Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of astronomical observatories

List of astronomical observatories edit

I found this article a few months ago and over the past few months I have been worked on bringing it up to featured list standards. Several other users have also made valuable contributions to the list and offered insights on how to make the list better, most notably Rnt20 and AppleRaven. I now believe that the list meets all of the featured list criteria as follows:

1. Wikipedia’s best work. The list is unique. In all of my research over the past few months, nowhere on the internet or in print have I found a list of observatories nearly as comprehensive as this one.
2. Comprehensive and Accurate. Obviously it would be impossible to include every single observatory on the planet. I have attempted to include all notable observatories in the list. If there are any that I have forgotten please let me know or add them to the list. There are also very few red links, only about 20 out of more than 300 observatories in the list.
3. Uncontroversial. There is really nothing controversial about the subject covered here. I have included a few references for the information in the lead. I feel this is sufficient but I can try to add more if other users disagree.
4. Lead. The lead is fairly brief but covers some basic information relevant to the list and explains the advantages and disadvantages of different types of observatories.
5. Images. I have included images at the top of the subsection where possible. I checked the copyright status of all of these images about 2 weeks ago and replaced or removed the images with questionable copyright tags.

I should also note that this is the first time I have ever nominated anything for featured status so if I have done anything incorrectly, please let me know. --Nebular110 01:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support Very large and surprisingly allmost complete list. I would enjoy a larger pic in the intro tho. Joe I 11:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I have expanded the VLT and Hubble pictures in the lead to 400 and 200 pixels respectively. --Nebular110 15:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I don't think the lead is too short but would like to see Cheomseongdae removed (perhaps we need a page on ancient observatories). Also I would like to see satellite observatories indicated in some way - italics, different color box? Perhaps another column showing the type of observatory - radio, solar, etc. Rmhermen 15:13, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Response: Indicating satellite observatories is a good idea. I'm thinking that italics might be a little too subtle so making the box a different color is probably the way to go. Do you think the same light blue used in the headers would make things confusing or would it be better to go with a light gray color or something like that? As far as another column indicating the type of observatory, I've considered this. However, the vast majority of observatories on the list are optical while others can observe in many areas of the electromagnetic spectrum so this could become quite cumbersome very quickly. I guess I would say that I am opposed to this unless anyone is very adamant that it be included, then I would be willing to add it. --Nebular110 15:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Re:Respond: Another color for satellites would be good. I would suggest grey or brown, but not the same as the headers. Rmhermen 23:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~ The list is missing a couple observatories in Mexico. There is one in Mexico City (which used to be the National Observatory, IIRC) and another one in the Baja California peninsula which belongs to the National University. The list needs an "incomplete list" disclaimer as well as an explanation of why the establishment date is not provided for every item in the list. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 19:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I have added the National Astronomical Observatory of Mexico and Tacubaya Observatory as well as an incomplete list tag at the bottom of the list. I believe those were the two observatories you were talking about. Tacubaya used to be the national observatory back in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Tacubaya does not yet have its own article so that is a red link right now while I linked the National Observatory to the paragraph in the UNAM article regarding the observatory. As for the establishment dates, I have unfortunately not been able to find reliable dates for many of the observatories, especially many of the smaller ones owned by astronomical societies in the U.S. While I am working on inserting dates for as many as possible, I would much rather have no date at all than a potentially incorrect one. At some time over the past few months, I have confirmed all of the dates currently in the article using primary sources. --Nebular110 21:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, those are the two. Thank you for addressing my points, my only question now is whether the list itself was compiled from the Astronomy Today article. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 18:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the Astronomy Today article". If you are talking about the Astronomy Today listed under the references, then the answer is no. Astronomy Today is the basic college astronomy textbook used these days, I just used it as a reference for some of the basic info in the lead. The list itself was not compiled from any one source. Like I said in the nomination, during all of the research that I did in order to compose the list, I did not find any lists observatories anywhere near as comprehensive as this one. I haven't kept track but if I had to guess, I would say I used about 30-40 different webpages, magazines, and books in order to try and make this as complete as possible. --Nebular110 06:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - Ah! My bad, I incorrectly assumed "Astronomy Today" was some sort of journal or magazine from the title (ahem, we chemists tend to give our textbooks more prosaic titles like "Inorganic Chemistry"). Anyway, I won't pester you more with my nonsense, further concerns are raised by ALoan below. -- Run e Welsh | ταλκ 13:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - This could be an excellent list, but I am sorry to say that the scope and focus of this list seem a little poorly determined to me. This seems to be a list of places that have been observatories at some point in time, not necessarily still now. You mention Royal Observatory, Greenwich at Greenwich, but don't mention the sites where it was also based, in Herstmonceux from 1957 and Cambridge from 1990, before its demise in 1998. It would be good to add dates when they closed, where applicable. I see you have historical observatories, such as Beijing Ancient Observatory and Uraniborg, but what about other Arab, Indian, Chinese, East Asian, Mesoamerican observatories - Jantar Mantar, Yantra Mandir, Cheomseongdae and many others like Maragha without specific articles? I see that Observatory says that NASA's list of five oldest observatories goes: Abu Simbel, Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, Kokino, Goseck. Also, this list has a {{listdev}} template, so how can we say that this is "comprehensive"? What criterion was used for inclusion? Is there a source that verifies that this list includes all "notable" observatories? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:03, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for your comments, you bring up some good points. I like the idea of including a closing date for the defunct observatories. I don't have time to work on this much today but I'll see what I can do tomorrow. Regarding the inclusion of historical and ancient observatories, I have only included those where the astronomical purpose of the structure is more or less undisputed. That is why Beijing and Uraniborg are included while Cheomseongdae and Stonehenge are not (Cheomseongdae was actually in the list until a few days ago when I removed based upon this fact and a suggestion from another reviewer). Based on my research on these two sites, there still seems to be some dispute in the historical and archeological community as to whether these were used for observations and measurements of the night sky or for some other function therefore I did not feel as though they merited inclusion in the list.
  As for NASA's list, I find it somewhat confusing. The articles on Abu Simbel and Angkor Wat (which is a featured article) say nothing about either being used as an observatory. I will work on adding the other two, Kokino and Goseck, to the list. I will also add Jantar Mantar and Yantra Mandir shortly, I was aware of these and thought I had added them previously but apparently I had not.
  Lastly, regarding the comprehensiveness of the list. In my opinion, there is a difference between "comprehensive" and "complete". This list is obviously not complete. It would be impossible and impractical to include every single observatory in the world in this list. For example, one of my neighbors has his own observatory in his backyard. If we were composing a "complete" list of observatories then we would need to include his observatory. However, other than the fact that he has two very nice telescopes, there is nothing notable about his observatory and thus a Wikipedia article about it would fail WP:N. The {{listdev}} template is meant to imply that the list should not be taken as a complete list of observatories but rather a list of those that have some kind of historical or scientific significance and are thus worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. I do not know of any source that can confirm the notability of certain observatories. "Notable" is a classification that is based upon personal opinion. Something that is "notable" to me might be insignificant to you and vice versa. However, as I mentioned in the nomination, I can say with confidence that this list is far more comprehensive that any other list of observatories that I have found anywhere on the internet or in print hence this nomination. --Nebular110 19:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - The idea of adding closing dates for observatories is a good one, though that date is not always an easy one to define. Is it the date it was last used, last used professionally, last publication, torn down, renovated, etc. One example is Smith Observatory of Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin. The observatory was "abandoned" more or less in the 1950's and turned into a coffee house in 1967, then finally torn down in 1968. What would be the closure date? May I suggest an "active" column instead? in which we could place a check or x or something? AppleRaven 02:51, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - An easier solution might be to utilize the placing of the word "defunct" or "closed" after the name of the observatories that are no longer in operation. This strategy has already been used in a few situations near the top of the list but is not standard all the way through. The vast majority of these observatories are still in operation, it seems to me that this could convey the same information while avoiding the task of creating an entirely new column which could cause some formatting issues. In my opinion, the most logical closure date would be the year that the institution ceased functioning as an astronomical observatory, in the case of Smith Observatory, the 1950's. Once an observatory becomes a coffee house or begins to be utilized for some other purpose, it is no longer relevent to the context of this list. Any thoughts on this? --Nebular110 04:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]