All Questions
367
questions
26
votes
15
answers
2k
views
Astronomy Jokes
What are the best astronomy jokes you've ever heard? I'm looking for images; however, you can share whatever you like.
- 414
24
votes
3
answers
274
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Graduation of the Astronomy Stack Exchange
The Astronomy Stack Exchange site is scheduled to graduate from Beta to a full site today, December 16th.
The moderator team would like to congratulate our entire user base for the contributions that ...
- 16.2k
24
votes
0
answers
417
views
I'm taking a leave of absence from moderating
Update 1/20/2020: called2voyage has resumed moderation, more info here.
I’ve wrestled for some time with how to approach this issue, but I’ve finally come to a decision. The bottom-line is that it ...
- 6,254
20
votes
4
answers
425
views
Let's ask more meaty questions!
It's been an exciting first (partial) week. We've got 105 questions (and counting) with a number of interesting and useful answers. However, I'm concerned that too many of your questions do not, um, ...
18
votes
7
answers
1k
views
Request to enable MathJax on this site
Got to come up sooner or later. MathJax is pretty useful, especially when one needs to include some astrophysics in the answer. Can we have it?
- 4,989
18
votes
0
answers
127
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Congratulations Astronomy Stack Exchange for 10k questions!
I just checked the question count, and discovered that we hit 10k overnight (well actually a few hours after 0:00 UTC) :D
So I just want to say congratulations to everyone here, the moderators, all ...
- 6,613
17
votes
2
answers
350
views
Concerns about this site
(Apologies in advance if I seem to wander in this post. I'm having a multitude of thoughts and I'm not quite sure how t organize them)
Ever since I've joined, I've been a bit uneasy about this site. ...
- 4,989
17
votes
3
answers
450
views
NOT READY FOR PUBLIC BETA — What function should this site serve?
We've decided to keep Astronomy Stack Exchange in PRIVATE beta for one more week. The Community Manager team reviewed the site so far and, while we love the enthusiasm here, we are deeply concerned ...
16
votes
3
answers
539
views
Astronomy Stack Exchange 10-year anniversary!
Astronomy Stack Exchange will turn ten years old on September 24th!
The first question asked on our site was:
How do I calculate the inclination of an object with an amateur telescope?
Over eight ...
- 16.2k
16
votes
1
answer
582
views
Returning to moderation
I've been giving a lot of thought to the question of resignation over the weekend, and one thing that kept going through my head was Jon Ericson's blog post. Despite what he had to say about ...
- 6,254
16
votes
0
answers
535
views
June 5 Strike - Who, What, When, Why, and how to join
Following from Stack Overflow, and as other sites will soon have to (if they don't already have them, I have decided, with some approval, to announce the upcoming June 5 strike on this child meta. It ...
15
votes
8
answers
599
views
Who should our moderators be?
Our moderators pro tempore have already been selected.
See Moderator Pro Tem Announcement
Original Post:
If your meta site does not have a post to nominate Moderators, start one now! Pro Tem ...
15
votes
2
answers
134
views
How to draw a line between Astrophysics and Physics, if there is any posibility?
There is not really much to say. Ideas?
- 101
15
votes
2
answers
173
views
How are we doing compared to the previous Astronomy site?
There was an older Astronomy site that was closed 3 years ago for lack of activity. I wasn't around then - nor was I around for the start of this incarnation - so I have no idea what it was like back ...
HDE 226868Mod
- 36k
15
votes
0
answers
96
views
Let's congratulate Connor Garcia on becoming our next moderator!
Congratulations!!!
Today, @ConnorGarcia was appointed as our next moderator!1 So I just want to give a huge shoutout to him for having courage to self-nominate and take on a task that requires much ...
- 6,613
14
votes
4
answers
297
views
Topic of the Week: [astrometry]
Topic of the week is a week where we make an effort to ask and answer more questions around a specific tag, this brings more attention to the topic which in turn should bring us more views and users ...
14
votes
1
answer
157
views
Can we make arguments that Pluto should be considered a planet off-topic?
It has been over 14 years since the IAU passed its definition of what constitutes a planet, and we still get arguments (mostly rants) against that decision. For example, Where to submit, or ask to ...
- 33.5k
14
votes
1
answer
168
views
What's with the amount of spam here?
Over at least the last half year I noticed spam popping up here, that I do not see on the other 15-20 SE sites that I visit (with the same frequency).
What makes Astronomy.se different? More spam, ...
user1569
14
votes
0
answers
209
views
Moderator Pro Tem Announcement
As of 2021, the site is no longer under pro tem moderation. It is now under elected moderation. Donald.McLean stepped down, but called2voyage and HDE 226868 have stayed on as moderators. They were ...
13
votes
7
answers
148
views
What should our chatroom be named?
Currently, our chatroom has the (rather unexciting) name 'Colloquium'. In my opinion, we should not be using a common ancient Roman phrase for this modern site. What should our chatroom be named?
...
- 4,951
13
votes
1
answer
98
views
Deja Vu? How do we keep the site alive?
First of all, I am happy to see this topic getting another go! I love the field, and wish to contribute as much as possible. So this was tried a while back, and sadly the site didn't survive. It ended ...
- 1,484
13
votes
1
answer
97
views
Do questions about the history and discoveries of astronomy belong here?
For instance, if I were to have a question about the discovery of certain astronomical facts/ideas, is this the right place for it? Like, the who/when/how something was discovered?
Simple example: ...
- 63
13
votes
0
answers
102
views
Congratulations to @ProfRob for reaching 100k reputation!
Congratulations!!!
I'm quite late to the party after a break from SE, and I've seen that @ProfRob has hit 100,000 reputation, a new milestone for our site!
- 6,613
13
votes
0
answers
199
views
Announcing a Pro Tempore election
Summary: Astronomy Stack Exchange will begin the nomination stage for a special election on March 29 to bring in one more moderator.
For full details of the process, see the announcement on Meta Stack ...
- 101
13
votes
0
answers
62
views
Feature request: add marvosym package to our MathJax set (for celestial body symbols)
Shameless copy from SF.'s question on Space Meta:
\usepackage{marvosym} allows you to write M_\Sun or ...
- 6,254
12
votes
7
answers
403
views
Post your pictures of the Great Conjunction here!
today and tomorrow are the times when Jupiter and Saturn are really close to each other (less than a tenth of a degree apart)!!! So I just want to reach out to everyone for them to share their photos ...
- 6,613
12
votes
7
answers
1k
views
Why do we care if Pluto is classified as a planet? [closed]
Why do we care if Pluto is classified as a planet? Classification doesn't change anything fundamental about Pluto, like the orbital parameters or composition. We can't hurt an inanimate object's ...
- 16.2k
12
votes
1
answer
427
views
Should we at least temporarily ban chatbot-generated content (e.g. chatGPT) until it becomes clearer what it means for Stack Exchange?
Higher question-rate sites have already addressed chatbot-generated posting in an essentially universal negative way, for example:
Stack Overflow: Temporary policy: ChatGPT is banned
How can we ...
- 31.4k
12
votes
2
answers
385
views
Let's make an attempt to answer old, unanswered questions
I have been looking at the unanswered questions on this site for some time (for some days tbh) and in my opinion, most of them are very intriguing and interesting and they deserved to get answered. ...
- 4,393
12
votes
2
answers
160
views
Do we need to downvote posts of New Contributors?
I can see nowadays, more than two downvotes on posts of newbies to the site (SE) or instant closure of question. I don't feel one will wantedly ask Low quality posts, either they might lack knowledge ...
- 2,610
12
votes
2
answers
203
views
Homework policy
Although this issue more than likely won't be as much of an issue as say, Physics.SE and Mathematics.SE, there could still be astronomy-based homework questions. I think we need to hash out a ...
user8
12
votes
0
answers
89
views
Congratulations to James(100)K
Congratulations to JamesK on his 100k-hood on Astronomy SE.
1452 answers (and 5 questions). It's a lot! Also - 2.2m "reached", which is an importantly large number.
- 146k
11
votes
1
answer
64
views
Should we close an unclear question with acceped answer?
I know, if a question is unclear, we should close it right-away, because otherwise people might interpret it in different ways and give inconsistent answers. But sometimes, before we can close it, the ...
- 4,371
11
votes
1
answer
118
views
What is the status of this beta?
I am wondering what the status of this beta is? Are we going to launch or are we going to fold (and our posts migrated)?
The drop off in activity can be explained as a sign that we need new members, ...
user8
10
votes
3
answers
302
views
Off-site Astronomy community promotion ads
Should we make some to help get some more traffic here from other stacks? Does anyone have design ideas?
For clarity, I am asking if we should make an ad for Astronomy.SE to put on other stacks. ...
- 6,254
10
votes
1
answer
281
views
How much is astrophysics, cosmology, and theoretical astrophysics on topic?
There have been some concerns raised about cosmology and theoretical astrophysics, as well as astrophysics in general.
The concern is that this community does not support astrophysics questions, ...
- 6,254
10
votes
2
answers
66
views
What are online options for anyone without an astronomy background who wants to contribute to the study of space?
With the advent of the internet, crowdsourcing and communities, many ways to help astronomers worldwide to obtain and analyse data have been proposed; from the comfort of your own home or office, you ...
- 2,695
10
votes
1
answer
105
views
Etiquette for using comments to answer old, unanswered questions?
I like answering old, unanswered questions because there aren't many new ones I know enough to answer. In many cases the answers are mostly laid out in the comments. I suspect no one then wants to ...
- 16.2k
10
votes
1
answer
209
views
Why have recent cosmology/astrophysics questions been closed as off-topic?
Given there have recently been several questions put on hold as "off-topic" when they're clearly about cosmology/astrophysics (which is defined as on topic in the Help Centre), I thought it might be ...
10
votes
1
answer
101
views
Attribution of sources used in questions and answers
Any and all sources, particularly when we are quoting from another website, journal article, book etc. must be properly attributed to the source.
Attributions can take the following forms (and folks ...
user8
10
votes
2
answers
288
views
Interest in looking into adding the YouTube viewer?
Adding a feature to a site requires some investigation into community interest and to use cases. Here's a successful example. In that case the feature was MathJax and the issue was load time and ...
- 31.4k
10
votes
0
answers
347
views
Regarding moderating the new Code of Conduct
To hopefully alleviate concerns regarding the new Code of Conduct, I want to explain how I intend to moderate regarding pronoun use.
When speaking generically, posts should use gender neutral ...
- 6,254
10
votes
0
answers
105
views
What stellar content do we want to share with Twitter?
As of late yesterday, Stack Exchange has revived its official Twitter account, @StackExchange. It had been used intermittently/actually-not-at-all for several years,...
HDE 226868Mod
- 36k
9
votes
3
answers
282
views
Why don't question-askers accept answers?
Out of idle curiosity, I was looking through some of my (old) answers to questions which have been reasonably upvoted, were often the only answer, but have not been accepted.
Fair enough, you could ...
- 146k
9
votes
2
answers
166
views
2021 Community Moderator Election Results
Astronomy's first election has come to a close. We are delighted to appoint your new moderator:
He'll be joining the existing crew. Please thank him for volunteering, and share your assistance and ...
- 101
9
votes
0
answers
120
views
This month's focus tag: white-dwarf
Sorry for the delay in the focus tag this month! Last month we took a close look at the topic of tidal forces. This month's focus tag is white-dwarf.
Featured Question: Is there a possibility that a ...
- 6,254
8
votes
4
answers
147
views
Should we use fahrenheit or celsius? Does it matter?
There are two major measurement units: Fahrenheit and Celsius. Us crazy American enthusiasts often use the Fahrenheit system, while the rest of the world uses primarily the Celsius (metric) system.
...
- 4,951
8
votes
3
answers
94
views
New to Stack exchange. What is Meta and Beta in Astronomy SE?
it's been 10 days joining stack exchange ! I observed that there are two Astronomy SE, Meta and Beta ? So what is the difference between them ?
- 2,610
8
votes
3
answers
127
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2021 Moderator Election Q&A - Question suggestions
Taking a look at other Stack Exchange elections, it seems like they all have "Moderator Q&A," where candidates answer questions about moderating, allowing voters to see what kind of ...
- 6,613
8
votes
2
answers
213
views
Do we want accepted answers to be pinned to the top?
Stack Exchange staff have announced an upcoming change to the way answer acceptance works.
Currently, the original poster of a question can accept one non-deleted answer. This does several things,
...
- 13.1k