Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Antlia/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 23:11, 18 June 2016 [1].

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Antlia

Nominator(s): Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:39, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

This article is about a constellation with a few interesting tidbits. Buffed it up so I think it is the equal to the other 25 or so Featured constellation articles. Got a thorough going-over at GAN. All input appreciated. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:39, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

NB: A wikicup nomination. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:07, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Support: My concerns were addresses, so I'm giving my support for promotion to FA. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 22:50, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Comment: The article is a bit short, but it's difficult to see how it could be further expanded. Overall it looks to be in good shape. Here are a few points that caught my eye during a read through:

• "The system is classed as an A-type W Ursae Majoris variable": what is meant by A-type here? The term seems to be conflated with the variable type description. Only one of the pair is an A-class star.

the stars share a common envelope so are closer to each other in temperature than if they were separate. Actually simpler if I remove the subclassification so removed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:36, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

• "...unusual hot variable ageing star...", "...and is a unique variable...": how is it unusual or unique? This is not quite clear.

It does not belong to any class of known variable star Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:38, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

• "...yellow-white F-type star but it has almost no hydrogen": the article says it is deficient in hydrogen; meaning only that it is lower than normal.

As an R Coronae Borealis variable, it has a very low ratio of hydrogen. Might not be spelt out there but is elsewhere. Article itself talks of "striking" absence/weakness of H lines etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:53, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Okay, yes. The 'R Coronae Borealis variable' article makes it clear that this star may have formed with negligible amounts of hydrogen. Praemonitus (talk) 22:50, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• "Peter Birren" and "Ian Ridpath": these names should be formatted in a manner consistent with the other referenced authors.

oops/fixed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:56, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 22:33, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

copyedits look fine Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:56, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

• "Its main stars have no particular pattern": I don't know what that means.

It means a recognisable pattern like an Asterism (astronomy)....but I have removed the sentence as does not add much. I think its faintness more of a reason it didn't get recognised and second bit not true anyway Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:50, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

• " All but one were named in honour of instruments that symbolised the Age of Enlightenment. ... [he] chose names mostly from scientific instruments": Seems repetitive.
• Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. Scanning quickly, it looks like you've addressed some but not all of Praemonitus's concerns. - Dank (push to talk) 16:55, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Image review

• Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods

removed x 3 Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:31, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

• File:NGC_2997_ESO.jpg: source link is dead

Link is updated now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:53, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Sarastro: A few nit-picks here, most of which concern making this a little more accessible for the general reader, which shouldn't be a problem in such a short article. Sarastro1 (talk) 18:44, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• "a historical air pump": How is a historical air pump different from any other air pump? Can we be more precise what we mean by historical? Later on, we link to "air pump" but not here.

good point - adjective removed and term linked Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• "the constellation was introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille": Introduced seems an odd word to use here, unless it is a technical term.

not a technical term. Lacaille established it by setting out a number of stars and designating it an area of the sky. Could say "drawn up" but used "established". Open to other verbs. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• "Abbreviated from Antlia Pneumatica, the constellation was introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century": In fact, there's something a little uncomfortable with the use of "abbreviated" here. The constellation wasn't abbreviated, it's name was. So, could we combine these ideas and say that Lacaille named it and (as it says in the made body) Herschel invented the abbreviation? Or something less clumsy than my attempt there??

done Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• "is counted among the 88 modern constellations": I know we link this, but as readers, we're left wondering what a modern constellation is, and how it differs from other constellations. Do we even need this in the lead?

we've done it for others. There are a fair few obsolete constellations that are no longer in use...but I guess present tense establishes that fact. On that basis I have removed it. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• "The stars are so close they have a common envelope and will one day merge to form a single star.": I wonder, for the lead, do we need the part about the common envelope? It would make perfect sense if it read "The stars are so close they will eventually merge to form a single star", unless we can avoid repetition of "star".

See I thought the common envelope thing was really interesting. Have tweaked it a bit though Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:52, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• "lie within Antlia's borders": Not obvious to the general reader that a constellation may have a border

changed to "lie within Antlia" - could be "Antlia has" I guess too.. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:02, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• "De Lacaille had observed and catalogued almost 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope, devising fourteen new constellations in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe": A few points here. I'm assuming this was his intention when he travelled to the Cape of Good Hope; but, did he do so of his own volition, did he do so on his own? Were other people doing similar things, or is this the random act of a madman? Did he base his constellations on anything, or was it just a case of "that looks a bit like an air pump"?

The new constellations honoured scientific inventions of the Age of Enlightenment. They were criticised for not looking like what they were supposed to represent but then again almost no constellations look like what they are supposed to represent... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:37, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• "All but one were named in honour of instruments that symbolised the Age of Enlightenment": Did he name them, or did it come back to a committee? If the former, why not "He named all but one..."?

It woz 'im an' 'im alone yer honour, duly changed. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:37, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• "John Herschel proposed shrinking the name to one word, which was universally adopted": When?

1844. Found and added Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:28, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• "Though Antlia was technically visible to Classical Greek astronomers, its stars were too faint to have been included in any ancient constellations.": What do we mean by "technically visible"? It's a bit jarring to read that it was visible but they couldn't see it! What about something like the portion of the sky in which it is located was visible, the stars of the constellation were too faint to be visible for inclusion in anything?

Only brighter stars ended up forming the classical constellations - there were loads of fainter stars lying around that were not used. actually the more I look at it the more I realize the first segment is actually redundant....and have removed it Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:46, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

• "Lacaille depicted Antlia as a single-cylinder vacuum pump used in Papin's initial experiments, while Johann Bode chose the more advanced double-cylinder version.": This sentence is oddly placed here. Why not in the naming part?

good point. moved Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• "while Johann Bode chose the more advanced double-cylinder version": In such a short article, can we not spare the reader a job and say who Bode was?

added Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• "The International Astronomical Union later adopted it as one of the 88 modern constellations": When? Also, maybe a word about who the IAU are/were? And, again we might give a link, but I think we should explain here what the 88 modern constellations are.

I thought the name was pretty self-explanatory really. Will see what I can add about the setting of the 88 constellations in stone, as it were. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:44, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

• "There is no mythology attached to Antlia as Lacaille discontinued the tradition of giving names from mythology to constellations and instead chose names mostly from scientific instruments": Again, this sentence is a little oddly placed; this would be better in the naming paragraph. The way this sentence is written, it also looks like his contemporaries were still using mythology. True?

not really - on thinking about it the sentence is silly and so removed (but readded the geography). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• "According to some, the most prominent stars that now comprise Antlia were once included within the ancient constellation Argo Navis, the Ship of the Argonauts, which due to its immense size was split into several smaller constellations by Lacaille in 1763.": According to who? And, by "within" I assume we mean within the borders of the constellation, but not actually part of the "picture" they formed. Otherwise we are contradicting the previous part which says that the stars were invisible in Classical times. Again, may be worth making the distinction for the general reader. And this is a bit more context for what Lacaille was up to: so did he take what was there and re-organise it? Or was he looking for new stars?

ok, have re-read the sources, In essence the stars of Antlia lay within the area covered by Argo Navis but were not bright enough to be part of the ancient pattern as such Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:00, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

• "The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is Ant.": IAU linked here but not earlier. And no date is given earlier. I wonder should this be combined with the earlier information about the IAU?

torn here - we've always set out a characteristics section like this.. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

That's fine if that is the standard format, not a big issue. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:48, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

• "as set by Eugène Delporte in 1930": Again, a word or two of context would be good here.

added who he was. I have also added a footnote as it's a little bit off-topic but helpful. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• "Beta and Gamma Antliae (now HR 4339 and HD 90156) ended up in the neighbouring constellation Hydra once the constellation boundaries were delineated in 1930": This is the first we have seen of any such delineation. Surely worth mentioning earlier?

It has been - they were the borders set by Delporte... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:25, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

• In the part about the stars, I appreciate that we can't cater as much for the general reader (and I confess that my eyes glazed over a bit, so I might have missed something). However, I notice that "spectral type" is used a lot; I know nothing about this but notice that our article has sections on different letters, such as type K. Could we link each mention of spectral type to its letter in our article?

I have linked ones on first mention Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:31, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

• "It is a loose face-on spiral galaxy of type Sc": What does loose mean in this sense? Sarastro1 (talk) 18:44, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

it's not too technical (just used in the lay adjectival sense), just means the stars are more loosely arranged than in some more compact galaxies.. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:49, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Support: I'm happy to support now. My only two remaining points are that I think it is worth saying more about the 88 constellations, as the obvious question is why were there modern constellations; the other one is that we now have the nicely informative "while German astronomer Johann Bode chose the more advanced double-cylinder version" but Bode appears from nowhere and it is not immediately obvious who he is, what he is doing and why he is doing it! However, these don't affect my support in any way. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:48, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

thanks - I find it tricky sometimes in deciding how much context to include - the footnotes are helpful. Will do some reading and do other bit later when have some uninterrupted time....cheers Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:44, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Support: I performed the good article review for this article a short time ago, where all of my concerns were addressed. I see that the article has been further improved since then. (As part of that review, I checked all sources to the best of my ability. In the end, I only had a couple of reservations about the technical prose, and I assume someone with a stronger astronomy background would help with that.) Saskoiler (talk) 23:18, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

thanks again Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:03, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

I've checked the GA source review/spotcheck and I think it suffices, thanks. Cas, I'm going to promote but could I suggest that the last two images might work better on the right, and also using "upright=1.n" (equivalent to 300px) for a proportional rather than fixed size? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

thanks for that @Ian Rose: - moved images to right - not sure where the "upright=1.n" goes though... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:11, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 23:11, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.