Talk:Robert Burnham Jr.

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Comets[edit]

The article says he co-discovered several comets. I have only been able to find the two I listed at the end of the article. I have not been able to find a good resource to complete the list. Rsduhamel 19:21, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

One good resource is http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/CometDes.html . Just type "Burnham" into the search field (however, this will find any comet discovered by anyone named "Burnham", which in principle might not necessarily be the same individual. Occasionally, this can be a problem (for instance, one of the comets with "Swift" in its name was not discovered by Lewis Swift, but his son). -- Curps 22:07, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Because of the effort needed to establish exactly which comets were discovered by who, and the fact that most non-periodic comets are long gone away in their thousand-year orbits and really have not that much lasting significance, I haven't listed comet discoveries in tabular form for most astronomers. If you do so, you should use the new-style designations (eg, C/1958 D1) instead of old-style ones (eg, 1958 III or 1958a). -- Curps 22:14, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've tracked down three, and tried to use the proper names. There is a converter here which helped. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. All comet[s]:

1957f = C/1957 U1 L-S-Burnham.
1958a = C/1958 D1 Burnham.
1959a = 56P Slaughter-Burnham.
1958e = C/1958 R1 Burnham-Slaughter.
1960a = C/1960 B1 Burnham.
1959k = C/1959 Y1 Burnham.

(http://www.icq.eps.harvard.edu/names1.html) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.206.57.206 (talk) 04:51, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate Articles[edit]

Recently I noticed that there are two different articles about Robert Burnham, Jr. This article Robert Burnham, Jr. (with a comma) is one, and Robert Burnham Jr. (without a comma) is the other. I found the no-comma article when I did a search about a week ago. Unaware that there was any other article about him, I spent a few days researching and expanding that article and linking it to several others. Finally, in the course of linking everything, I ran across this article. It seems to me that the two should be merged. This article was started about a year ago, and the one I've been working on was started a couple months ago (not by me). I believe that this article is more accurately named. So, I think the other article should be merged into this one. The other one is significantly longer (probably too long), but I think that there is good content in both articles. I'm new here and don't want to step on any toes, so I was hoping to get the opinion of some experienced Wikipedians about the best way to proceed. --DannyZ 05:10, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The first thing to do is find out the proper spelling. The NASA ADS, out of 86 articles attributed to Burnham, R., lists only 8 for Jr. The only scanned-in article uses "R. Burnham, Jr.". Other votes for the comma:

The Absolute Astronomy encyclopedia entry.
The Cometography entry.
The cover of his book.
And numerous others.

In fact, it seems the non-comma is hard to justify.

Urhixidur 14:14, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

Category Astronomy[edit]

I've reverted this categorisation, since category American Astronomers is already a member (eventually) Ian Cairns 19:23, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem whatsoever with reverting the categorization here. I believe that it was correct to do so. I also believe, however, that there was no valid reason to revert to the article version of 14:41, 7 May 2005 rather the version of 03:48, 16 May 2005 (the last version before the incorrect categorization). I think there may have been some (unintentional) collateral damage when doing so. Most of the content of this article was imported from a duplicate article (see discussion above). The two articles were merged (skillfully, I think) on 7 May 2005 by Urhixidur. On 16 May 2005, I edited the article again primarily to remove a couple of duplications that still remained from the merge. For example, the 7 May version (now the current article as of this writing) states twice that the Celestial Handbook was self-published. It also states twice that the proper motion survey that Burnham was working on at Lowell ended in 1979. While I was at it, I also did a little cleanup where I felt that it would help the accuracy or clarity and perhaps eliminate some slight redundancies in the article. For example, I removed the reference to "Arizona skies" in the third paragraph since it had just been stated that Burnham was living in Arizona and unnecessary to explain that he was observing "the sky" with his telescope. I removed the quote from Tony Ortega describing Burnham as a "writer, astronomer, finder of comets and asteroids...". I had earlier used that quote as an introductory statement in the duplicate article, but I felt that it was not necessary in the merged article. I changed "many hundreds of photographic plates" to "hundreds of photographic plates" since the actual number was a few hundred and I thought that "many hundreds" (which I had originally written) was unnecessary hyperbole. I changed the piped link for "Balboa Park" to replace the awkward name "Balboa Park (San Diego, California)", since it was already stated in the same sentence that he was living in San Diego, California. I didn't change the target of the link, just the visible name to improve the readability. Perhaps I should have explained my edits of 16 May on the discussion page but, since I was making fairly minor edits only to text that I had originally written, I never thought about it. I am proposing to restore the article to the version of 03:48, 16 May 2005 (just before the incorrect categorization) unless there are objections to doing so. Thanks, and sorry for the long-winded explanation. --DannyZ 23:57, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies - I think you have analysed the situation correctly. My reversion button automatically reverts to the version before the last user's (multiple) edits. Thanks, Ian Cairns 05:52, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. And thank you for all the work you're doing on Wikipedia. I'm reverting as explained above now.--DannyZ 06:39, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Self-interviews[edit]

These references were removed. They seem helpful to include somewhere. Tom Ruen (talk) 14:03, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Burnham Jr., Robert (2011-06-16). Ortega, Tony (ed.). "Robert Burnham Jr.'s 1983 Testament: An Astronomer-Recluse Inscribes His Universe (Part I)". The Village Voice.
Burnham Jr., Robert (2011-06-17). Ortega, Tony (ed.). "Robert Burnham Jr.'s 1983 Testament: An Astronomer-Recluse Inscribes His Universe (Part II)". The Village Voice.

Thanks. I will take a look at a good place to use them! RobP (talk) 14:07, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tom Ruen: As I thought, these same two items were in Ext Links, and they are still there. My intention is - at some point - to add some material from one or both to the article and use them as citations. Or you can give that a go first if you like. RobP (talk) 23:51, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tom Ruen: OK... I added a quote from the first Voice article and then cited both as references. The article is looking much better IMHO... Just wish there was a photo of Burnham in Commons.RobP (talk) 03:07, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Photo?[edit]

Could a photo be gotten from author Tony Ortega? He seems to have access to Burnham's papers/family/somesuch. TuckerResearch (talk) 19:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I added a banner to alert editors that a photo of Burnham is desired. However there is none in Commons. Someone edited the banner adding this note (which I just removed from the banner): Photo here [1]

Note that I have just passed a request to the person credited with ownership of this photo to upload it to Commons so it may be used on this page. RobP (talk) 05:30, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tony Ortega's new website appears to be: [2].

Did you ever get a reply on this photo usage request? TuckerResearch (talk) 20:07, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No. But thank you for reminding me. I will ask again about the photo. I also added an ext link to the article with the photo temporarily. RobP (talk) 02:40, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tuckerresearch: Update: Yesterday Ortega sent me a photo he owns, and I had him email Commons their license verification form. Just now I uploaded the photo to Commons and added it to the info-box! Thanks for spurring me on. RobP (talk) 20:32, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Rp2006: Thank you for doing this. I probably could have, but I'm lazy. TuckerResearch (talk) 00:31, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to the picture? See diff. TuckerResearch (talk) 22:29, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. Saw that, but I do not understand. Followed the protocol - or at least thought so. Can’t deal with it for a few weeks though. I notified someone else who may be able to resolve it sooner. RobP (talk) 22:50, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I added the banner to alert editors again that a photo of Burnham is desired. TuckerResearch (talk) 23:26, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A variety of subjects in Burnham's Celestial Handbook.[edit]

To give the readers of this article some idea of the variety of subjects in Burnham's Celestial Handbook, I am compiling some sort of overview of examples (bits of text from Burnham's, with page numbers in the references). DannyCaes (talk) 16:10, 5 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]