Talk:Astronomy/Archive

Portal:Physics and Astronomy
Please coordinate with Portal:Physics and Astronomy. Portal:Physics and Astronomy contains material that was imported from Wikibooks. --JWSchmidt 04:21, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Astronomy
I imported this from wb, but I'm not sure where you want it to go, so please feel free to move it.SB_Johnny | talk 20:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup needed
The astronomy pages are in need of cleanup. I'm willing to be bold and do some editing, but I'm new here and a bit confused by the namespace conventions. What is the difference between School and Topic namespace? I see that there is the School of Physics and Astronomy which contains the Department of Astronomy. That sounds fine to me. (Although, the Browse page lists astronomy as a school, and that redirects to the topic namespace.) Within Topic:Astronomy (and also in School:Physics and Astronomy) there are long lists of "courses" with names that begin with Topic. Should a learning project like Topic:Introduction to Astronomy really be in topic namespace? Then we have Category:Astronomy_learning_project and Category:Astronomy_project which seem to be the same thing. I would delete the first instance and add the second to the Category:Learning_projects.--mikeu 16:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that my edit got posted to School_talk:Astronomy despite the fact that the page is in topic namespace.--mikeu 16:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Your questions in order:
 * What is the difference between School and Topic namespace?: the School namespace was meant as a way to structure and present larger sets of related topics. How they are used specifically is up to each area. Within that area, however, they should be arranged in a way that appears intuitive and consistent so readers don't have to guess too much where to find information. If the structure doesn't appear to make too much sense to you, feel free to change it. From what I remember, there's not been too much activity in this area so feel free to move things as you see fit.
 * Should a learning project like Topic:Introduction to Astronomy really be in topic namespace?: No, it probably should not. Individual learning projects (often in style not unlike courses) should go into the main namespace so they can be easily found when searched and linked to.
 * If you want to delete pages and redirects which are no longer used within this area, feel free to use delete or dr to propose deletion. Also, if you need any administrative help, feel free to contact anyone with the mop. It's our job to help. sebmol ? 16:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I proposed deletion for one of the Astronomy project catagories. Topic:Introduction to Astronomy has been moved to Introduction to Astronomy and Topic: has been removed from all the items in the list of proposed courses.  I can see a future need for major astronomy subtopics, for instance Topic:Planetary Science but I would say that with so little content it is too early to go creating subdivisions.--mikeu 17:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I moved the list of subjects to another page called Topic:Astronomy/Courses. A long list of subjects that don't exist clutters the main page and is more of an impediment to growth. New users are going to be confused trying to find content that exists, and it preimposes a structure for the future growth of what will be covered here rather than just letting it happen naturaly.--mikeu 19:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

In the search box type "astronomy" and click the Search button. The page claims that it lists "Results 1-20 of 46" but there are only 4 items returned. Click on Next>> and there is an error message about no more matches. Only two of the four results are astronomy pages. The page I created on Observational astronomy is not listed. By default the search only looks in the Main namespace so the results do not include the most important page which is Topic:Astronomy. That is very confusing for new users.--mikeu 20:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I thought I read that the databases used for search functions were going to be updated more than once a week, but I'm not sure that has happened yet. If that page does not show up in searched by Tuesday we will have to look into this for sure. --JWSchmidt 20:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * There seems to be a database update problem that is not unique to Wikiversity. "all wikis should be re-indexed every 30 hours", but they are not. --JWSchmidt 17:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * There are some rather serious issues with the "toolserver", which does these sorts of things for us. Be patient (very patient, perhaps)... it will get cleared up as soon as resources allow. --SB_Johnny | talk 00:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Cranbrook
Cranbrook has an observatory.

Amateur astronomers pursue next great discovery
What does everyone think about this: ? Should we get involved?--Rayc 16:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm familiar with a few of the references in that article. I just came across Systemic and transitsearch.  In fact, I'm planning to create a project on exoplanets which would tie in with that.  There is a stub article at Observational astronomy/Extrasolar planet which, at the moment, just has a few references.--mikeu 17:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Images
There's a fantastic picture of the day on Commons today - - and plenty more at categories like commons:Category:ESA_images - they might brighten up a resource or two here on Wikiversity... :-) Cormaggio beep 17:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Rearrangement of the front page
hi there!! am very eager to know more about each of you working on the astronomy page. the thing i suggest is that the first page is reserved to introduce the courses .i mean like i think guiding the student in the proper course would be great!! -- (The preceding unsigned comment was added by Astro (talk • contribs) .)
 * basic courses
 * advanced courses
 * choosing your course propperly
 * Hey there! Welcome aboard! Yup, feel free to edit...I think you've got a great idea, expanding the outlines and such. We can also link to resources on Wikipedia and Wikibooks too. --HappyCamper 22:05, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hello, and welcome! You might also want to take a look at Portal:Physical Sciences.  The Portal pages are intended to be a more user friendly introduction to the information that Wikiversity offers for those interested in learning.  The Topic:Astronomy page was originally intended more for those developing educational materials to coordinate the creation and editing of lessons.  At this point, content creation is probably needed more than anything.  Most of the "courses" listed are redlinks to pages that do not yet exist.  Even some of the existing links (ie. Solar System and Stellar Astronomy) have no content, yet. There has been some discussion about just how usefull it is to new visitors to have lists of non-existing content.  For example, see User:JWSchmidt/Blog/28 February 2007. If anyone is interested in collaborating on content, feel free to drop me a note and we can pick some pages to improve.--mikeu 16:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Astronomy vs Astrophysics
There ought to be some unison between the supposed deparments of Astronomy and Astrophysics. I believe the two things are slightly different but very related, so much so that they should be in the same 'sub-department'. Astronomy relates to making observations and categorizing objects, Astrophysics is about understanding the objects (the physics that governs said objects). So perhaps it makes sense to merge Astronomy and Astrophysics on the same page but note the division between the two via their associated topics.

I have to admit that I have great scepticism about this Wikiversity project and what will actually be gained. Excessive compartmentalisation of topics invites inefficiency: leading to pages that have great overlap with one another.


 * I have no problem with merging Astronomy and Astrophysics. I also have no problem with merging astronomy back into School:Physics and Astronomy.  A couple things to keep in mind Topic:Astrophysics emphasizes university level instruction.  That seems to me to be apropriate.  The Topic:Astronomy page also seems to be somewhat oriented to the university level.  However, some of the astronomy activities being created are for younger children.  (I plan on creating new astronomy activities for high school and younger students)  I do wonder if the bias towards higher education topics in the course listing is discouraging people who are interested in producing introductory content from participating in these coordination pages.  In any case, my own personal preference is to create content pages (lessons, activities, learning projects, etc) first and then add them to the list at a school or topic page. Sometimes I just use a category to organize the content.  The list of courses have been changed and then reverted or rewritten so many times that I no longer feel that it is a worthwhile use of my time to participate in editing the course lists.  I would like to see these project pages used more for coordinating the creation of learning projects.  For example, perhaps astronomy and astrophysics could work together on a subject area like supernova.--mikeu 00:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

MORE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE EDITORS
i think that there is a lack of communication between the editors of this page as it is contantly updated but without ANY NOTICE in the discussion page.i think that we will waste our time if one creates a thing then the next come and delete and replaces it by his own content.i think that putting more effort in communicating more efficience will make lose less time in retyping all the work we did and rewritting the thing that the editor chage.i think it is essential.without communication this page will be a constant battle.which we would certainly not like/so plz everyone.let's try to communicate more by posting any suggestions here.thanks

astronomy: school or topic
It looks like someone has changed School:Astronomy from a redirect to Topic:Astronomy into a coordination page. Is there really a need for both? Because there are so few editors working on astronomy related pages I feel that it is better to keep things simple and have one central place to coordinate our efforts. I really don't care if we use a page in school or topic namespace. I'm going to hold off on merging the two until I see some agreement here on which page to use for astronomy. Please respond to this note at School_talk:Physics_and_Astronomy to keep the discussion in one place.--mikeu 23:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

stubs
There is now a Category:Physics and Astronomy stubs. --mikeu 03:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

similar solar system to ours found...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/14/sciplanet114.xml --Remi 06:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Skygazing
The Skygazing page as wikipedia is now a redirect to Amateur astronomy. The old Skygazing content has been transwiki imported to wikiversity at Skygazing for development here as a learning project page. --mikeu talk 20:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

First impressions of the school; upcoming changes and some questions for the community
First thank you for highlighting orphoned and incomplete material for me.

I spent a few minutes reviewing portal/school. Let me give you some of my impressions as well as some of the ways I would like to help.

first, please DON't take this personally, but I thought the portal was a rough! There is extensive interest in astrophysics/physics/etc (as I found last night; spent over two hours talking to someone about the whole relatively/quantum mechanics things). But EVEN so, you almost can't find the Amateur astronomy section. its behind (beyond) all the physics stuff.

an aspiring or beginning observer might feel quite intimidated or lost in all the astrophysics and it creates an misconception, that somehow advanced astrophysics is a 'requirement' for observer.

as you know, people can do some very enjoyable observing with only minor knowledge of these things. I also found stuff about actual observing poorly developed. (I hope to help there). Its possible my limited search was merely insufficient to find these kinds of topics.

but what I think we need to do, is create better 'forks'
 * Astronomy and Physics
 * Observing and Astrophysics
 * Beginning (untelescopic), Intermediate (visual telescopic observing), or Advanced (imaging)
 * The challenge of this scheme is the impression that somehow imaging is King or best and untelescopic work such as meteors is simplistic or beginning

Now if we could someone separate physics/ astrophysics/ and astronomical observing I would be interested in fleshing out courses in astronomical observing (when there's interest)

so here's what I want to do
 * 1) Develop backyard astronomy (solidify content)
 * 2) Create a course around 'beginning backyard astronomy.' basically, if I have some advice, how effective or useful is it for someone to take my advice? I would like to see how the advice works with begginners eyes.
 * 3) Create a department clarifying what is backyard astonomy and begin fleshing out the fork between untelescopic, visual, and imaging
 * 4) Lastly penn up some kind of proposed organization for a series of forks that will organize the school (perhaps the portal?). It would be good to get a lot more feedback for this

Could someone kind of fill me in (if possible) at the history of this layout? what efforts have been made, what kind of vision did people who set this up have? I think this is rough, but I know nothing about the history of interactions here. Perhaps, most people visit for the physics??? perhaps you guys are all physicists! I see several names of people I don't think I've met. I'd also be interested to know if there's fleshed out courses and who was thinking about doing what.--Jolie 20:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Re: history of the layout. There have been a number of attempts to reorganize the topic and school spaces related to astronomy.  For example, astronomy and physics have at times been seperate, then they were combined, then astrophysics was created, and then there was a motion to merge that into astronomy and physics, and then...  Take a look at the posts above for a sample of the changes that have been proposed.  See also School talk:Physics and Astronomy and Topic talk:Astrophysics.  A number of people have dropped in, made some changes, and then later others have changed things in a somewhat different direction, etc.  There have rarely been times when two or more people have actually worked on organizing things at the same time.  For the most part I have not spent much time on editing these pages, and instead have used category names to organize content.  My general philosophy is to create content first, and then organize it second.  If you are interested in trying to clean up these pages, I'd be willing to help, though.  One thing that is not obvious is that the idea of Topic pages was modeled on w:Wikipedia:WikiProjects.  The idea was that when you have a number of people collaborating on creating content in a particular subject, then you create a project page for organization and discussion of how to proceed on developing pages.  There is also the idea of pages like Portal:Physical Sciences which were intended as a user friendly directory to content.  Note, that not everyone at wikiversity shares my view of how these namespaces are used, and so there are different ideas about how they should develop.  Some feel that having these lists of redlinks to subject pages that do not yet exist will encourage the creation of those pages.  I'm open to just about any scheme for organizing content and making is easier to collaborate on developing learning pages.  I'll make a start on this by creating some sort of inventory of what we currently have.  I have also created a new Category:Amateur astronomy and moved some pages to it.  --mikeu talk 14:38, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * We are both thinking in the same direction. I want 'amateur astronomy' to organize the hobby and study of celestial objects and to provide an obvious fork between 'basic astronomy' and 'astrophysics'.I've also sent lots of courses into the neitherworld as I completely agree with you that a mass of red links do not inspire participation.  my old work on 'backyard astronomy' is being undone as I attempt to divide


 * * visual eye work (mostly recreational)
 * * telescope visual work (mixed)
 * * and imaging work (mostly oriented towards scientific contribution)


 * thus my current 'backyard astronomy' is mostly stargazing. I'll leave the large misc material alone but I have misgivings about it; it still looks cluttered. but no doubt, people will fill it in if I remove it.
 * hopefully people only put courses in that are developed and that will deter the sea of red.
 * I want to twist my current backyard astronomy page into a course/learning project.--Jolie 21:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that both of you make valid comments and I agree with the general flavour of what is being said. I disagree with an unnecessary sea of red but I am in favour of creating place holders for core topics. Ie a red link for Cosmology would be acceptable in my book but a red link for hidden secrets of extra-dimensional super-strings with added branes theory (intentionally facetious) would be a no-no. The latter is an example of wishful thinking, pulling us in too many directions, while such a topic might be highly fascinating and perhaps even necessary to understand the universe it can hardly be considered a core topic of an undergraduate course. I'd suggest focusing on core topics for an undergraduate course. I have more knowledge of the physics side of astronomy than the actual practical side. I'm a little bit reluctant to separate astronomy and astrophysics but I understand your reasoning and have come to accept that having the two as separate pages is perhaps the best way to proceed. Augustus 20:34, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Improvement drive
These pages are in need of expansion and improvement:

 category = Astronomy category = Stub pages order = ascending ordermethod = lastedit count = 20 

Plan of further organization
ok here's the plan for further organization.

I'm trimming Topic: astronomy and hoping someday it becomes a school. Its status is less important to me than other issues although I would like it be be neat, and organized.

I will not alter basic_astronomy and astrophysics pages for a while; I'm not ready to take them on (time) and there appear to be plenty of people qualified to organize, teach and contribute to both. Please don't Clutter up Topic: Astronomy' with astrophysics, and miscellaneous information. Fork, Then feel free to unleash! a zillion uncompleted courses can be found with the link and you're free to reinsert them AFTER the fork.

On Amateur Astronomy; I want to describe the appeal and bring down by what equiptment you use. Then I intend to describe cover some basic information about each choice. In These pages, I want to have Some content but still forks for more information. I want to use wikipedia heavily to describe things.

Lastly at the lowest levels I will define course that will basically be some content, some suggested activities and a link back to me for questions and collobaration.

I will paste a link of each developed 'course' back up on this page. Feel free to do the same IF ITS DEVELOPED. --Jolie 16:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Subpage hierarchy
So, we have, just for the *overall topic*, and in mainspace:
 * Astronomy
 * Astronomy college course‎
 * Amateur astronomy
 * Astronomy outline
 * Category:Astronomy Project
 * Introduction to astronomy (this was written on wikibooks in the Wikiversity namespace there and was transwikied here when WV separated from WB).
 * many subfields loose in a large category (more than one page, which makes use much more difficult).

I'd like to develop a systematic approach to organizing these resources. As one principle, when there is a resource Astronomy and a resource Radiation Astronomy, it's an obvious categorization to move the latter to Astronomy/Radiation (The lede would call it explicitly Radiation astronomy. Then Principles of radiation astronomy would become [[Astronomy/Radiation/Principles).

(I'm not completely against Astronomy/Radiation astronomy. But shorter page names are a value, as long as they don't cause confusion. )

A text book might well be called Principles of Radiation Astronomy. Wikiversity is not for textbooks. Wikibooks is. (There is General Astronomy which seems rather well-developed.)

Wikipedia has this vast flat mainspace. In theory, we do not duplicate Wikipedia, we are not about "articles," though articles are written here. Rather, we are used for learning, and for creating "educational resources," which supplement and complement what is on Wikipedia. In some cases we can balance what is on Wikipedia.

I notice that General Astronomy uses a vast subspace. An idea occurred to me to import that entire structure here, as stubs that refer to wikibooks and wikipedia, then if pages fit, here, move them into place, if they are redundant, merge, and if something important is missing from the wikibook, add it. Our pages would then have research projects, studies, student notes, quizzes, discussion, and supplements that for one reason or another are not appropriate for wikibooks. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:07, 20 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Some problems encountered so far with subpage hierarchies have been mentioned on the discuss page for Solar System, technical. I think we need more people from the Astronomy department to talk about what we'd like to do especially regarding courses, resources, and some pages that are already subpages like Astronomy/Laboratories and Astronomy/Problems. Do we want individual lectures or articles subpaged say to astronomy or to the department or to specific courses when they may serve multiple courses. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:09, 20 September 2014 (UTC)


 * There is a lecture called Radiation astronomy which is the keynote lecture for the course Principles of radiation astronomy. There is also a lecture entitled Radiation. Now, radiation, which is more physics oriented could go under physics as Physics/Radiation. But, I doubt the Physics department of the School:Physics and Astronomy would want to put all of their courses under physics, since they are already listed under departments. Another problem with say Physics/Radiation is that the physics lecture already presents some aspects of radiation. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 15:32, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

One of the things I like about the subpage hierarchy organization is the benefit of multiple resources with some overlap of material. I have restored material to each of the course components of Solar System, technical so that they stand as part of the course. If another name is agreed upon, all but three resources could be moved as a unit to a new course title.

In addition, those resources associated with astronomical objects within our solar system exist as independent resources from which information and images may be used in additional subpages for additional courses.

One problem with using subpages in the course principles of radiation astronomy is that the course uses some 186 resources. The lectures averaged more hits (40-2100) per semester than the quizzes (20-80), lessons (50-140), problem sets (40-90) or laboratories (30-260). Using midpoints, the estimated hit total for the first fall semester in 2014 is 76,000. The benefit of subpages would have been a more accurate hit total. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 20:47, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Individual lectures received about 1/20 th of the hits as same-named entries on Wikipedia. One exception was the lecture Radiation astronomy, not such an entry on Wikipedia, which outhit Gamma-ray astronomy or Ultraviolet astronomy on Wikipedia. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 20:54, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Solar System Gas Giants
Many of the resources for the course principles of radiation astronomy have been organized into subpages of
 * 1) Astronomy,
 * 2) Classical planets,
 * 3) Gaseous objects,
 * 4) Liquid objects,
 * 5) Minerals,
 * 6) Planets,
 * 7) Plasma objects,
 * 8) Radiation astronomy,
 * 9) Rocks,
 * 10) Stars, and
 * 11) Volcanoes.

The gas giants: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are well known. Our pages as usual are 1/10th to 1/20th as popular as the Wikipedia pages by the same names. These astronomical objects could be subpages of Astronomy, Classical planets, Gaseous objects, Planets, and/or Stars depending upon definitions. A subpage on Uranus already exists as Solar System, technical/Uranus. What would you like to do? If there are no objections I'll probably keep the core pages and make separate subpages for each of the other pages. What do you think? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:47, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia links
I'd like to create direct links to astronomy portals on other projects such as w:Portal:Astronomy, d:Portal:Astronomy (Q3248453) and v:Portal:Astronomy! Suggestions?
 * I've inserted a test at the bottom of ours! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 15:02, 9 May 2018 (UTC)