Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Constellations

For the current talk page of the Constellations Task Force, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy/Constellations Task Force.
For the talk page of the WikiProject that this WikiProject was merged into, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

General discussion

I've created an article for Monoceros according to the template here. Any suggestions on how to improve the template? I must have missed quite a lot of things. --Lorenzarius 14:04 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)


Useful links --Lorenzarius

Please add to the 'not so completed' section the things that are yet to be done. (For example in parentheses.) Would help me a lot, because at the moment I can't always understand why a constellation is in this section. -- -Torsten Bronger 10:39 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

Should be clearer now. -- looxix 19:53 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

It seems that many of the constellation pages should be disambiguated, see Aquila, Draco. These are marked with (d) in the project page.

I just saw that Google does really like our constellations pages! I added Andromeda to Wikipedia:Top 10 Google hits, but there are a lot more to add. If everyone checks one or two, soon we have all ;-) Fantasy 11:37 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

A procedural motion: Do you think it would be helpful if I create sections for this talk page? It would make editing a little bit easier (with this new [edit] button). I think new people could benefit from it, too. -- Torsten Bronger 15:36, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes - sections are good. --mav 18:42, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't Argo be deleted from the list? -- Torsten Bronger 18:43, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I "expanded" Argo to Puppis and Vela. -- Torsten Bronger 11:01, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

About bordering constellations: We should start at the north, but that's ambiguous. For example, what's the first one for Carina? Centaurus, Vela, or Puppis? Or is this left to the editor? -- Torsten Bronger 11:01, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

CalRis suggests using the northernmost neighbouring constellation, e. g.
First, my formulation was misleading. I meant: Is Centaurus, Vela, or Puppis the first neighbour of Carina, because two of them are at the same northern borderline of Carina. Okay, you say: Puppis.
It's right that the official constellation border is a little bit slanted, so Puppis is a fraction of a degree more northern than Vela. Is this the rule? -- Torsten Bronger 11:41, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
CalRis: I suggest the following: relevant is the northernmost point of the constellation. If there are still two or more possible northernmost neighbouring constellations, then choose the one with the lower RA. That should remove all possible ambiguities. In the case of Carina: indeed, it is slanted (I checked it using XEphem and a set of printed charts; so, no ambiguity there). Bye.

Are you guys plan to add constellations from different cultures? It is even more interesting! -- wshun 23:17, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Entry "Number of stars with apparent magnitude < 3"

CalRis: What does this mean? Is this the number of stars with an apparent magnitude of 2.99 and brighter? Or is it supposed to include all stars with an apparent magnitude of third magnitude, i. e. 3.99 and brighter?

Why is the term rectascension being used? Shouldn't be Right Ascension in English? Paul 18:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Tables

The table template for cut-and-paste

Caid Raspa 11:30 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)
<!-- Here is a table of data; skip past it to edit the text. -->
<table border="1" align="right" width="330">
<tr><td align=center colspan=2 bgcolor=silver><font size="+1">'''Constellation Name'''</font></td></tr>
<tr><td align=center colspan=2>Small map<br>Link to larger version (link to description page)</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Abbreviation'''</td><td>XXX</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''[[Genitive]]'''</td><td>Xxxxx</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Meaning in English'''</td><td>Xxxxx</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''[[Right ascension]]'''</td><td>xxx h</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''[[Declination]]'''</td><td>xxx°</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Visible to latitude'''</td><td>Between x° and x°</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''On [[meridian]]'''</td><td>9 p.m., xxx</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Area'''<br> - Total</td><td>[[List of constellations by area|Ranked xth]]<br>xxx sq. deg.</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Number of stars with'''<br>'''[[apparent magnitude]] < 3'''</td><td>xxx</td>
<tr><td>'''Brightest star'''<br> - Apparent magnitude</td><td>xxx<br>xxx</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''[[Meteor shower]]s'''</td><td>
*xxx</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Bordering constellations'''</td>
<td>
*</td></tr>
</table>

Hi there! Here's a summary of some questions and suggestions concerning the tables. I believe that it would be good if we you could find agreement on all of these issues and then include them in the page of this project (WikiProject_Constellations). So please vote/comment on this! CalRis 08:51, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

  1. "RA" and "Dec.": what should be entered here?
    • Right now: data from http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/
    • Alternative 1 (User:CalRis25): Geometrical centre of constellation as seen on a celestial map
      • (User:Bronger) I prefer this because it's the most concise and natural. However, the geometrical centre is bad for certain constellations (e.g. Hydra). Better is some sort of 'centre of gravity'. My sky atlas (Atlas of the night sky by Dunlop/Tirion) places it at 10h/-20 for Hydra which is a very good example for it.
    • Alternative 2 (User:CalRis25): Coordinates of the principal star (= alpha star, not necessarily the brightest one) of constellation.
      • (User:Bronger) At least two constellations don't have an alpha star, sometimes alpha is insignificant, but the most serious problem is that it can stand aloof.
    • Alternative 3 (User:CalRis25): Indicate its extension e. g. "RA: 20h13 to 21h06", "Dec: +2.2° to +20.8°" (see Delphinus in constellation section of "E-Sky" [[1]])
      • (User:Bronger) If at all, the declination range is interesting, but this is covered by "Visible to latitude" already. Additionally, the RA range loses its significance near the poles.

How about adding a style="padding-top: 1.5ex; padding-bottom: 1ex" to the <td> element that contains the constellation name in the table? It creates some pleasant whitespace. The effect is much greater in Mozilla than in IE, but the values 1.5ex and 1ex work well for both. However you may suggest better values. Here is an example:

Constellation Name
Small map
Link to larger version (link to description page)
AbbreviationXXX
...

produced by 

<table border="1" align="right" width="330">
<tr><td align=center colspan=2 bgcolor=silver style="padding-top: 1.5ex; 
padding-bottom: 1ex"><font size="+1">'''Constellation Name'''</font></td></tr>
<tr><td align=center colspan=2>Small map<br>Link to larger version (link to description page)</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Abbreviation'''</td><td>XXX</td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2">...</td></tr>
</table>

-- Torsten Bronger 16:18, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Good idea. I will add it to all the tables. --Lorenzarius 18:43, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

How about adding pronunciations of the constellation and its genitive in the table? See Corvus (constellation). -- Jeandré, 2003-08-19t22:51z

How about adding " style="vertical-align:top;"" to table rows (preferably via a global stylesheet)? Compare the "Visible to latitude" entry of Scorpius and Corvus (constellation). If the pronunciation idea above is accepted I'll do the adding, from The Cambridge guide to the constellations, 1995 by Michael E. Bakich. -- Jeandré, 2003-08-20t22:14z

Maps and other graphics

General, guidelines

I've created a program for drawing celestial maps of high quality. Originally it was made for h2g2 but it's free software, so it may be useful for this project. It's called PP3. I added such a map to Leo. --Torsten Bronger 00:40 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)

Excellent map! It is so clear and detailed. If you have the time, please upload the maps for the other constellations. --Lorenzarius 07:55 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)
Thank you. Do you think the colours/font size/whatever are okay? At the moment I still can change everything. I (think I) optimised it for Wikipedia, but e.g. on a dark background, I could include the real colours of the stars. See an alternative map for an example. Which constellations should have highest priority? --Torsten Bronger 01:32 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)

Tell me if other entry are finished or in preparation and need a map. And tell me if I have to modify something in the maps. --Torsten Bronger 13:29 Feb 15, 2003 (UTC)

Well done, the maps fit very well into the articles. But IMO it is better to use the official names of the constellations instead of their English names. Since the IAU names are what people usually used.
With the white background the black stars are shown very clearly. However, showing the real colours of the stars will make the maps more informative, but I wonder if doing so will make the stars less clear.

Originally posted on my Talk page by Alan Peakall

Great work on the constellations! However, as Ursa Major appears in my browser, the sky map is overwriting the left hand side of the attribute table when there is insufficient width. I think the table should overwrite sky map under this condition. Is this known? easy to fix? -- Alan Peakall 15:27 Feb 17, 2003 (UTC)
I think this happens when the viewer is using a lower screen resolution like 800x600 (I'm using 1024x768 so it doesn't happen to be). The only method I can think of is to move the map to the bottom of the page so the map and the table is not displayed side by side. Are there any other better methods? (This is not a big problem actually, but I feel that it looks better to display the map on the top of the page and just next to the table.) --Lorenzarius 10:27 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)
The problem seems to be limited to IE (Mozilla puts the image below the table unless there's room for it to the left). Morally, I don't like bowing to the Borg, but the net result is unfortunate. I shrank the image a bit, which seems to resolve the problem (probably not for under 800x600, but that's a pretty small population nowadays). (FWIW, Wikipedia in general sucks at 800x600, even tho' it's close enuf they seem to have tried.) Niteowlneils 17:28, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Please make sure that the star maps are 300 pixels in width and placed in the table. Otherwise the table, text and image will all fight with each other on the screens of people with lower resolution screen settings. See Wikipedia:Image use policy for more. --mav

You set the table width to 330px. What does this imply for the different browser types? Are smaller images streched? Wider ones are obviously scaled down, which is a very nice thing. To be honest, I feel tempted to continue as before (400px max), and if a user needs a bigger version they may click on the map. -- Torsten Bronger 15:53 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)
Providing larger version is definitely a common practice around here. But simply setting a table width does not force an image to display at that size (for some reason this doesn't work on Wikipedia - however, even if it did it still wouldn't be a good idea because the result is often an ugly image). Also, the difference in width isn't that great so going through the extra effort of setting up different versions and providing media links probably wouldn't be worth it. What I did in this case was place the images in the tables, download them, set them to RGB, indexed them, resized them to a 300 px width and then uploaded them. --mav
I really have no problem with being a mere raw material provider, but I'd like to know when my images are overwritten because I have to adjust the description (namely the scale). Moreover, there still is the possibility of re-calculating them (i.e. the labels keep their size) which may be the superior alternative. On the other hand, why are 400px a problem with this stacked form? -- Torsten Bronger
I think it would better to have a small version (to be displayed in the article) and a large version (to let readers see a detailed map if they want) of the star maps for each of the constellations. --Lorenzarius 09:32 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)
First, I'm sorry about the description problem - I didn't know about the scale problem. Aligned 400px wide images/tables overwhelm the text for people using 800 x 600 screen resolutions (with the side bar there is just a little over 600px for article content and images or tables that cover more than half that available area overwhelm the article). Larger fonts would be great though. --mav
Okay then I propose the following: I continue as before, with 400px as maximum (as I already pointed out, only a few further constellations will be that big anyway) and for all images bigger than say 300px a smaller variant is created with a different filename as a thumbnail in the entry (with a link to the bigger one of course).
This would mean that I restore the overwritten bitmaps. I'd be nice if someone can do the downscaling/inclusion work because I have to pay for every online minute and -- while uploading is efficient -- this clicking around is time consuming and thus superfluously expensive. I could do it, but if someone has a better connection ... thank you! -- Torsten Bronger 12:54 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)
Sure - but if you could do the first one youself I could just emulate that. --mav

Okay, here is my proposal:

All graphics that are bigger than 300px (so far, all except Ara, but as I said, the small constallations are yet to come) are downscaled to 70% (NOT to a fixed width). Since no graphics is wider than 427px (a value that I had chosen after a posting of Lorenzarius from Feb 16) this means that no thumbnail will be wider than 300px.

Please scale down carefully, i.e. convert to RGB before you do it etc., you know what I mean. Call the graphics <oldname>_small.png. Upload it, and link on its description page to the original image (say that it is a thumbnail) and put your name on it.

But before I will do that for Leo as a template I have some questions:

  1. Is is common practice on Wikipedia to call a thumbnail *_small.png?
  2. How should one mark an image as a thumbnail, i.e., how is the reader told that a bigger version exists?
  3. As an alternative we could scale every image down to 70%. The advantage would be that somebody could replace the larger versions of all constellations without disturbing the article. Nevertheless I don't like that idea.

-- Torsten Bronger 07:44 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

This sounds good. I've read somewhere that scaling to an even percentage as you suggest reduces artifacts (indexing and setting to RGB also helps a lot). also..
  1. Some people add "small", others "thumbnail", yet others simply "thumb". All work. Your suggestion of _small is good for a standard here.
  2. See Pluto (planet), sheep and Great-horned owl for some examples.
  3. Probably not needed.
--mav
Two other questions: I love interlaced bitmaps, but PNGs become up to 20% bigger with interlacing. What do you think? BTW, JPEGs can be significantly smaller than PNGs without changing the image too much (especially because most of it is white) but I hope you agree with me that we shouldn't provide them as JPEGs on principle (I talk only about the thumbnails here anyway).
In theory downscalling to 300px and interlacing should cancel each other out as far as file sizes are concerned but for these images it in fact nearly doubles the file size. It would therefore probably be better to make these images at 300 px to begin with. But then again the file sizes aren't that huge so this isn't that big of a deal. PNG is the best format for these types of images (jpgs would have fuzzy text). --mav
Secondly, I used the trick of the Sheep article for the link to the larger version. Is this "Media:" (instead of "Image:") thing exploiting an undocumented feature of Wikipedia or is it secure? I seems to link to an internal place of Wikipedia, making it impossible to see e.g. the description. May it be better to link to it with "Image:"? (But then, of course, the reader had to find the link to the actual graphics by themselves.)
"Media" is a secure feature. It is also under-documented. Providing a link to the image page just provides an unneeded extra step to get to the larger image. The same info will be on the thumbnail's description page. --mav
Thirdly I have updated Leo according to the new (virtual) template. Please review it. Was Leo the only map that you, Mav, rescaled to 300px? -- Torsten Bronger
Leo looks great! But having the media link to the larger version may be more work than what it is worth - we are only talking about a difference in size of 100 px. I converted several other constellations as well. --mav
I think it's worth it. After all we have now a final structure and we can upload both smaller thumbnails and larger detail views if we wish, without touching the template again. -- Torsten Bronger

Hi, I whish to know what was the motivation to include the image/thumbnail into the table? Because, the more I convert some constellation to the new template, the more I find the result awfull. I find, for example, Cygnus well better looking than Leo. -- looxix 19:12 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I do agree that Cygnus looks better than Leo, but only for users with higher screen resolution. Please refer to the discussions above. -Lorenzarius 12:15 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to discuss an alternative to the current way to embed the maps. I see two problems with the current approach:

  1. We have to include this text "larger image"; it doesn't help to click on the graphics itself.
  2. We abuse Wikipedia's linking scheme, because this way of linking was created for non-visual media data. The link destination is the mere bare graphics, i.e. we leave Wikipedia's controlled area. On my system this implies a grey background for example, and the only way to continue browsing is to hit the "back" button of the browser.

There is no silver bullet, and it may well be that the current way is the least bad one. However consider the following alternative:

  • We make the description page of the thumbnail version empty, and embed the large version there instead. (Not a link to it, but the graphics itself).
  • We delete the "larger image" text.

As a result the user just clicks on the graphics to get a larger view, which seems to be more natural for Internet thumbnails in my opinion. Additionally, the reader is on clean Wikipedia pages always.

Well, a user may not find it. But I have to admit that the scaled down versions are surprisingly good, so in most cases the larger version is not necessary for the ordinary reader. (Well, at the moment most small versions are not very good due to bad image software; but have a look at the Centaurus example for how it could be.)

If I started the whole project again, I'd make the small versions the standard, and create ...._large.png files instead for big constellations. However, my Internet connection is slow and expensive, and I can't delete files on Wikipedia. -- Torsten Bronger 09:47, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"As a result the user just clicks on the graphics to get a larger view" - this is counter to Wikipedia's standard image handling behavior and policy. It will therefore be reverted by copyeditors. The "larger image" convention is very well established here - users quickly notice that clicking on images brings them to a page that has meta data about the image. They should not expect to see, or be expected to see, a larger image because the great majority of Wikipedia images do not have larger versions at all - let alone ones placed on the image description page. If you need images deleted then please list them on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion and an Admin will delete them. --mav 09:57, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Oh – okay. However this is a flaw in Wikipedia software in my opinion. Every picture should have an implicit complete (albeit minimal) Wikpedia article around it where you can link to. Anyway …


By the way, I created the small version of Centaurus by scaling the normal image to 70% (this value was agreed upon here) in RGB colour model, and using GIMP's 'sharpen' filter with a value of 50%. The result was re-converted to a 256 colour index bitmap (without any dithering, only re-mapping) and exported to PNG. This is the best way I've found so far. -- Torsten Bronger 13:15, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)


I created a Gimp script that converts a constellation map in EPS format to two bitmaps (normal and thumbnail). The effect is that now all maps can be created in batch mode; you just have to call "make" on the command line. Thus global style changes (e.g. different colours, fewer stars) can be realised within ten minutes, most of which is waiting. :-) The Makefile and the Gimp script are available together with the Wiki scripts.

The only remaining bottleneck is the upload to Wikipedia, but since descriptions must be updated anyway … -- Torsten Bronger 15:45, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Pay attention to the fact that I uploaded small variants for all maps wider than 300px. So please use the thumbnails with the _small suffix if they are available. Torsten Bronger 09:08, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Specific constallations, updates

I've prepared the following charts: Big Bear, Orion, Lion, Berenice's Hair, Monoceros, Cetus,

Taurus, and Ara. --Torsten Bronger 13:29 Feb 15, 2003 (UTC)

The map of Ursa Major shows only the big dipper, can you change so that the whole constellation is displayed? Also if the maps are too wide then they can't be placed next to the table (just like the map of Cetus), I think a width around 440 will be good. --Lorenzarius 11:32 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)


I've updated Ursa Major, now with bigger area and latin names. Cetus will follow, probably yet today. Unfortunately we now haven't the same scale for all images anymore. But this wouldn't be possible anyway. -- Torsten Bronger 15:50 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

New maps: Cygnus, Aries, Gemini, and Cancer. I've scaled down Cetus, and replaced all constellation names with their Latin translations in all bitmaps. -- Torsten Bronger 11:49 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

I uploaded a map for Cassiopeia, but didn't include it. (Whoever creates the thumbnails will have to do that.) -- Torsten Bronger 13:00 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

OK thanks, but what is the difference between "Image:Cassiopeia_constellation_map.png" & "Image:Cassiopeia_constellation_drawing.png"? -- looxix 13:05 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)
No difference so far. I just named the file wrongly. The _drawing suffix is used for artistic drawings that show the constellation. But an ordinary user like me cannot undo wrong uploads. -- Torsten Bronger

Well, actually the Leo template calls smaller versions _small, not _thumb (see above). And I really want the downscaling to be done like this: Promote to 24bit colour depth (RGB) --> downscale to 0.7 --> index to 256 colours without dithering --> save as PNG. At least the first step is missing in your thumbnails. Some labels are unreadable now.

Humm, I see, for example the label 'Antares' in Scorpius in screwed.
I tried to first promote to 24-bit, it doesn't change anything! what I propose is , for the moment, to leave these thumbnails as they are, after all they are just thumbnails; those interested in more detailed information will probably try the full image anyway.

BTW I restored the old Sagittarius map. (This process of deleting and restoring of old image versions is very stange in Wikipedia I think.) -- Torsten Bronger

The CMa map is wider than 300px and thus a candidate for a thumbnail, too.

New maps: Corvus, Perseus, Auriga, Canes Venatici, Ursa Minor, Vulpecula, and Aquila. BTW, what happened to the Capricornus map? -- Torsten Bronger 18:39 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

Done, including the restoration of Capricornus map. Thanks. -- Looxix 19:19 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

I did the following:

  • Uploaded much nicer thumbnails,
  • named all thumbnails ..._map_small.png,
  • added new thumbnails for a couple of constallations that hadn't have one,
  • changed map names containing `maior' to `major',
  • redirected all thumbnail descriptions to the main description, and
  • flagged all ..._thumb.png and other superfluous maps (i.e. the `maior's and one filename misspelling) for deletion.

-- Torsten Bronger 09:49, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The maps for the northern hemisphere have been completed. Because all remaining constellations are pretty small, many of them have no thumbnail, i.e. the large map is less than 300px wide. Please pay attention to that if you create the respective table entry. -- Torsten Bronger 06:02, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

All maps are done. Note that I uploaded thumbnails where necessary, too. I won't participate actively in the project any further, but feel free to email me if there is a problem with the maps. You can also have CVS access to the maps in order to improve them. Using the map generating program is not very easy, but modifying the maps (translating them, changing style etc) is fairly simple. Bye and good luck! -- Torsten Bronger 11:04, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Constellation drawings

Pipe dream: It would be a lot of fun to find digitized images of a cool old star map with images of the constellation's figures (you know the kind I'm thinking of)... - Montréalais

Hey that's what I am thinking of! Since most of the figures of the constellations are so hard to imagine (I always think that Saggittarius look like a teapot more than a centaur), adding such images would greatly enhance the articles. --Lorenzarius 10:16 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
I could do that, I have the complete celestial atlas of Hevelius here (17th century). However the graphics would have mirrored labels: The original maps are mirrored themselves, for the telescope view. If I wanted to undo that, the labels would become inverted. Catch-22 ... --Torsten Bronger 10:47 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
That's not a big problem, since I think the main purpose of these artistic maps is to show the readers what the mythological figures look like. We can add descriptions to the images to explain the reason for the mirrored maps. --Lorenzarius 11:28 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
So, make them *readable* or according to the view of the unaided eye? --Torsten Bronger 12:44 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
"Readable" maps will do. --Lorenzarius 13:47 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)
I think I'll focus on normal maps for now. Hevelius' charts are bigger than my scanner, and a scaling-down copy is very difficult. But I uploaded Leo and Cygnus. Please tell me whether colour/brightness/contrast/gamma is okay.
I'm just wondering why you're claiming copyright on Hevelius' drawings. (Maybe you just automatically add the copyright notice for every upload?)
I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Germany any copyright expires 70 years after one's death. I assume that this is not typical of Germany. The copyright I add is not for the map, but for the bitmap (the JPEG file). -- Torsten Bronger 04:30 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)
Of course I'm not familiar with the copyright laws of Germany or even the EU, but (basing on how I perceive American copyright) the only things that are copyrightable are creative works/derivatives. Those drawings were the copyrighted works of Hevelius and since he's long dead, I assume that the drawings are in the public domain, right? Anyway, just scanning those drawings does not make the image files your copyright since you did not add anything substantially creative. (If the drawing was part of a photomontage or collage, then you can have copyright.) That is the reason why you just cannot scan any picture from any recent magazine or book since that would be a copyright infringement (unless your use was fair use).


So I'm quite sure I can copy your uploaded drawings and use it for myself since they're essentially public domain. Of course, don't take my word for it since I'm not an attorney. :) —seav
If I make a photography of a painting of Michelangelo, I can hold copyright on the photography. I had to choose the right part of the drawing, had to adjust contrast, saturation, and brightness, I chose a nice background colour. So I think you can compare it with a photography.
The only problem that indeed exists is that I haven't used Hevelius' original maps for the scanning but facsimile prints. I don't know whether these prints are copyrighted because it's in Polish. However I consider it a very small issue. Since you find those maps in probably hundreds of books all over the world, I'm sure that nobody can bring Wikipedia into trouble because of my bitmaps. -- Torsten Bronger 16:23 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but if you submit something to Wikipedia, it's no longer under your copyright, but under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may wish to remove the copyright notices. - Montréalais
I think only text material has to be released under the GFDL. Other media (sound and image files) can still have their original licenses intact but it is preferred that they be in public domain or licensed under the GFDL. (See Wikipedia:Copyrights.) —seav
I only have to give it under the GFDL, and according to Wikipedia's image policy, I should say what the current copyright status is on the description page.
I believe when you submit copyrighted material of yours to Wikipedia, you retain the copyright to your materials. But you can never retract from the GFDL lisence. --Lorenzarius 10:35 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)
I think that I as the copyright holder can re-licence my material at any time. If this makes it incompatible with the GFDL I have to assure that it is deleted from Wikipedia, because I declared that it is GFDL material when I uploaded it. I've seen such re-licencing in free software development. Of course I don't even think about changing the licence. Be that as it may, I believe that everything is alright as it is now. -- Torsten Bronger 12:03 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)
Here I was wrong: I cannot do that (withdrawing things). I don't want to anyway. -- Torsten Bronger 07:38, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Well, I'm not sure of the ins and outs. As long as you don't turn around someday and say Hey! you can't use that anymore ;)
Also, the drawings look excellent; thank you. - Montréalais

I have scanned Hevelius drawings of the following constellations in fairly good quality: 

 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      149533 Apr  4 21:43 and.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      153148 Apr  4 21:43 argo.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      152570 Apr  4 21:43 boo.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      138340 Apr  4 21:43 cet.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      144866 Apr  4 21:43 cyg.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      142220 Apr  4 21:43 gem.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      165234 Apr  4 21:43 her.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      163780 Apr  4 21:43 leo.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      140277 Apr  4 21:43 ori.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      137514 Apr  4 21:43 pav_ara_tra.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      163717 Apr  4 21:43 per.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      136439 Apr  4 21:43 sco.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      136292 Apr  4 21:43 sgr.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      159331 Apr  4 21:43 tau.jpg
 -rw-r--r--    1 bronger  users      123442 Apr  4 21:43 uma.jpg


You can download them from http://pp3.sourceforge.net/wiki/<filename>.

I've experimented a little bit and -- although I am very experienced in image processing -- I was unable to get satisfying results, mostly because I'm not sure what is actually wanted:

  1. Is it a good idea to include the whole rectangle, or is it enough to truncate it to the actual figure?
  2. What is the best image width? 400px are recommended, but this is only sensible if we don't use the whole rectangle in my opinion.
  3. Should we use true greyscale JPEGs or should we colour the background to make it look nicer (increase in file size by factor 2 at least). PNGs are not very sensible I think. (However I haven't tried it so far.)
  4. Should we try to show the reader the connection of the asterisms and the constellation drawings? This questions has two sub-questions:
    • Should we mirror the drawings to have the real view (in contrast to Hevelius' eyepiece view)?
    • Should we copy the main constellation lines in some way into the drawing to show the reader the equivalence?

Feel free to use the scans and upload modified versions to Wikipedia. -- Torsten Bronger

(Nearly 2 years later!) They are nice scans as they are. All I found was a low res Taurus scan in Commons, so I'm now slowly uploading the Hevelius prints to Commons:Category:Constellations. I've done Ori, Tau and Uma for now, each also tagged with Commons:Category:Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, in case anyone wishes to continue. -Wikibob | Talk 02:48, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)

Maps with south at top

I have noticed that all the sky maps have north at the top. We also need maps with south at the top to counter systemic bias. It makes sense to have maps in both orientations because the northern hemisphere orientation is not the only one that's possible. I live in the southern hemisphere and I cannot stand on my head when viewing the night sky for medical reasons. Even in the northern hemisphere an alternative map with south at the top would be useful when viewing certain circumpolar constellations at culmination like Cassiopeia. --  B.d.mills  (T, C) 02:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I just "joined"

Some questions: How do I markup the magnitude if the brightest star is a variable as Hercules?

In the case of Vela, I just added a [[Variable star|(var.)]] behind the mean magnitude. But for Mira stars this is not appropriate, in this case I would use the maximum + "(var.)". This has been my strategy so far and is not normative! – Torsten Bronger 17:43, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

We can use the simple table syntax for the tables, right? The pages will be slightly easier to edit, and less un-wiki. I can convert the template.

Yes, apparently everything survives the conversion process. However I strongly object to using the new image syntax for the maps. – Torsten Bronger

The articles Hercules and Pegasus have too big images which need cropping or scaling, which I don't have proper software to do.

— Sverdrup (talk) 16:01, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've updated Hercules and Pegasus. You may use them as templates for others. Thumbnails are already available for all maps wider than 300px. – Torsten Bronger

Category:List of stars

Someone (User:132.205.95.65) has been recategorizing some star articles, e.g. 14 Herculis, from Category:Stars to Category:List of stars. I left a message at User talk:132.205.95.65 explaining why I think this is a bad idea. Do you folks have any ideas about this? Thanks, David Iberri | Talk 00:00, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

just a note

Ive changed all the constellations to the nice wiki table style. --Rony P Q H Taril 22:22, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Big picture

I've just tidied up some constellation articles within category Constellations (so that they sit within their own subcateg within categ Constellations). I'd like to assist further. It appears to me that there is currently categs Constellations - which contains any constellation ever - and subcateg Modern constellations - which contains the currently authorised 88 constellations. Does it not make sense to try to move to a situation with: Categ Constellations containing the currently authorised 88 constellations and a subcateg Former / Ancient Constellations (or similar name) containing former or superseded constellations? If I were an average Wiki surfer looking for details of a constellation, would I think of looking for a subcateg Modern constellations within categ Constellations for up-to-date information? I would have thought that the categ Constellations and subcateg Former constellations described the situation correctly. Comments, please Ian Cairns 01:51, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've now reached the point where each constellation has its own category, each such category has the article as its principal article, and has membership of all higher categories that the principal article had.

Checking on categ Constellations against categ Modern constellations, I notice that the only difference is Argo Navis (as suspected), where this was recognised as a former constellation, but nowadays its four component constellations are recognised in their own right. It occurs to me that Argo Navis should be removed from categ Constellations and placed, say, in categ Former constellations which categ could belong to categ Constellations. At that point, we would have the same 88 constellations in both categs Constellations and Modern constellations. In due course, we could drop, say, categ Modern constellations, since it now duplicates the main categ Constellations. I'll proceed on this unless any comments / objections. Thanks, Ian Cairns 16:18, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've now emptied the categ Modern constellations, since its membership duplicates categ Constellations. I've therefore posted categ Modern constellations as a category for deletion. Thanks, Ian Cairns 20:25, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Calculation of "Best visible"

I recently updated all 88 constellations so that the month of best visibility for each constellation matched the date of culmination at 9 pm given in the 1973 edition of Norton's Sky Atlas. I have only just discovered this Wikiproject and I would like to make additional contributions to the standardisation project. --  B.d.mills  (T, C) 02:12, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Improvement drive

Asteroid deflection strategies has been nominated on WP:IDRIVE. Support it with your vote if you want it to be improved.--Fenice 22:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Walkerma 03:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Nakshatras

The Nakshatras are the constellations according to Indian astronomy. The article is in pathetic shape. I think it would be great if the article could be improved through this wikiproject. Any help would be very highly appreciated. deeptrivia (talk) 06:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Award

Does anyone here support this Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals#Barnstar_of_Constellations? --evrik 14:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I need a decision from all of you if you want the award linked above to be a barnstar for your Wikiproject. If yes, it will be placed in Wikiproject Awards. If not, it will be placed in Personal User Awards. Please leave your comments here. Thank you.--Ed 21:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Just so you'll know

I just want you all to know that there is a current discussion on a Constellation Barnstar right here. Since it has not reached consensus yet, I would appreciate it if you could give us a second opinion.--Ed 13:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Complex Draco move

I have made a complex request to move Draco (on the ancient Athenian) to Draco (lawgiver) and Draco (disambiguation) to Draco. In my opinion, more people are probably going to be looking for the constellation (or possibly a fictional character such as Draco Malfoy) than the Athenian. I think this move has been overdue. Please cast a vote if you are interested. Dr. Submillimeter 10:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Draco move has been approved and completed. All disambiguation of Draco (lawgiver) have been fixed. There are probably still disambiguations of Draco (constellation) that require fixing. —Doug Bell talk 11:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this WikiProject still active?

Is this WikiProject still active? If not, then I plan on merging it into Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects sometime in the nearish future.

Additionally, I have recently refreshed Template:Infobox Constellation, mainly making formatting changes. Mike Peel 22:51, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm active regarding constellations, but I've been writing and proposing in Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects. In Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects we're also discussing wikiprojects and portals, and I'm interested in how the newbies (and us other) are going to find the relevant discussion. Merging is probably OK. Rursus 11:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm for merging. It seems that this project has served its purpose. Lunokhod 13:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Alternate graphic visualization.

E.g. Aries (constellation)#Graphic visualization. Source: User talk:AugPi/Archive 1#Sources for alternative constellations?.

I don't think these are notable enough to be included, and naming the stars not in the book is too close to OR. A shame, because a lot of work went into it. If they are to be removed, I think we should give User:AugPi time to collect to move it to another site. -- Jeandré, 2007-03-11t11:43z

I'm for removing them, but waiting till User:AugPi got the time for collecting them elsewhere. Besides being OR, they're not usable for amateur astronomers actually, and they don't adher to old star descriptions such as those in Almagest. Rursus 20:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)