Wikipedia:Peer review/Andromeda (constellation)/archive1

Andromeda (constellation)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
Hello, I've started this peer review in advance of FAC because I want to see if the article has any significant issues beforehand. Thanks, Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:38, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Comments by Malleus Fatuorum

Lead

• "Andromeda is most prominent during autumn evenings ...". Is that autumn in the southern hemisphere or the northern hemisphere?
  • Northern - specified now. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 19:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
• "... lie in Andromeda's borders". Nothing can lie in the borders of anything. At the very least it needs to be "within", but I'm not certain what "borders" means in this context anyway.
  • Constellations were given borders in the sky by the IAU about a century ago. I've changed it to "lie within" as I'm not sure how to make the border thing more clear. Any ideas?

    That seems fine now given your explanation. Malleus Fatuorum 19:53, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• "... the stars that make up Andromeda were a part of four different constellations ...". That reads a bit awkwardly to me. How about "were members of four different constellations"?
  • I like it! Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 19:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
• The lead image has the caption "List of stars in Andromeda", but it's clearly a map, not a list. Also, is it correct to describe it as containing only stars anyway, as it very clearly shows the M31 galaxy?
  • Mmm, I think that's meant to be a simple link to the list. There's something similar in all the constellation articles, and I think it's automatic. Not really sure what to do with that.

    Looks like someone's tried to be too clever with that template, as what looks like a caption is, as you say, a link to a list article. So short of changing the template, which would undoubtedly require some centralised discussion that would drag on interminably, and end up with no consensus to do anything, you're stuck with that it seems. Malleus Fatuorum 20:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    I don't know how to edit templates, and I'd rather not start that mess, so I suppose I am. Not my first choice, but... Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 20:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    The template isn't protected, so it would be easy to change. One possibility would be to make a change that was specific to this article only, which I see has already been done for a couple of other articles. Malleus Fatuorum 20:28, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    Maybe add a parameter for an image caption or something? I'd like to leave the list of stars somewhere in the infobox, as it's useful. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 20:30, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    I'll have a think. Malleus Fatuorum 20:38, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Stars

• "It is located at a distance of 97 light-years from Earth." A distance doesn't give a location, so why not simply say "It is 97 light-years from Earth"? There are several other similar occurrences in this section.
  • I rewrote all the ones I could find.

Deep-sky objects

• "... a smaller galaxy located just east of Almach". There are an awful lot of these redundant "located" throughout the article.
  • Got the ones I could find in this section too.

• "Though visible to the naked eye, it was first recorded in 964 C.E. ...". Not quite sure what you're getting at here. Is the point that it wasn't recorded until 964? If so, then it could better be rephrased as "Despite being visible to the naked eye ...".
  • Yeah. I rephrased it per your suggestion.

• However, it would be centuries before the first observations of M31 were made with a telescope ...". Why the subjunctive "would be" rather than just "was"?
  • Not sure, I suppose I just really like the subjunctive after all those years of French. Considering that this is en.wiki, I rewrote it.

• "... it was first recorded in 964 C.E. by the Arab astronomer al-Sufi, who was the first to map the "little cloud" near Andromeda's figure." Aren't we being told the same thing twice there?
  • I rewrote it as "...the "little cloud" near Andromeda's figure was first recorded in 964 C.E. by the Arab astronomer al-Sufi in his Book of the Fixed Stars". Is that better?

    Much better. Malleus Fatuorum 20:18, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• "It is viewable in binoculars ...". Surely that should be "with binoculars"?
  • It's phrased as "in binoculars" and "in telescopes" in many astronomy texts. For example, Jay Pasachoff writes of M31, "It appears in telescopes as a yellowish oval glow...". I don't know if that takes precedence over "house style" though.

    If that's standard language in the field then no problem. Malleus Fatuorum 20:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• "M32, visible with a far smaller size of 8.7 by 6.4 arcminutes ...". "It contains approximately 20 stars in a diameter of 15 arc minutes ...". Which is it to be? "Arcminutes" or "arc minutes"?
  • Arcminutes, took care of that.

• "... the first observations of M31 were made with a telescope by Simon Marius, a German who observed M31 in 1612." Is it in some way significant that he was German? We don't, for instance, say in the previous section that Johann Bayer was also German.
  • Not in this case.

In non-Western astronomy

• "Ancient Sanskrit texts depict 'Antarmada' (Andromeda) chained to a rock ...". Is is it right to so definitively associate Antarmada with Andromeda? And why is "Antarmada in scare quotes?
  • Because Antarmada is scary...yeah. I removed the quotes. I don't have access to Olcott right now, but a Google Books search links it about as much as the article does. I've looked through Julius Staal's "The New Patterns in the Sky" and didn't find anything related to the Hindu story, but I did find some information about a Mesopotamian analogue. I also found some detail on the Marshall Islanders' Porpoise, which incorporated some stars from Andromeda. I added both of those to the Non-Western astronomy section. None of the other sources cluttering up my desk have anything on the Hindu myth.

• "Scholars have argued that the Hindu and Greek astrological myths were closely linked". Why the past tense? Are they no longer considered to be closely linked?
  • The source for that sentence was more than a century old, but since Olcott corroborates the link, I've changed the wording.

Citations

• The ISBN for Cambridge Guide to Stars and Planets (1997) is incorrect.
  • Fixed.

• I've never been a fan of using a general encyclopedia such as Britannica as a source. Why not use the same source that Britannica does?
  • How do you find that?

    Look at the Britannia article. Many UK public libraries offer free access to the online version, but if you can't access it let me know and I'll take a look. Malleus Fatuorum 20:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    The 1911 online edition doesn't have the source, and I'm in the US, unfortunately. Would you mind taking a look? Thanks. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 20:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    I'm about to pop out out now, but I'll check later and get back to you. Malleus Fatuorum 20:37, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    OK, I'm looking at the Britannica article now, and it lists 16 sources:

    • Barton, S.G., and Barton, W.H. Jr. Guide to the Constellations, 2nd ed. (Whittlesey House, 1935).
    • Berger, Melvin. Star Gazing, Comet Tracking, and Sky Mapping (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1985).
    • Burnham, Robert, Jr. Burnham's Celestial Handbook, rev. ed., 3 vols. (Dover, 1978).
    • Chartrand, M.R. National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky (Knopf, 1991).
    • Dibon-Smith, Richard. Starlist Two Thousand: A Quick Reference Star Catalog for Astronomers (Wiley, 1992).
    • Henbest, Nigel, and Couper, Heather. The Guide to the Galaxy (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994).
    • Hirshfeld, Alan, and others. Sky Catalogue 2000.0., 2 vols. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991).
    • Levitt, J.I.M., and Marshall, R.K. Star Maps for Beginners (Simon & Schuster, 1992).
    • Liller, William. The Cambridge Guide to Astronomical Discovery (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992).
    • Menzel, D.H., and Pasachoff, J.M. The Peterson Field Guide Series: A Field Guide to Stars and Planets, 2nd ed. (Houghton, 1995).
    • Moore, Patrick, ed. International Encyclopedia of Astronomy (Orion Books, 1987).
    • Ridpath, Ian. Star Tales (Universe, 1988).
    • Ridpath, Ian, and Tirion, Wil. Collins Pocket Guide: Stars and Planets, 2nd ed. (HarperCollins, 1993).
    • Rudaux, Lucien, and de Vaucouleurs, G. Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy (Prometheus Press, 1959).
    • Sesti, G.M. The Glorious Constellations: History and Mythology (Harry N. Abrams, 1987).
    • Stott, Carole. The Greenwich Guide to Stargazing (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989).

    Malleus Fatuorum 00:45, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

    Thank you thank you thank you! I've looked through the ones that I have and will keep these listed for future use. I also took out the Britannica references as the information was duplicated in other sources. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• What's your logic for having some books in the Citations section and others in the References section?
  • The ones with a bunch of different pages ended up in References, I believe. Is that correct?

    There's no rule against it of course, but it looks very odd to me. My very strong preference is to have a separate Bibliography section for all of the books used, regardless of how many times they're cited. It's much easier to see all of the hard-copy sources used that way. Malleus Fatuorum 23:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    • All the books are now in the References section. Thanks for clarifying. :) Is it better now? Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
• The formatting of book references in this section doesn't match that of those in the References section; I'd suggest standardising either on templates or manual referencing throughout the article.
  • Standardized with templates now.

• There are lots of missing page numbers/page ranges.
  • I think I got them all.

• I think you might have trouble persuading FAC reviewers about the reliability of some of the sources used, such as the Internet Encyclopedia of Science, Space.com, and messier.seds.org. in general I feel that it ought to be possible to find higher quality sources; I mentioned the Encyclopedia Britannica earlier as another one I'd avoid.
  • I removed the links to Encyclopedia of Science and messier.seds.org. However, the article on Space.com is written by Peter Jenniskens, a senior researcher at the SETI Institute, so I feel that's a reliable source. Thoughts?

    I'm not sure; it might be OK on the basis of Jenniskens reputation. Malleus Fatuorum 23:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

    OK, I'm inclined to wait and see what reviewers say at FAC, if all else fails I can probably snag one of his books on Interlibrary Loan; I'm in a pretty good system. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

References

• If you're going to provide locations for publishers then you need to provide it for all of them. There isn't one for Allen R. H. (1899) for instance, or for Olcott, William Tyler (2004). I find it much easier not to provide locations at all, as they're not required anyway.
  • I went through and removed them.

Malleus Fatuorum 18:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)