Talk:SN 1054

Question

What would it have looked like from earth? (84.30.51.214 (talk) 03:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC))

A very bright star.—RJH (talk) 21:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

French article

Note that the French version of this article is much longer (98K vs. 5 K) and more detailed with 60 references. If someone wants more information for this English version, I suggest translating more of the French version. Dirac66 (talk) 13:32, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

When this was translated, it's clear several references were left behind without making it to the new version of the article here... 65.93.12.101 (talk) 13:18, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Translating this blindly was a terrible idea. Sure, you could have used it locate and cross-check information, but basically dumping a machine translation here was not a really smart move. The French article is a rambling pamphlet, no doubt very well informed, but more an opinion piece or an essay than the encyclopedic style and neutrality we are aiming for here. --dab (𒁳) 06:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Which calendar was used for the date?

Is the date of the supernova in the Julian Calendar or the Proleptic Gregorian calendar? --Ozhiker (talk) 00:04, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

This is an excellent question. I was wondering the same thing. A few checks of sources didn't discuss the issue either, which is odd. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:37, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Section three of this source states that the supernova was carefully recorded by Chinese astronomers who "first detected the supernova on the day jichou, in the fifth lunar month of the first year of the Zhihe reign period; the equivalent Julian date is AD 1054 July 4." (emphasis mine). I'll make some sort of clarification and/or notes in the main body of the article. Very interesting! Central Midfielder (talk) 20:08, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Translation help

I saw this page on the translation page and did the best i could, mostly correcting mistranslations from the French article. Hope this helps! Egregiouslizard talk 23:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Calends

A confusing note about the calends seems to imply that the thirteenth calendas means the thirteenth day of the month. It then goes on to say that no new moon fell on the 13th of the month in 1054, but this is not true; there was a new moon on 13 March 1054. On the other hand, there was no full moon on the 13th calendas in 1054. The thirteenth calendas occurred 12 days before the first of each month, so it fell on the 20th of months with 31 days, on the 19th of months with 30, and on the 17th of February. Rwflammang (talk) 23:01, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Albertus' account

In the section of Albertus' account, a document is quoted as saying, like a path by which his soul had been escorted by the angels to the Heavens, clothed in brightness and countless lamps. A note then asserts that the original Latin is, quasi stratam palliis fulgentibus adornatam at innumeris coruscantem lampadibus, which I translate as meaning, like a street adorned with glittering cloaks (or palliums) or rather flashing with unnumbered lamps. No mention of a soul, nor angels, nor the heavens. I don't know what to make of this discrepancy. Rwflammang (talk) 19:54, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

A search on google books yielded the following primary source: Pontificum Romanorum qui fuerunt inde ab exeunte saeculo IX usque ad finem saculi XIII Vitae ab aequalibus conscriptae Tomus I. I. M. Wattherich. Which gave an omitted phrase appended to the Latin quoted here: qua anima eius ab angelis ducebatur ad caelum.

Synthesis and editorializing

I certainly agree that the various suggested European accounts are most likely spurious. But the article as it stands is really trying too hard to press home that point, there are entire paragraphs of unreferenced editorializing. Wikipedia articles shouldn't become obsessed with building a convincing argument in Wikipedia's own voice. Just say the accounts are mostly considered spurious and then lay out the various opinions. The only thing you will achieve by going beyond that is that the reader will get the impression that "the lady doth protest too much". --dab (𒁳) 10:07, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Apparently, the article as I found it followed the structure of the "featured" French article almost slavishly. The French article may be "featured" on fr-wiki, but it falls very much short of the standards required on en-wiki even to prevent it from being littered with cleanup tags, let alone qualifying for "featured" content.

That said, the "French" material is excellent raw material to write the article, so it's good to have it. The gist of the "historical" portion is certainly correct in that there is reliable evidence from Chinese astronomy, belated (13th century) evidence in one Japanese and one Arabic source (not counting the later Japanese documents which are entirely based on the 13th century one), and one halfway plausible Italian record recorded in the 15th century. Then there is a bunch of highly dubious material, all kinds of European "celestial signs" recorded in relation to the death of Leo IX (it must be understood that in the case of such events, medieval chronicles are going to record celestial signs no matter what, so the coincidence of the pope's death actually serves to obfuscate any possible sighting there may have been recorded with standard stuff inserted by chroniclers almost by default), plus a few random North American petroglyphs which could represent anything at all just for good measure. --dab (𒁳) 12:47, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It took me a while to realize that the article is essentially a machine translation of the French article, with a few manual tweaks. There is even a French image caption which slipped into the body of the text somehow. Obviously this will not do at all, but I feel more at liberty in cleaning up dubious material knowing that some text ended up here as it were without human interaction. --dab (𒁳) 13:36, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed I should have looked at article history first. This edit consisted of a dump of a raw translation of the French text. Reverted, then added back here by Conversum (talk · contribs). Why would anyone do something like this? I realise the article used to be a near-stub before,[1] but what is the point of replacing a stub with a giant mess of raw text? "Conversum" is apparently an account dedicating to regaling en-wiki with raw machine translations of non-English articles. This is the first time I come across this, ahem, novel concept... --dab (𒁳) 06:54, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistence in Ibn Butlan dates

The dates provided in Ibn Butlan section does not correspond with 1054. The year AH 446 is 1068, more than 10 years from the Supernova sighting. Any idea? Hispa (talk) 18:52, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed Accounts in Indigenous Traditions

I clarified in the section on Ooldea, South Australia that the supernova interpretation is purely speculative and highlighted my recent research showing the difficulty in confirming supernovae accounts in oral traditions. To date, there are NO confirmed supernovae in Indigenous oral or material culture from anywhere in the world, including Arizona. Dhamacher (talk) 06:31, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Axial precession

Correct me if i'm wrong, but if axial precession meant that Ibn Butlan saw SN 1054 in the Gemini constellation, doesn't that mean that the Chinese would have as well? Just saying.Dretler (talk) 16:27, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

AD vs. CE

WP:ERA suggests that any marker of AD or CE is not needed unless there is possibility of confusion, but that the best policy between AD vs. CE is to do nothing once the choice as been made, unless there is a good reason. An editor has decided to change AD to CE without reason. I choose, rather than challenging that by simply reverting (that would be the obvious decision), to go to the best choice of no choice. I agree that the issue is not worth edit wars. I hope that will not result. TomS TDotO (talk) 06:01, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Best known SN?

Resolved

"SN 1054 is the best known supernova in the history of astronomy."

I'd like to see a cite for that statement. As far as scientific material readily available to the general public, I've heard and read much more about Tycho's supernova (SN 1572) during my lifetime than I have about SN 1054. And as far as "best-known" in the sense of most studied supernova, SN 1987A laps them all, because it occurred at a time when modern technology was available to study it as it occurred. Jsc1973 (talk) 16:13, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I just changed it from "best known", which I agree is a questionable claim, to "one of the best known", which is certainly true. Easy fix. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:36, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Colour - unknown - I doubt it

Forgive my ignorance but why do we write "unknown" for colour of such a clear object? If we cannot source a net accumulation (if that is what is taken) then the custom is to leave blank or e.g. a footnote note "Cumulative colour indexing needed". If it is as I rather suspect "complex" that should be spelt out.- Adam37 Talk 07:52, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Redacted?

In Historical records > Chinese astronomy section we have "historiographical works of which the extant text was redacted perhaps within a few decades of the event". Redacted? My understanding of the word is that it means censored, or deleted. It refers to things which are no longer there. I think it ought to be replaced by "extracted", shouldn't it? Unless someone can point to usage of "redacted" anywhere that conforms to the intent of that sentence. 2001:56A:F0E9:9B00:184A:C8A1:C613:46F3 (talk) 02:13, 25 June 2022 (UTC)JustSomeWikiReader

Issue with wording

In the article it states in numerous places that the explosion occured in 1054. I think wording should be changed to confer that the explosion occurred 6000 years before that, but was only first witnessed in 1054. 62.90.130.50 (talk) 05:53, 26 July 2023 (UTC)