h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: UPDATE - Star Constellations: Orion 'the Hunter' - Update for A395165 - A515422
Author: Galaxy Babe - P.S.4.S.T. - U128652

Update for A395165 by Gaurav

HI GB

I think some points in this need clarification.

Opening para
>To anyone living in the Northern hemisphere<
Orion straddles the celestial equator but is wholly south of the ecliptic. It should be equally familiar to anyone in the Southern Hemisphere.
You could also highlight that it is probably the most prominent of the constellations in the Northern Hemispher's winter and only secondary to 'The Plough' in ease of recognition.

The 'How to Find It' para would, I think, sit better underneath and as part of the first para, without a header.

'How to find it', is a bit ambiguous.
>Look into the sky and look for three very bright stars in a straight line<
You could find three stars in a row in any part of the sky if you didn't know how bright or what part of the sky you were supposed to look at. You need to indicate that it is predominant in Northern Hemisphere's winter and what the surrounding constellations are. You could use Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, as a pointer to Orion rather than the other way around, as is described later in the piece.

The Myth
You could mention that Orion is depicted as holding a club in the one hand and the hide of either the bull or a lion in the other, depending on the illustration referred to.

Stars
Identification by Greek letter. Purely for the sake of consistency, I think it would be good to bring this into line with the other constellation articles you've already done. ie, leave out the Greek letter except in the tables and use the 'written' word Alpha Ori. Highlight the star name, if it has one, in bold.
It would also be more appropriate to use as an example of the nomenclature Alpha Orionis rather than Alpha Cas

>The most famous star near the belt is Sirius<
I don't think that you need to have this paragraph about a star in Canis Major in an article about Orion. In my opinion it doesn't fit in here. It should be in the article to come on Canis Maj. Sirius is only worth a mention here as a pointer to where Orion is. (Previously mentioned)

>One of the closest stars to the belt is Betelgeuse<
I wouldn't agree with that. It is some ten degrees north of it. In astronomical terms that's quite some distance. In fact most of the stars in the asterism are closer.

>(the side will differ, depending on where you are).<
That doesn't seem to make sense. Perhaps it needs context?

>An interesting star nearby... is Procyon<
The same comments as those to Sirius. This star isn't in Orion. I can see the point about the 'Winter Triangle' but in the context of Orion it's only of value as a pointer or an interesting note.

There is a lot more to say about Betelgeuse. eg Red Giant, it's the way our sun will go, Its size, If you transported it to the solar system it would encompass the Earth's orbit. etc.

Nebulae
Perhaps a short para concerning M43 to go with M42 would be in order. It is included in the table.

Horsehead Nebula. , I wouldn't describe the gas clouds as 'swirling'. they may be, but at the distance and timescale we are at, we can't see that occurring.

One for your Modern Culture section
I wouldn't want to perpetuate any conspiracy theory but I seem to remember that the layout of the three stars in the belt and their proximity to the Milky Way which runs adjacent to them, has been linked to the layout of the three main pyramids at Ghiza(SP?) and the river Nile. The relationship of the Milky Way/Nile to the pyramids/belt is remarkably similar. I seem to recall that this is linked to some of the features on Mars, but you'd have to do some research on all that if you wanted to include it.

Hope this helps

DK

Hi Deke
As this wasn't my Entry I tried to leave in as much of Gaurav's edited Entry as possible, but I agree some of it needs attention.

>To anyone living in the Northern hemisphere<
Orion straddles the celestial equator but is wholly south of the ecliptic. It should be equally familiar to anyone in the Southern Hemisphere.
You could also highlight that it is probably the most prominent of the constellations in the Northern Hemispher's winter and only secondary to 'The Plough' in ease of recognition.

<>

<<'How to find it', is a bit ambiguous.
>Look into the sky and look for three very bright stars in a straight line<
You could find three stars in a row in any part of the sky if you didn't know how bright or what part of the sky you were supposed to look at. You need to indicate that it is predominant in Northern Hemisphere's winter and what the surrounding constellations are. You could use Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, as a pointer to Orion rather than the other way around, as is described later in the piece.>>

<>

<>
I agree, although this was how the others were shown as an example given originally at the start of the project.

<<>The most famous star near the belt is Sirius<
I don't think that you need to have this paragraph about a star in Canis Major in an article about Orion. In my opinion it doesn't fit in here.>>removed
<<>(the side will differ, depending on where you are).<
That doesn't seem to make sense. Perhaps it needs context?
removed
>An interesting star nearby... is Procyon<
The same comments as those to Sirius. This star isn't in Orion. I can see the point about the 'Winter Triangle' but in the context of Orion it's only of value as a pointer or an interesting note.>>
removed

<>
I've added more, but I disagree that there is a lot more to say when there is already an EGE on Betelgeuse which I already linked to

<<Horsehead Nebula. , I wouldn't describe the gas clouds as 'swirling'. they may be, but at the distance and timescale we are at, we can't see that occurring.
>>
Footnote added

<>
Added

<>
Hmm, I'll see if anyone else objects, I really wanted an excuse to link to Cassiopeia.


Still to do:
<>
I will post again when I have done this

Thanks very much Deke

M43 done

I don't know much about the subject, so don't take my word on this, but looks ok to me.

Thank you

It's looking pretty good.

One other thing I meant to put in my first post but forgot.
I think you should move the Nebulae Table to the end of the Nebulae section. In other words between paras headed
'Horsehead Nebula' and 'Meteor Shower' I think seperating the two tables looks better that way.

DK

Gnomon gave me some pointers in another thread which I've attended to

Is this update ready to be applied yet? I've done everything I wanted to to the original, and attended to all the comments.

It looks good to me.

You should and on the headers (the first row) of your tables.

You should have "Nebula Table" rather than "Nebulae Table".

You can put ALIGN="CENTER" on the TR tag rather than on each TD tag if you want to center everything in the row. It's much neater. But don't worry, I can tidy up the table later when this is Edited.

Nebula Table

I've put tags around the first row but I can't see it's made any difference

Ow gawd if you only knew how I've struggled with these tables! Plus having to repair all Cefpret's irregular Guide ML in the constellation entries I took over

Thanks Gnomon, I'll leave it to you if you don't mind

I'll go and alter the table in Perseus

Remind me later, and I'll tidy up the tables.

I've managed the bold thing

Where?

I processed this update last night, but forgot to post here, so I hope you didn't make any more changes to this version.

Oh I did
I put tags around each bit needing to be emboldened.

Never mind, shall I remove this from PR then?

Thank you Gnomon.

Don't bother removing it from PR. The Eds will do that when they're finishing the Update processing.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'UPDATE - Star Constellations: Orion 'the Hunter' - Update for A395165' to 'Star Constellations: Orion 'the Hunter' '.

This will appear as an Updated Entry on the front page soon.