Talk:Star Charts
Back to page
Does anybody have the ability to scan anything from this book? It seems that some of the maps contained within could really help our look on some pages about space and what-not. -- Data Noh 00:25, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- Sure, what do you want though, lots of pages with lots of pictures... --8of5 00:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- True... I haven't seen the book myself, so I'm not sure exactly what it's got. I would really be interested in a picture that could represent the territory of the Cardassian Union. -- Data Noh 00:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Added by 8of5Perfect! Thanks very much. -- Data Noh 03:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Acceptable content?
Edit
Wanted to ask, does Star Charts count as acceptable material for articles? Only reason I ask is because, after checking Memory Alpha, the Klingon history article gives a date for when the Klingons got warp drive technology and was not sure whether to add that or not. -- Darth Batrus 12:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- I'd say it's better for one of our folks to confirm that it's in the book, but it is definitely a valid source, as it carries the Paramount license. -- Data Noh 12:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- Definatly a valid source, Klingons warp capable in 930AD. -- 8of5 15:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Real life locations
Edit
One of the great things about the maps of the Federation space is that the positions of the real stars depicted are technically accurate (if one disregards the Z-axis, that is). However, without that critical Z-axis information, one still can't say "X is near Y". Contrary to popular belief, the galaxy's disk is still hundreds, if not thousands, of light years thick.
- I usually use a vague statement like 'in the general vicinity of' in cases like that, and I never assume a sector location based on the two-dimensional views in Star Charts unless a source states a specific location in that sector. -- Captain MKB 00:42, June 28, 2010 (UTC)
- I agree, saying "in the general vicinity of" is a decent way of handling it, but I have seen some articles that do say things are in the same sector, based only the Star Charts 2D representation. I don't think that Star Charts is making such an assertion, and the Z-axis is not trivial. Some of the stars drawn on that map are 100-200 light years apart, yet lie in the same grid, due to nearness of their X and Y coordinates. My comment was mainly to point out that the real stars depicted are in their true locations with respect to the galactic coordinates.
- As you can see from the above conversation and the various article histories, some of these occurrences of references are from years and years and years ago, from before we were inclined to logically source and structure article revisions. I'm sure some of the longstanding users would be gracious and pleased if we could verify and/or remove such non-sequiturs from articles, in the interest of logically defining things for the good of the wiki. -- Captain MKB 01:34, June 28, 2010 (UTC)
I went with "relatively near" for Epsilon Ceti, and also provided a background note describing how distances were noted relative to the galactic plane. I think referring to the galactic plane is quite a useful way to understand how Star Charts represents everything. --8of5 06:58, June 28, 2010 (UTC)
"Locations"
Edit
The current way in which "locations" are displayed is quite ugly; does anyone have any suggestions on how we could divide them out (by planet, by star system, etc) or should just list planets, settlements and phenomena etc all under the "locations" category? -- DS9 Forever 14:49, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
- Not sure why we need suggestions, this would be corrected very simply by using the subheadings suggested by the current style guide. Reformatting this list to match the way this site's rules require is a much needed change here, and would separate things exactly as you suggest. -- Captain MKB 19:42, September 3, 2011 (UTC)