21, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Might be considered borderline WP:INDISCRIMINATE by some. Shrug.—RJH (talk) 16:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Since it's been renamed to List of stars more luminous than any closer star, I'll nominate the redirect for deletion since it's misleading. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

List of brown dwarfs

I've noticed that List of brown dwarfs doesn't actually list the spectral type or apparent magnitude of the brown dwarf, rather it lists the spectral type and apparent magnitude of the primary star of the star system the brown dwarf is part of. This seems misleading, and less useful than having data on the brown dwarf itself being listed (both could be listed, but that is not currently done; though this is supposed to be a list of brown dwarfs)

76.66.203.138 (talk) 11:08, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, and it lists Upsilon Andromedae c as a brown dwarf, whereas the article about it mentions it as a planet. Lots of research must be done about List of brown dwarfs to clean it up! CielProfond (talk) 13:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Planemo

anyone notice that planemo was renamed to planetary mass object and then disappeared back in April? For some reason the planemo type was merged into its subset, the planet type. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 08:07, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

A problem caused by this merge is this object: Reuters news wire ... described as a "planetary-mass object" and "white dwarf", but not planet. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 09:24, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a renewed planetary mass object should include the material on planetary mass moons, and distinctions between planemos, substars, subbrowndwarfs, etc ? 76.66.203.138 (talk) 14:16, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

4 Sagittarii

FYI, 4 Sagittarii has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 07:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I did not prod it for deletion, but it does not seem to be notable, so I would be 'for' its deletion. CielProfond (talk) 13:56, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Someone deprodded it. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 08:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

WPSpace wishes to abolish WP Astronomical objects

At WT:WikiProject Space, it has been proposed that WikiProject Astronomy and WikiProject Astronomical objects be abolished; and merged into WPSpace. 76.66.194.212 (talk) 06:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

There wasn't even consensus to merge WP:AST and WP:ASTRO; how on earth do they think they'll get consensus for this? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 06:52, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe by fiat, since it would involve WPSpace members reaching consensus amongst themselves, and them imposing their will onto us, being the "parent" wikiproject. There's a suggestion at WT:AST that Astronomy/astronomical objects be deparented from WPSpace. Perhaps that should be implemented. Then we mostly shouldn't be bothered by anything that WPSpace does. 76.66.194.212 (talk) 07:42, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Doing it by fiat is impossible; anything affecting all three wikiprojects has to reach consensus among the members of all three wikiprojects. They could unilaterally deparent these projects, I suppose, but even that is a grey area. The whole point of WP:CONS is that no single small group can impose its wishes on a larger group of editors. Even the members of a wikiproject aren't truly in charge of that project; the community as a whole is, and in principle an RFC on a sufficiently contentious part of a wikiproject could overrule the wishes of the members of that project.

Long story short, wider discussion is mandatory, not optional, for anything like this. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 09:04, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

This is part of the wider discussion, the one at WP:Space is a continuation of another held at the sub-project WikiProject Human spaceflight. This is just scaremongering, you can see it wasn't begun by Wikiproject Space but the discussion was taken there from the Spaceflight projects to get more participation. I posted a message about the new one on Space's daughters Astronomy, Solar System and Spaceflight to draw editors to it from all over, and I certainly won't let anything happen before there is consensus among the projects. It simply had become clear that the present organisation of projects is not working, merging of everything into WP:Space was just one of the solutions brought up. Please feel free to contribute to the discussion, including raising any concerns over consultation, and preferably indicate which project you mostly work on so it's clear if there are differences in attitudes between projects. ChiZeroOne (talk) 13:00, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, the proposal to merge everything was made at WPSpace, without informing WPAstronomy or WPAstronomical Objects that such a proposal had been made. Unlike the proposals at Human spaceflight, which informed WPAstronomy. That WPSpace is not very active and is trying to merge away several child projects seems like trying to get WPSpace active by getting rid of active projects because they can't exist otherwise. The comparison is made with WPMILHIST, in attempting to make WPSpace relevant, except that editors seem to be split between spaceflight and astronomy, unlike Milhist, where editors are spread across the spectrum of coverage (in any case MILHIST resulted in a merger between WPBattles and WPWars, which isn't as disparate as spaceflight and astronomy... spaceflight coming out of aviation, astronomy coming out of ancient religious studies and agriculture). 76.66.194.212 (talk) 06:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

As I said I posted a message about the new discussion on Space's daughters Astronomy, Solar System and Spaceflight. The reason I didn't make reference to any proposals was because at this stage nothing is definite and I wanted the discussion to be about proposing different solutions which may not have yet been put forward, not a simple "Option 1 or Option 2" because I don't think we're anywhere near that stage yet. Even the editor who created the discussion at WP:Space notes that and points out that these were ideas put forward so far. Btw, you'll note the reason why a discussion was started at WP:Astronomy was because I pointed out that Astronomy has a different attitude to the Space banner.

The proposal to merge everything into WP:Space was made by one editor (I was the one who suggested the deparenting/abolishion of WP:Space idea) so again claiming that "WP:Space" wants to do anything is hyperbole. I'd prefer it if the discussion is kept constructive, if that means favouring another idea like the one I suggested then so be it, but please don't demonise other editors who just want to find ways to improve the organisation of projects. I don't know how much more explicitly I can put it that yours and all other Ast/Astro members input is very much welcomed. ChiZeroOne (talk) 14:31, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about not being able to do things by fiat, as I've seen it attempted before, with comments on how to delete other people's wikiproject banners on the talk page of the banner which wishes to displace other ones without discussing it with those wikiprojects, and why their assessment standards should be overridden by the banner wishing to displace those non-related (not heirarchically placed) or shared-child wikiprojects. 76.66.194.212 (talk) 06:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

No-one is attempting to force anything on anyone, it's an attempt to gauge opinions; another suggestion, for instance, is to abolish WPSpace and have Astronomy and Spaceflight as top-level projects. If members of this and other astronomy-related projects would like to comment, it would be much appreciated. Colds7ream (talk) 10:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Cepheid variable

FYI, Cepheid variable was rewritten yesterday. This is rated as a top importance article for us. Also, Type II Cepheids was created yesterday. Cepheid variable has also been requested to be renamed as Classical Cepheid variables. This was all done by 99.192.66.42 (talk · contribs); We should consider whether it is better to split off an article on classical Cepheids, versus moving the page history to classical, and building a new overview page. 76.66.194.212 (talk) 06:18, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

There is now a rename discussion at Talk:Cepheid variable. 76.66.194.212 (talk) 06:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Cepheid variable was rewritten again, this time by 142.177.21.25 (talk · contribs) ; making the article about classical cepheids. 76.66.202.72 (talk) 03:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Reorganisation of space WikiProjects

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Space/2010 Reorganisation regarding the future of WikiProject Space and its child projects. The discussion is aimed at defining the roles of projects, and improving the activity and coordination of the projects. The input of members of this project is requested as it is one which may be affected by the issue. --GW… 22:30, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

list of brightest nebulae

i think there is a big need for a list of brightest nebulae on Wikipedia. i wanted many times such a list for observing and i think that many others did, it would be very useful. but there is problem in references, i tried to search in websites and books for something useful to create this list but i could not find anything. anyone knows a useful links, books or articles? --aad_Dira (talk) 16:46, 10 November 2010 (UTC).

By brightest you undoubtedly mean from the perspective of the Earth. What would the cut-off point be? Would it be a subset of List of Messier objects, or be a more extensive listing?—RJH (talk) 20:16, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean a list of naked-eye nebulae, or do you wish it to go dimmer than that? 76.66.203.138 (talk) 08:47, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

This raises a few questions: what would the cut-off point be? (as mentioned above). Also, do we talk integrated magnitude or surface brightness? They are far different! Some nebulae with the same magnitude are not equally detectable. Finally, is Wikipedia a place for helping plan a night observing? CielProfond (talk) 18:09, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I would support having information for night observing, maybe we need a task force for that? WP:WikiProject Astronomy/Workgroups/Amateur_astronomy. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 04:41, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• i prefer the surface brightness, but any way it is not the time to discuss this. yes Wikipeda is not an observation guide, but that is do not matter with making an encyclopedia article, like the list of brightest stars and other lists of stars. most of the nebulae in the sky are faint, so the list will help in recognizing easily the brightest of them and what can be easily seen. do you expect that there is an obvious usages of the brightest stars list other than observing? it do not have actually a real usage, but many people would be interested to know what is the brightest stars in the sky and how bright is them, and the same is with the nebulae --aad_Dira (talk) 22:40, 12 November 2010 (UTC).

1. If you mean to include deep-sky objects which are not nebulae, such as globular clusters, galaxies, etc., the list should be called list of brightest deep-sky objects.
2. Surface brightness is independent of distance. This means that, for example, two galaxies of the same type and in the same orientation relative to us will always have about the same central surface brightness, even if one is the Andromeda Galaxy and the other is completely invisible to the naked eye. So, I think you would have to use total integrated brightness for such a list.
3. The NASA/IPAC extragalactic database [7] can be used to search for galaxies by magnitude. You might also wish to consult the lists of catalogs at [8] and the links therein. For example, you can find a list of known Milky Way globular clusters [9] two hops from this page. Also, an amateur astronomy club, the Saguaro Astronomy Club, has compiled a catalog of bright deep-sky objects [10].

Spacepotato (talk) 01:13, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't that just be the Caldwell catalogue ? (well... added to the Messier catalogue) 76.66.203.138 (talk) 07:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I am also compiling many astronomical catalogues (mainly for amateur use, but that applies in this case) on my website at [11]. They are not all online yet, and the search engine is not running either yet, but it will come soon. CielProfond (talk) 02:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

That link doesn't seem to work. http://w3.cielprofond.info:78/ works though. Spacepotato (talk) 10:16, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I am having a few problems with my configuration. I will see to this as soon as I can, but I can not promise any date for the fix. Thanks for reporting it, though! :-) CielProfond (talk) 13:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Distance to Messier 87

I've been doing some updates to the Messier 87 article. One of the items I wanted to pin down is the distance estimate. The current estimate cites Tonry et al. (2001), who gives a distance modulus of 31.03 ± 0.16 in Table 1. I'm assuming this was converted by somebody to the current distance estimate listed in the article (17 ± 0.31) Mpc. In searching further, I came across Bird et al. (2010) who gives a weighted mean distance modulus of 31.08 ± 0.06 based upon multiple measurement techniques, which they then convert to (16.4 ± 0.5) Mpc. It's perhaps a bit odd that the latter references the former, yet gives a weighted mean with a greater variance than the value listed in the Wikipedia article. I'm tempted to just go with the Bird et al. (2010) value since that article is focused on M87 rather than being a general survey.

Do you have a recommendation? Thank you.—RJH (talk) 21:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

NED generically shows a distance range of (16.7 ± 1.8) Mpc. -- Kheider (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Maybe what I need to do is build up some information about the distance estimates and worry about the correct value to use later. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:33, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

17 ± 0.31 Mpc is not a correct conversion of a distance modulus of 31.03 ± 0.16. The correct conversion would be 16.1 ± 1.2 Mpc. Spacepotato (talk) 00:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

That looks more consistent. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Epsilon Eridani

The Epsilon Eridani page has reached GA class status. My understanding is that the next stage is to become an A class article. Might I ask for some input on what needs to be done to reach that level? Thank you.

Regards, RJH (talk) 00:08, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I know how WPMILHIST, WPAviation and WPShips do it... Ships - MilHist - Aviation*2*1

We should probably model our procedure on these. 76.66.202.72 (talk) 06:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay yes, it looks like a Review sub-page would be useful for centralizing astronomy articles. Perhaps there should be just one for the Astronomy and Astronomical objects WikiProjects? Or maybe we should ask the WPSpace folks if they would do it for all space-related topics, since they seem to be going through some existential discussions at the moment? :-) —RJH (talk) 16:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/A-Class criteria, says "For WikiProjects without a formal A-Class review process, the proposal to promote to A-Class should be made on the article's talk page and supported there by two uninvolved editors, with no significant opposes. The review should also be noted on the discussion page.". I would also point out that the asessment tables for Astronomy and Astronomical objects do not include A-class fields... ChiZeroOne (talk) 17:06, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure that process would add significant value to the article that I couldn't already get by taking it through FAC, so I guess I'll probably not bother.—RJH (talk) 15:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Categorization of double/multiple stars

Recently, a number of edits have been made regarding our categorization system for small groups of stars. This system has to do with stars that (a) appear to be part of a group of n stars, where n = 2, 3, ..., and where the group is either (b.1) known to be a physical, gravitationally bound system or (b.2) known not to be physical, or not known either to be physical or not physical. The categorization at present is as follows:

Description	Categorization
n = 2 (a), physical (b.1)	Category:Binary stars
n = 2 (a), not known physical (b.2)	Category:Double stars
n = 3 (a), physical (b.1)	Category:Triple star systems
n = 3 (a), not known physical (b.2)	Category:Triple stars
n ≥ 4 (a), physical (b.1)	Category:Multiple star systems
n ≥ 4 (a), not known physical (b.2)	Category:Multiple stars

The question is when to categorize stars into the last category (Category:Multiple stars). You are invited to comment at Category talk:Multiple stars. Spacepotato (talk) 02:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a Category:Single star systems and Category:Single stars as well? (aren't most stars binary or multiple?) 65.93.12.108 (talk) 06:51, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The idea that most stars are multiple dates back to a time when observations were mostly of brighter, higher-mass stars. Nowadays it appears that most stars are lone red dwarfs. See e.g. [12], Bibcode:2006ApJ...640L..63L. Spacepotato (talk) 07:03, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Though if many or most star articles on Wikipedia are multiple, it would be useful to categorize single star systems then. 65.94.46.54 (talk) 06:00, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

New user "contributions"

I just wanted to give a quick heads-up that new user Obiwan42 has been making a number of "contributions" to astronomy articles, at least some of which appear inappropriate. For example, he has been changing the values of some infobox parameters so that they do not match the sources. We might want to keep an eye on the user's activities. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 19:23, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I reverted one recent edit and questioned another, was waiting for a response to either actions before proceeding with challenging the other contributions. Some of this editor's earlier contributions seem superficially genuine but they have gradually become more suspect, I've found it hard to disentangle them, needs sorting out. On a side-note the editor has created two versions of the same article (Ρ Ophiuchi and Rho Ophiuchi), I assume the later is the correct convention for wiki articles but the former is an incorrect uppercase alternative so shouldn't really be a redirect so don't know what to do with it! ChiZeroOne (talk) 19:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I've redirected ρ Ophiuchi to Rho Ophiuchi. As Wikipedia does not support lowercase first letters, I've attached the technical article title template that makes the first letter lowercase ({{lowercase}}) 76.66.203.138 (talk) 08:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah! I forgot about the lowercase template, thankyou. ChiZeroOne (talk) 11:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Seems very "dangerous" indeed. Reminds me somehow of Carloscom2 or whatever his name was/is. Better keep an eye on this user indeed, maybe warn him/her to indicate his/her sources for those changes. Should we undo them all?! BTW it's User talk:Obiwan042, not Obiwan42... CielProfond (talk) 02:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

It was CarloscomB (talk · contribs) from Brazil (pt:User:CarloscomB) ... God, I hope OW42 is not like CCB... we're still cleaning up his messes. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 09:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I worked my way back through his last 30-40 contributions. Most of them seem somewhat reasonable, or at least not awful; the editor's added a bunch of new star articles and fixed a few errors. So probably better than CarloscomB. No sources added to any of the revisions, of course. I guess I was just unhappy about a couple of changes to cited data without providing a new source; in many cases that can appear to be bordering on subtle vandalism, so it's a bit of a hot button for me. %-/ RJH (talk) 22:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd post a note on the talk page about errors found and query sources and see how it pans out from there, but yes I get suspicious of number-tweaks on pages with no sources provided. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I reverted the edit on Alpha Cancri and Obiwan042 did not go back to it. Actually, there was no activity on Obiwan042’s part since the 17th. This edit specifically was the change of the luminosity from 1 to 2.1, with the reference saying 1, so I brought it back to 1. Will we have to check/revert all the edits, one by one?! :-( CielProfond (talk) 15:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately he's back at it, and he hasn't been including a source for his data. I reverted several of his contributions on the grounds that they were arbitrary changes with no sources given, and he has a history of overwriting values with incorrect data.—RJH (talk) 16:32, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

With these edits, he is replacing already cited information with new values. I added warning templates to his talk page.—RJH (talk) 16:36, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Dwarf planets and candidate orbital parameters - time to update?

Hi. I'm going to update the dwarf planet candidates larger than 500 km across whose orbital parameters in the infobox use old data. I will update the data using the latest numbers from here and here. However I will wait for discussion prior to updating any official dwarf planets (some of which use Epoch 1950??). Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 20:01, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Since almost all bodies seem to use jpldata, I would just make jpldata the primary reference (2010 epoch) for Makemake (dwarf planet) and use the DES reference (1955 epoch) as a secondary. Your updates look ok to me. -- Kheider (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I propose to merge Vega as an X-ray source with Vega, as I do not see the purpose of having a separate article to mention the X-ray properties of the star. Opinions? Comments? CielProfond (talk) 01:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Vega is a featured article, whereas Vega as an X-ray source is not. For a merge to be successful, the quality of the content in the latter needs to be brought up to snuff. Fortunately, there is also significant redundancy between the two, so many parts can be pruned. Some parts may also be of dubious value.—RJH (talk) 20:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you, RJHall. I, however, don’t have the necessary knowledge to bring the current Vega as an X-ray source article up to par. Any volunteer? CielProfond (talk) 00:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and merged a few more details. As best I can tell, most if not all of the meat of the "Vega as an X-ray source" article has now been merged into the Vega article, unless somebody thinks we should include the comparison with Altair?—RJH (talk) 18:33, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

wikt:star cluster

The dictionary definition of star cluster at Wiktionary has been nominated for deletion. It is being claimed that a star cluster is nothing more than a "cluster" of "stars", hence is not an independent term, but two words mashed together with no other meaning. 65.93.14.196 (talk) 12:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Is the current definition accurate? How about this for an alternative: A star cluster is...

An association of stars that remain in proximity to each other because of their shared gravitational bond, but are not arrayed in a hierarchy of orbits as with a multi-star system. Classically, a star cluster is a nebula that can be resolved into individual stars.

I'm sure that somebody here can come up with something better. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 21:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Many of the astronomy definitions on wiktionary need work. Perhaps a task force / wiktionary wikiproject should be set up for that. 65.93.12.249 (talk) 06:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Are planet candidates notable?

I've just put an article up for AfD because the subject discusses a Kepler Object of Interest, basically a planet candidate. We are not talking about any of the 500 or so officially announced planets like those of the Kepler-11 system (note those actual planets don't even have articles yet!), we are talking about points of data no one knows yet are even real phenomena. The statistics of the candidates from the released paper are mentioned already in the Kepler article but does each candidate really deserve its own article? This seems to ridiculously defy notability standards. All sorts of scientific data are released to the public every day, is every datum verified or not notable enough for its own article? ChiZeroOne (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Definitely not notable until confirmed. If the parent star already has an article, it would be worth mentioning the candidate planet(s) in a couple of sentences, but there's no way each and every one of the >1000 candidates should have an article. Modest Genius ^talk 20:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The article seems likely to survive, at least for the moment, out of lack of consensus. Perhaps we'll just need to wait for future papers to come out before a better way is found to present the collective information?—RJH (talk) 19:42, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I despair I really do. There is plenty of consensus, it isn't supposed to be a vote and the only people who seem to know anything about the process of discovering planets past simplistic jingoism all say delete/merge. If the admin is any good they'll see this and delete. ChiZeroOne (talk) 22:57, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems to violate WP:NOTNEWS if it's an article about the candidacy, and WP:CRYSTAL if it's an article about the hypothetical planet. 65.94.45.238 (talk) 06:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The result was a deletion. (See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KOI 701.03).—RJH (talk) 18:41, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy#Bibcode cleanup

There's an ongoing discussion about cleaning up bibcodes in citations. Feedback is welcome. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Heads up at Talk:Quasar

I'm sure everyone's still sick of this from the last time it happened, but an IP editor has just posted a long essay at Talk:Quasar advocating for red-shift quantization, claiming that the evidence for cosmological red-shifts for quasars is weak, and so on. I'm on semi-sabbatical, so I'm not going to touch this for now. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 20:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll make a quick reply, but I'm not sure how to best handle it in a wikipedia-centered way. Parejkoj (talk) 03:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It might be better to develop the topic in a separate article and see if it stands on its own merit. At that point it could be summarized on the Quasar article.—RJH (talk) 17:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

KOI-730

KOI-730, another unconfirmed candidate planetary system, has been nominated for deletion. 65.95.15.144 (talk) 21:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm kind of thinking this system may be notable. It's receiving significant news coverage.—RJH (talk) 23:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

What units should be used for planetary atmosphere abundances?

There's a discussion on the Mars talk page about what units should be used when listing atmospheric abundances in the infobox. Your input would be appreciated. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 18:16, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I've always been accustomed to understanding and seeing them described in parts-per-million and percentages.--Xession (talk) 18:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

@Xsession: Like you, probably many readers are more accustomed to ppm than to the correct units. However, do you really know what is meant by that? 1E-6 kg/kg or 1E-6 mol/mol? This is not the same! I think unambiguity is more important than sticking to commonly used but ambiguous units.

Since I started this topic, I'd like to add some background information: I propose to get rid of the old and ambiguous units ppm, ppb, and ppt. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) says: "Only in the rarest of instances should ambiguous units be used, such as in direct quotations". I can see at least 3 ambiguities with these old units:

• The old units may either refer to mass fraction or mole fraction, which are quite different.
• The "b" in "ppb" stands for billion, which can either be 1E9 or 1E12, see Long and short scales.
• "ppt" is even worse: if may either refer to parts per trillion (1E-12) or to parts per thousand (1E-3).

Consistent with IUPAC recommendations (see IUPAC Green Book http://old.iupac.org/publications/books/gbook/green_book_2ed.pdf and also page 1387-1388 of http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/67/8/1377/pdf), I suggest to make the following replacements:

old unit	ppt	ppm	ppb	ppt
definition	1E-3	1E-6	1E-9	1E-12
new unit (if mass fraction)	g/kg	mg/kg	μg/kg	ng/kg
new unit (if mole fraction)	mmol/mol	μmol/mol	nmol/mol	pmol/mol

RolfSander (talk) 18:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Could we please keep the discussion at Talk:Mars#Original units were clearer?, rather than having it spread over multiple talk pages? Modest Genius ^talk 18:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree not to split the discussion. However, I prefer to have it here because the question is not specific to Mars. RolfSander (talk) 19:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I only just spotted this. The discussion at Talk:Mars is now rather advanced. Modest Genius ^talk 23:09, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

• {{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:28, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Hot companion

Hot companion has been re-nominated as an AfD. Nstock (talk) 04:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

No consensus again. How predictable. Icalanise (talk) 17:15, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Let's merge it to binary star, and be done with it, it will just be a redirect then. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 06:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Which is precisely what I said would happen a week ago, and all I got was paranoia and accusations of bad faith ("what's your agenda for getting this closed early"). I already added the merge tags, although I am neutral on the merge itself.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 22:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

You tried to get the discussion closed early as "keep", after having voted keep in the discussion. Tell me how that is supposed to look. You going around lecturing people on what a productive use of their time would be is also condescending as hell. Icalanise (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You voted to keep this. It should have been deleted. Now we will end up having a redirect, that will probably be repurposed by someone having the hots for Mischa Barton or Rihanna. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 07:07, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it should be merged with binary star. Piper2000ca (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

SN 1054

The article on the supernova was expanded from French wikipedia. I am doing some post-translation clean-up, but it really needs a look from someone who knows about astronomy. And if possible, history of astronomy. Thanks.

14:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Epsilon Eridani FAC

I've put Epsilon Eridani up for FAC here. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 17:36, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The article isn't getting much support for an FA. I wonder why? Anyway, looks like it may fail for lack of interest. Shrug.—RJH (talk) 15:43, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The lesson learned for me is to not bring any more articles on Sun-like stars with planetary systems forward for FAC. There are too many reviewers seeking to use the FAC process to promote their ideas about habitable systems and extraterrestrial life, rather than treating it first and foremost as an article about a star. Ah well, time to do something else.—RJH (talk) 22:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I guess i wonder with you. The strange thing is that an article like that one could pass the FAC, while this one could not. If we were in Arabic Wikipedia, an article like this would get 30 to 50 supports and 0 opposes :) --aad_Dira (talk) 14:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC).

Proposed move of Mizar (star)

Hi, I've proposed that Mizar (star) be moved to Mizar and Alcor, discussion is here. Icalanise (talk) 22:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Result was that the article was moved. Icalanise (talk) 18:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Andromeda XXII and Andromeda XXI

Hello. I just started those two and haven't a clue what I'm doing. Could someone please give them a quick look, particularly the infobox? I am looking for more info now. Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)  Done Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello Anna.

The distance information could also be included in the infobox. It's usually interesting to include some material in the article from an amateur astronomer's perspective, which can often be found by a search in Google books. I.e. what size scope is needed, where to find it, &c. I like to do a search in Google scholar for studies of the objects, plus check the more likely journal articles listed on the Simbad entry.

Some useful additions would be the latest estimated mass and radii (in pc or kpc), specific objects of interest within the galaxy, indications of a past interaction(s) with Andromeda (whether they are captured galaxies or just passing by), the amount of dark matter and interstellar medium, and useful investigations in the infrared and UV/X-ray.

I hope this was helpful. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:10, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 41#Bibcode bot

I've made a request for a bot to try and guess bibcodes for the most popular astronomy journals / journals with the biggest presence in the ADSABS database. Feedback is welcome. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems sensible, and looks to be running nicely. Nice work. Modest Genius ^talk 20:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Overriding automatically-generated distances etc. in the Starbox template?

There are times when the parallax for a star is available, but worthless except to show that the star is beyond the limitations of the parallax measurement. The example that got me onto this is that of R Andromedae, where the original Hipparcos parallax is not merely smaller than its estimated uncertainty (-0.06 +/- 6.49 mas), it's negative in this case, giving a patently silly result when it's used for any derived quantity. There are, however, decent distance estimates for the star from astrophysical methods. (Those methods in general are not astrometric, so the ability to put such a distance estimate in some part of the Starbox that isn't in the "astrometry" section seems better; that's a subtle distinction but it is important.) Is there a way to manually override (or merely just suppress) the automatically-computed distance and its by-products in the Starboxes, while leaving the parallax information in place? BSVulturis (talk) 16:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

As an extension, could the automated distance etc. computation be made "smarter" to suppress itself in obvious cases like this one of a negative parallax? BSVulturis (talk) 16:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

IIRC, if you specify the dist_ly/dist_pc fields then this will override the default calculation. I'm not particularly convinced of the merits of putting negative parallax values in the infobox though, such numbers are clearly unphysical and have more to do with the limits of measurement than any actual properties of the object itself. Icalanise (talk) 16:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Input requested on primary Mars time intervals

There was a question raised on the Mars talk page about whether the top level Mars time intervals should be called Epochs or Periods. The literature seems to be divided on the topic. Some informed input would be appreciated at Talk:Mars#Epoch vs. Period in geologic history section. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:47, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The resolution was to use 'Periods'.—RJH (talk) 15:14, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Carbon giant

Carbon giant has been prodded for deletion. 65.94.45.160 (talk) 06:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

It got deprodded and is now at AfD. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carbon giant. Icalanise (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The outcome was a redirect to carbon star.—RJH (talk) 16:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Starbox header alignment changed

It looks like the alignment of the headers for the Starbox templates have been altered. Checking the Sirius article, the headers are now left aligned, with the exception of the starbox visbin sub-template. That makes it look a little squirrely. Possibly somebody has altered a style sheet? I don't see any other edits that would have caused the revision. Should we add a manual center-alignment to each of the sub-template headers to make them consistent again? Regards, RJH (talk) 20:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I support making center alignment explicit. "Orbit" is still center aligned on Sirius. 65.95.13.213 (talk) 04:22, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Astroecology

This article was created a couple of years ago and was tagged as an essay. Parts of it seem legitimate and it is well sourced, but it may be in need of cleanup. Please take a look if you have an inclination. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Nearest star systems navboxes TfD

Hello, I've nominated the {{Nearest star systems}} and {{Nearest bright star systems}} templates (and associated subtemplates) for discussion at WP:TfD#Nearest star systems navboxes. Icalanise (talk) 18:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

This has been relisted in Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 April 16. Icalanise (talk) 11:40, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Has been relisted again at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 April 27. Seem to be a lot of people saying "shrink and keep" without saying anything about where they think the line should be drawn. Icalanise (talk) 18:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that we adopt an accuracy standard as the cut-off. The distances on the template are listed to three digits, which has an implicit accuracy of 0.1% or less. I think we should insist upon an error margin of no more than 1% for inclusion. Otherwise the template will require frequent maintenance. For comparison, on the RECONS top 100, the highest margin of error appears to be for 2MA 0939-2448 with an error margin of 2.5%. The lowest is Epsilon Eridani at 0.03%.—RJH (talk) 16:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Result of TfD was that both the templates have been reduced to a 10 light year cutoff. IMHO the {{Nearest bright star systems}} template is now pretty much pointless, but going to hold off on renominating it until further decisions get taken. Icalanise (talk) 20:34, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

So... the old navbox templates still appear to be lingering around, per the example Groombridge 1618. Do we purge these? Regards, RJH (talk) 17:22, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

International Space Station

Is the ISS as bright as Venus, Brighter or comparable, how is the magnitude determined ? Is looking through a telescope at the ISS even astronomy ? is it an astronomical object ? We could use some help here. Anyone got 10 minutes ? Please come to the ISS talk page to help. Penyulap _talk 15:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I have nominated International Space Station for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. This is about an effort to improve the article, and get some new ideas for this article. Penyulap _talk 15:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Probably Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight is a more appropriate place to discuss this. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:46, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Apparent magnitudes of NGC objects

There are quite a few NGC objects especially Nebulae, which don't have any apparent magnitude specified in the catalog. But the wikipedia articles mention the apparent magnitude. I think a careful review of these quoted apparent magnitudes is needed. For example:

• NGC 1435 mentions the apparent magnitude and refers to SEDS, but SEDS doesn't mention any app magnitude there.
• Flame Nebula says app magnitude is +2, with no reference.

I will expand this list as I find more instances.EPharaoh (talk) 18:01, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

• NGC 1435: Barnard's original 1891 'discovery' paper gave V ~ 13, which may be where the info in the article comes from. However, this is for IC 349 only, is over a century old (even Barnard himself didn't consider it very accurate) and I'm not sure quite how large an area the NGC object covers. Herbig & Simon (2001AJ....121.3138H) give V=16.14 for the integrated light from IC 349. Earlier Herbig (1996AJ....111.1241H) observations gave V=16.14 for the central 2.1 arcsec, extending to 15.02 over 5", again both for IC 349. Since there's no clear boundary between the two, I wonder if the articles on NGC 1435 and IC 349 should be merged?

According to the HCNGC (the ngcicproject.org), NGC 1435 and IC 349 are distinct. Here's the note by Dr Harold Corwin Jr:

NGC 1435 is the part of the reflection nebula around Merope extending almost directly south by 10 to 15 arcmin from the star. For some time, I had thought that it and IC 349 (which see) are identical. However, reading Barnard's careful observations of the Pleiades in AN 3018 (where he announces the discovery of IC 349), it became clear that the IC object is actually a brighter knot in the larger Merope nebula, and very close to the star itself. Under normal conditions, Merope's light swamps the knot, so it is not surprising that it was not found until the keen-eyed Barnard turned the Lick 36-inch refractor on it. NGC 1435, however, is fairly easily seen on good nights with much smaller telescopes. I've picked it out with a six-inch, and I suspect that any good scope of four inches or more would give a view of it.

EPharaoh (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

So in other words IC 349 is just a dense part of NGC 1435, exactly as I thought. Doesn't invalidate the idea of a merger. Modest Genius ^talk 19:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

• No idea on the Flame Nebula, there were simply too many references (>700) for me to hunt through.
• On an entirely separate point, is it worth trying to get accurate numbers on the brightnesses of extended nebulae with no clear edges? It's extremely difficult to determine what the total integrated light for such sources is. Giving values for the surface brightness might be better, but in some cases no sensible measurement will be possible. Modest Genius ^talk 22:06, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Surface brightness and Visual magnitude are duals. If you know one, you can compute the other (assuming size is known). EPharaoh (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Except a) the area isn't known, because there's no clear boundary, and b) the surface brightness is not constant over the nebula. Modest Genius ^talk 19:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the following source gives a magnitude of ~7th for the Flame Nebula:

O'Meara, Stephen James (2007). Steve O'Meara's Herschel 400 observing guide: how to find and explore 400 star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies discovered by William and Caroline Herschel. Cambridge University Press. p. 31. ISBN 0521858933.

This source gives a magnitude of ~8th:

Plotner, Tammy; Mann, Terry (2007). The Night Sky Companion: A Yearly Guide to Sky-Watching. Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series. Springer. p. 3. ISBN 0387716084.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

So perhaps the article could say "About 7–8"? But it might be more informative to tell the reader what type of scope they'd need to view it, which is described in multiple sources. Most other sources don't list a magnitude. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:58, 5 July 2011 (UTC)