Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy

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This page is currently under construction. Please do not remove or delete. Links and ideas will be added soon. See my contributions to see that I am in the process of re-working Space related pages.

Contents 1 FAC 2 Astronomical subjects 3 Transit of Venus 4 Definition of planet 5 Morning width 6 Anon changing data 7 John Dee 8 Black hole 9 Project directory 10 Astronomy versus Astrophysics

[edit] FAC

Please add comments to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Redshift. Thanks, --ScienceApologist 23:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Astronomical subjects

Please review Special:Contributions/Mlhooten and Special:Contributions/166.82.166.38. Uncle G 14:26, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transit of Venus

Transit of Venus is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of planet

Definition of planet is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 20:00, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Morning width

Hi, I wrote a short stub on morning width using a definition I found somewherew on the Internet. Could someone who actually knows sometihng about astronomy verify its correctness? Cheers, —Ruud 21:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a really obscure term that I have not encountered in professional astronomy. It would be the type of term used in archaeoastronomy. A web search truns up nothing. I am uncertain if this is a real term. You should at least reference the source of your information (or a source that you are certain did not copy Wikipedia) so that other people can check your information. George J. Bendo 22:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I got the definition from http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/gcal/gcal_90.html. I translated the term from German: "Besonderes Interesse verdienen auch zwei Texte über die morgenweite und die Bestimmiung des Azimuts aus der Höhe, weil in ihnen indische Formeln in geometrischem Gewand gegeben werden und es so aussieht als ob sie mit Hilfe eines Sinusquadranten berechnet wroden wären." The two texts mentioned here are 9th century Arabic treatises on astronomy. —Ruud 22:22, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anon changing data

Hi, 80.121.98.214 (talk • contribs) has changed some values for physical data about stars. It looks suspicious, but I'm hoping for a second opinion about whether the changes are legitimate. Thanks, Wmahan. 19:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

He appears to be changing temperatures and radii. Note that the radius cannot be measured directly but can be derived using the luminosity and temperature. Therefore, 80.121.98.214 appears to be making changes purely related to updating the temperatures.

To be honest, the changes by 80.121.98.214 are not all that big. Changing 7000 K to 6600 K is not that big a deal, especially since the temperatures probably are not better defined anyway. However, someone should ask him to cite his references.

For that matter, all the data in the infoboxes should be referenced. For example, look at the Alpha Persei article (where the temperature and radius were recently modified by 80.121.98.214). Nothing in that infobox is referenced. Where did all of that data come from? One of the external links? SIMBAD? Someone's field guide of the night sky? Allen's Astrophysical Quantities? Scientific preprints? Who knows? It probably came from multiple sources, but we don't know which ones.

Infobox material can be referenced gracefully; for example, see the Sombrero Galaxy article. The infobox data for stars should also be referenced. George J. Bendo 21:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Dee

John Dee is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 21:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Black hole

Black hole is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 16:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Astronomy versus Astrophysics

I just nominated Category:Astrophysicists for deletion today, as it appears to duplicate Category:Astronomers. The discussion on the nomination led into a discussion about whether "astrophysics" can be considered a subcategory of "astronomy". My immediate perception as a professional astronomer/astrophysicist is that the difference does not really exist, as most astronomers use physics in their analysis. When I do a Google search on "difference between astronomy and astrophysics", I get links to a bunch of "ask the experts" pages that seem to say the same thing. This led me to look at the astronomy and astrophysics articles in Wikipedia. Unsurprisingly, the two articles contain duplicate information. Additionally, some of the things described in astronomy are physics oriented, and some of the things in astrophysics are not physics intensive. Similar statements can be made for Category:Astronomy and Category:Astrophysics. In my opinion, it looks like all of this stuff should be merged together. What are other people's opinions? George J. Bendo 18:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)