Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy

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Mars Galleries

It appears that the linked articles on the {{Mars quadrangle layout}} template have become dumping grounds for massive quantities of Mars images. However, Wikipedia is not an image repository. I believe these should be trimmed down to a bare minimum, sufficient to satisfy WP:IMAGEPOL. The Commons is a better place for large image galleries. Cf. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mars Praemonitus (talk) 14:33, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these articles look like they need a broader rewrite as well, especially since organization was done so around these excessive image galleries. It should also be noted that this issue extends to other Mars-related articles, e.g. Chryse Planitia, Volcanism on Mars, and Climate of Mars. Ark Hyena (it/its) 17:44, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, many of the terra articles are the same. E.g. Promethei Terra. This could be widespread. Praemonitus (talk) 23:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe most of these galleries can be boldly removed without issue, and it'd be a nice opportunity to give them much-needed attention. There isn't much of a reason to justify these galleries against IMAGEPOL. Ark Hyena (it/its) 00:25, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or at least tag them with {{Too many images}} on top. Cleanup is going to be a chore and my concern is they may invoke edit wars. Praemonitus (talk) 14:45, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that, rather than deleting/redirecting the articles. Related, many of the images themselves are of marginal quality - some are screen captures from various NASA image viewers and they still have black fields or buttons or even navigation tabs that should be cropped. Some annoyingly have scale bars in the middle of the image. Many pages excessively repeat the source ("HiRise based on HiWish program"). Much of that is a task to be fixed in Commons rather than english wikipedia but all of it would improve the articles about Mars.Jstuby (talk) 02:05, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I doubt anyone would object to their removal, considering that they're a pretty obvious violation of IMAGEPOL and no proposal has been made to the draft MOS:ASTRO for such exceptions. I'll probably start going around removing these galleries whenever I have the time. Ark Hyena (it/its) 21:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Pages using the JsonConfig extension"

There's a bunch of Mars- and lunar-related articles showing a red-linked category called "Pages using the JsonConfig extension". If you want to get rid of it, a NULL edit is sufficient. (I.e. a page edit that makes no changes.) I've tested it twice and it works. Praemonitus (talk) 15:50, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I saw that in some star cluster articles before ‹hamster717🐉› ^{(discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠)} 16:31, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Early Infrared Surveys

I am thinking about writing an article about the early infrared sky surveys, CRL, AFGL and RAFGL. I realize there is already an RAFGL article, but it's a stub, and it seems odd to have an article about the revised AFGL but no article about the original AFGL. My plan is to write the new article, then blank the RAFGL article and turn it into a redirect that will point to the new article which will include RAFGL info.

Does anyone have any comments or suggestions about this? Are the CRL and original AFGL catalogs covered somewhere that I just haven't stumbled across? Thanks for any feedback! PopePompus (talk) 14:05, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

White dwarf at FAR

I have nominated White dwarf for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the 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" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 14:54, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Status: it has two remaining {{cn}} tags and probably needs a read-through for random cruft — claims that were shoved in on account of a news blurb, and stuff like that. XOR'easter (talk) 06:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like this has now been taken care of. Primefac (talk) 12:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I took care of the {{cn}} tags. An independent check for accumulated cruft would still be a good idea, I think. XOR'easter (talk) 20:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The "Further reading" at the end might need winnowing, if anyone wants to take a crack at it. XOR'easter (talk) 20:36, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Something weird is happening with the Vega article

I keep an eye on the "Category:Objects with variable star designations" page. Today, a new entry appeared: Shaybah Airport . If you go to that article, Shaybah_Airport, you will see an odd mixture of an article about a Saudi Airport, and the Vega article. It is not the case that some vandal pasted a bunch of the Vega article into that article. It seems to be some kind of redirect misfire, but I can't figure out what is happening. PopePompus (talk) 22:01, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, I found the problem. Someone put {\{:Vega}} (without the "\", into the airport article. PopePompus (talk) 22:09, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like a vandal did transclude the Vega article into the Shaybah Airport article, and then you reverted it. I'm not sure why that category would have been added though, since Vega isn't in it. SevenSpheres (talk) 22:10, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking into it. I didn't even know you could transclude that way. PopePompus (talk) 22:11, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a note, you can have templates link with the brackets on a page by doing {{tl}}. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:50, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Auto-add categories to odlist template

There's a discussion at "Template talk:Odlist#Auto-add categories?" that could use more input from other editors. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 18:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

Can I join? Catlover1519 (talk) 18:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's no membership, you just jump in and participate. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"failed star"

Deletion discussion at Kepler-1047 c

Please share your thoughts at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kepler-1047 c, as this article is in a deletion discussion and may be deleted. 21 Andromedae (talk) 16:36, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion for additional graphics for Constellation pages

NSF NOIRLab and ESA have just released a complete series of highres photos of all 88 constellations: https://noirlab.edu/public/education/constellations/ These are released under Creative Commons Attribution. It would be a pleasure if someone wants to upload them and show them on the Constellation pages. More information about the project here: https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2430/ (Lars_Lindberg_Christensen|talk) 8:35, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Agree, these are far better than the current images. If nobody complains (which i think will not happen), i will exchange the images. 21 Andromedae (talk) 13:07, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current lead images in constellation articles are diagrams, while these are annotated astrophotographs. I'm not sure why one should be considered "better" than the other. An argument for keeping the current images is that bright stars and other objects are labeled. Maybe constellation articles could use both images - one as the lead image and one in the article body? SevenSpheres (talk) 17:46, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's the issue, they are not labelled, but anyone with some software like paint.NET can easily add labels. A true picture of the sky is better than a diagram, especially when the latter is in "negative color", with the backgound white and the stars black. 21 Andromedae (talk) 23:31, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is a reason why many modern star charts are styled that way--readability and simplicity. However, I agree that it may make more sense to represent constellations with an actual (annotated) photo rather than a diagram, so perhaps we can opt to switch their places: the new images go in the infobox, and the diagrams can be placed further down in the article body. Ark Hyena (it/its) 00:04, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most constellation pages have annotated images of the night sky in the article body, and I agree with replacing those images with the new ones. The current images in the article body are more difficult to read and lower resolution compared to the NOIRLab images. I am against replacing the diagrams in the infoboxes for the concerns voiced by SevenSpheres. Ark Hyena (it/its) 18:58, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Beware that the text accompanying the images has major errors of fact as well as typos. They would have done better to simply quote Wikipedia. Skeptic2 (talk) 22:42, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current star charts are more information-rich than these images, so I think we should stick with the charts for the infobox. But I agree they would be useful in the sense of visual constellation identification, down in the feature sections. Praemonitus (talk) 06:07, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category fixing and notable works set on Mars?

See Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Works/Fiction_by_setting_(space). TL;DR if you can think of articles about non-fiction Category:Works set on Mars, it would be good to save it from deletion. Ditto for Category:Works set on the Moon (should be easier). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:45, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Time Allocation Committee

I have long noticed that WP science articles don't say much about how scientists actually work. For astronomy, we don't correct the assumption among laymen that astronomers spend their night sitting on a tall stool and staring into the eyepiece of a big telescope, when actually they spend far more time staring into the screen of the computer on their desk. Something I long knew about observational astronomy is that time on major telescopes is perennially scarce. Recently I learned (in Quora) that there are TACs that rate proposals and rank them according to merit for the various observatories, and those ratings are the main way to get time. Seems to me, this matter should be mentioned in one of our articles. Which one, I don't know. As for sources, a very quick Google search found [1] and [2] which are very specific rather than general, and probably more general references can be found with a little more searching. Suggestions? Jim.henderson (talk) 01:54, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If enough information can be dug up about them, a separate article for Time allocation committees could be set up. If they're a significant player in how observational astronomy functions now, we ought to document how they work and what work they do. I've found some sites which could be potentially useful sources, though many are arguably primary: [3][4][5][6]. At least one source investigates systemic issues regarding TACs: [7] Ark Hyena (it/its) 02:27, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the topic is notable and a separate article at time allocation committee would be appropriate. The difficulty would be saying something about TACs in general without getting bogged down in details specific to (say) how ESO or STSci run theirs. Most of the sources would indeed be primary, but there should be some secondary coverage in popular science books. I'm a little sceptical that someone could write an accurate article if they only recently heard of the concept - I expect there are WP:AST project members who have served on TACs. I've applied to multiple different TACs myself, with mixed success, so have some knowledge of how the process works. If someone starts a draft (in draft or user space) I'll be happy to give feedback. Modest Genius ^talk 12:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised that this name does not appear to be applied to major research platforms that have unique capabilities and high demand in other areas. For example, how does LHC handle themselves? DMacks (talk) 06:25, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The LHC is a poor example (for reasons I won't go into), but there are equivalent processes at synchrotron light sources. However as far as I am aware they use different terminology, e.g. ESRF calls them 'proposal review panels' and Diamond uses 'peer review panel'. When I google for "time allocation committee", the first 50 hits all refer to astronomy (I didn't check any further). So while similar concepts exist in other fields, the name is unambiguous and specific to astronomy. Modest Genius ^talk 13:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn

It has recently been discovered that the clouds of Jupiter are made of ammonium hydrosulfide mixed with smog, not ammonia ice, as has been previously believed and that the same applies to Saturn. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-citizen-science-reveals-jupiter-clouds.amp How should I go about searching for information that needs to be changed in articles such as atmosphere of Jupiter? Sushidude21! (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The scientific article the phys.org abstracted is:

Irwin, P. G. J., Hill, S. M., Fletcher, L. N., Alexander, C., & Rogers, J. H. (2025). Clouds and ammonia in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn determined from a band-depth analysis of VLT/MUSE observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 130, e2024JE008622. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JE008622

It is open access and, not surprisingly, does not use the word "smog". Rather they suggest that "the main aerosols are haze layers composed of an accumulation of photochemical products combined with condensates of perhaps" ammonium hydrosulfide.

Normally a new paper is not encyclopedia material, but this paper can be considered as verifying the work of Hill using "amateur" equipment with the analysis technique of Combes & Encrenaz, 1979. The paper also reviews a lot of related work on the atmosphere of Jupiter, but my summary would be "we still don't have a solid understanding". Johnjbarton (talk) 18:42, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Johnjbarton seems to have a better handle on this than I do. Still, I want to offer a comment: never trust phys.org, which simply regurgitates press releases issued by the institutions or observatories involved. That is not an independent or reliable source. If the researchers themselves describe the results as merely 'perhaps' and 'fraught with difficulty as this is a very degenerate problem', I wouldn't read too much into it. I think it's fair to say that the idea of ammonia clouds has been challenged, citing this paper, but not that it has been disproven or that ammonium hydrosulfide is the correct composition. Modest Genius ^talk 20:50, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How_many_timelines_of_the_universe_we_need?

This topic on the Physics Talk page maybe of interest to readers here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics#How_many_timelines_of_the_universe_we_need?

Mainly involves Timeline of the early universe and Chronology of the universe. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]