Talk:Pale Blue Dot/Archive 1

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Google

A quick search in Google reveals several sites (which may just be replicas) who purport the photos by Carl to have been taken, after much encouragement, https://www.planetary.org/bluedot_poster.html on 14th Febrruary, 1990, at a distance of 6.4 billion kilometers. If there are no objections, and preferably encouragement, I would like to modify this page so it is is consistent with scientific units of measurement, and also give the date of the turn around.

Does anyone know how to convert the text of the admirably credited excerpt into the standard font of wikipedia, while maintaining acknowledgement?

Details and references

I've been adding some details, citations, and references to this article, but I'm being called away in the middle of some fact-checking. At the moment, I've left two unresolved discrepancies:

  • Several references date the photograph as 1990-06-06, but one (fairly authoritative) source claims it's 1990-02-14.
  • Sagan's book apparently states Voyager's distance as "3.7 billion miles", but other sources say it's "4 billion" or "more than 4 billion".

More research and improved sources are needed. If I don't get back to this quickly, perhaps some others may want to pick it up. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Potentially useful: NASA's page on the subject. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00452

The image was indeed taken Feb. 14th, 1990. It took months to radio the photos back, and was eventually shown to the public by Carl Sagan at a press conference. 67.242.0.144 (talk) 20:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

maru (talk) contribs 04:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, Marudubshinki. I don't remember the exact text of the original Planetary Society page, and it no longer appears available either cached by Google or indexed by the Wayback Machine. I found what I believe to be a suitable replacement page from TPS — one that includes the February 14 date that earned the original's citation — and have updated the reference. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Appropriate wording?

In the article it says something along the lines of "Sagan, an athiest, ...." This should be clarified as Sagan was not an atheist, merely an agnostic. Yes, I suppose this is debatable, but I don't think Carl ever said straight out that he was an atheist. Regardless, whether or not he was an atheist has nothing to do with the entire sentence, which states Sagan's views on human pride, etc. 151.205.171.172 02:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, we have this:


Emphasis added. I'll remove the adjective. mdf 13:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That might have been Carl's personal definition in that book, but the term atheist strictly means non-theist. You see this argument coming linguistically, but also from many atheists themselves. The confusion comes from the fact that ordinary people assume that non-belief is the same as rejection of a god, as well as the fact that loud militants on both sides give the impression that atheists say "there is no god". Ann Druyan made it clear that Carl did not believe in any god. To keep all parties happy, the term "non-theist" probably describes him best. 67.242.0.144 (talk) 20:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Problem

Why is half of this article not appearing when edited? Latitude0116 00:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Falsification

I'm not sure if the quote is accurate, it contains a few lines that I have not seen in other versions of the speech, maybe it has been falsely tampered with? "The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand." I think someone made this up. Mind if I change it? The Judaic Jedi 01:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No, there are the original words from Carl Sagan. Taken out of the book "Pale Blue Dot". Netcop1000 (talk) 22:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

If those are words from the book, why is the quote cited as being from "a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996"...? -- Jeffschuler (talk) 15:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I assume he copied that part of his book from the text of his address? Shinobu (talk) 07:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
  • slapping forehead* There are different version of the Pale Blue Dot passage; one in the book, a version for the audiobook, and various versions in speaking engagements. As the PBD meme grew, it became clear that there were at least two different Sagan narrations out there- one from the audiobook, and another one that is either audio-edited, or from a commencement address. 67.242.0.144 (talk) 20:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, without a citation by which somebody can verify this, it's an unsubstantiated claim, so I am going to remove it. It never fails to amaze me how eager people are to attribute messages of great wisdom to a "commencement address".--Rhombus (talk) 06:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Broken Ref

13. # ^ "http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/pale_blue_dot.htm".

Reference number 13 is a broken link.

71.215.221.115 22:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

One of the other links I clicked was also broken. Maybe all links need to be checked. Shinobu (talk) 07:27, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Accuracy of text

The text of Sagan's quote has had a few (admittedly minor) alterations from the quote on the referenced page (http://obs.nineplanets.org/psc/pbd.html) - is there a definite source for this quote? David 12:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Text is taken unmodified out of Carl Sagans Book "Pale Blue Dot"! Netcop1000 (talk) 22:28, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

That quote gave the chills.


No one version should be taken as the definitive version. Carl himself tweaked it in the last years of his life. The different versions should be offered, noting there are different versions, and their source should be offered. Ann Druyan or the Sagan Appreciation Society should be able to help with sourcing.

Remove the artificial blue circle

I pledge to remove that circle. It is prevents the full appreciation of the image. Editing the picture's underwriting to "Seen from 6 billion kilometres away, Earth is (but) a dot obscured in the uppermost beam of scattered sunlight" should say all that's necessary. -- User:91.11.200.28 20:33, 19 Sep 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The picture is better without the circle. The circle is not even in the original picture. Fabben (talk) 23:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I think I tend to agree too. Shinobu (talk) 07:28, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The photograph is distinct from the book

The photograph is distinct from the book, and these should not be covered in the same article just because they share a name. I suggest that the article be split in two; perhaps the information on the photograph should be merged into the Family Portrait (Voyager) article, which is pretty short and has little other scope for expansion.--Pharos 04:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, it probably makes more sense to just merge Family Portrait (Voyager) here, because although that's technically the larger topic, the Pale Blue Dot aspect is -much- better known. Then, we can just spin off Sagan's book to Pale Blue Dot (book).--Pharos 06:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Pharos, the original image was taken at the behest of Carl Sagan, over the objection of some in NASA. At the 11th hour, financially speaking, Admiral Truly gave the go-ahead, and on Valentine's Day, 1990 Voyager 1 took that photo. It took months for it to be radioed back to Earth. Carl's book and the image bear the same name because both were his idea, and his title. There would be no such photo, no meme, if not for Carl Sagan's idea and prodding. 67.242.0.144 (talk) 20:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Order of precedence of the subheads

Why is the section on the meme first? Shouldn't the article talk about the photograph itself first?

Jimgeorge (talk) 04:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

this seemed like a good idea and i changed it 138.28.142.28 (talk) 16:43, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Originator of the idea

The article mentions Carl Sagan as the originator of the idea to take these historical photographs. The article on Carolyn Porco mentions her as co-originator of the idea, with an appropriate reference. Perhaps that should be reflected in this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.45.175 (talk) 23:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Lead Image

I'd like to replace the lead image with this one. I think it is more faithful as the original, and has the added advantage of being larger. Mostlyharmless (talk) 07:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Smaller than a pixel - how?

If a pixel is the smallest item of information in an image, how could Earth be smaller than a pixel, as stated in the article 0.12 pixels? You can't have any unit smaller than a pixel. Could anyone explain this and/or modify to the article to clarify this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.168.246.92 (talk) 23:24, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Technically, there is no unit "smaller than a pixel," but in the context it is used here, perhaps it is used to imply something less than a full pixel. Individual pixels vary from 100% white to 100% black at the other end of the spectrum, and the pixel in question doesn't stand out as a strong or bright pixel, hence the cited NASA article referred to it as "...less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera" and that Earth was "a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size," probably meaning that a sizable percentage of the pixel was darkened out. All said, probably, to try to convey to the reader how small the Earth looks in the photo. --AzureCitizen (talk) 15:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

The cross section area of the Earth (π r 2 = 127,800,000 km2) is 12% of the area represented by a full pixel of the image at the Earth's distance from the camera, given the image's angular field of view. 71.198.176.22 (talk) 22:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The pixel is a unit of representation, which means the dot is uniform and contains no detail. If you imagine a pixel (receptor) the size of a frying pan, and shine a laser point into it the best that pixel can record and represent to you is a light of low intensity the size of a frying pan, if this makes sense. 137.111.13.200 (talk) 02:57, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

A noteworthy(?) distinction...

The commentary about the values expressed in the film "The Privileged Planet" seems unnecessary, and it doesn't read like an encyclopaedia. "This appears to emphasize..." sounds like opinion rather than fact, or original research. Can I suggest that everything from 'A noteworthy distinction' onwards be removed as, ironically, un-noteworthy? ⇐ ǝɓpỊɹqɯɐq ʞɔỊu 12:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Quote attribution

One of the picture captions says Sagan points out that "all of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, which is our only home.", but several other sites attribute this quote to Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth. Could someone please shed some light on this and correct it if necessary? —Preceding unsigned comment added by AgentPlastic (talk • contribs) 12:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Page and pages

Several references have both a page= and a pages= parameter. It couldn't have been intentional, because only one of those two statistics is displaying in the article. Reference number 4, for instance, is encoded as |page=XV |pages=302 | but page 302 doesn't appear in the finished article. Art LaPella (talk) 06:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The moon?

Looking at the full sized image (must be full sized, or it is not there), I see an even smaller speck than the earth just a little bit up and to the right of earth. Is that the moon? Because if it is, it seems mention of this might be worthy article material.Farsight001 (talk) 01:04, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

There's been no mention of the moon in reliable sources (such as NASA's own documentation), at least that I'm aware of. Mostlyharmless (talk) 05:27, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Just found a source for the moon claim. Detailed analysis also suggests that Voyager detected the moon as well, but it is too faint to be seen without special processing. And I added it to the article. Cheers. Suraj T 10:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Voyager "leaving the solar system"?

There are a couple references in this article to Voyager "leaving the solar system." However, Voyager is most definitely still far away from the farthest distance at which objects orbit the Sun. It is only ~100AU out, and Sedna, for instance goes out to around 1000AU at the farthest point in its orbit. And the Oort Cloud is orders of magnitude farther out than Sedna. There are a couple of important boundaries Voyager has crossed: the heliopause, the bow shock, the orbit of Neptune, and the edge of the Kuiper Belt. If the references to the "edge of the solar system" are meant to refer to one of those limits, please correct it. Otherwise, I will remove all discussion of the "edge of the solar system."Rppeabody (talk) 03:45, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's be realistic. It has always been a common understanding that the solar system stops when when you go past the last planet, Neptune these days. It may not be a definition that satisfies major astronomy geeks, but it is the most common one. Maybe the statements just needs to be rephrased using such words - e.g. "passing the orbit of Neptune, the last major planet." HiLo48 (talk) 11:58, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

When exactly was whole image transferred?

I don't understand the following paragraph from the article:

Between February 14, 1990 and June 6, 1990, one image Voyager returned was of Earth, showing up as a "pale blue dot" in the grainy photograph.

Did it take the whole time interval (from February 14 to June 6) OR was the image transferred somewhere "between February 14 and June 6" (and NASA somehow doesn't know exactly when)? Or is there some 3rd interpretation? --92.37.71.15 (talk) 19:15, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That is a rather poorly worded sentence I will admit. Acquiring and transmitting the photos required the duration of time between those two mentioned dates. Long exposures were necessary to observe each planet and the time to transmit each image back to Earth required several days each I believe. What the sentence is implying is that one of the photos acquired between the dates, was the photo that included Earth, known poetically as the "Pale Blue Dot" as described in this article. The sentence could certainly be reworded for clarification. --Xession (talk) 19:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Xession, thank you. And do they (NASA) know when was the Pale Blue Dot acquired? --92.37.71.15 (talk) 12:09, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm eagerly waiting for an answer, should anyone have one. Just wanted to say that I didn't forget. :) --92.37.92.124 (talk) 09:24, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Finding sources

Suraj T 04:29, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

changes to third paragraph of Background and second paragraph of Photograph

The Background paragraph had numerous problems, and I've only hit the rough edges. I don't have new references related to the changes, but what I modified wasn't well supported by references anyway. I hope that someone can take it further.

I cleaned up the language, including clarifying tense, modifying punctuation, and improving the wording in various places (such as replacing "might burn-out" with "risked damaging").

"would be better to delay the photograph until all the scientific observation of Uranus and Neptune had commenced" made no sense. First, "commenced" obviously needed to be "completed". (I do not find this statement supported in the references anyway.) Also, Voyager I did not observe Uranus and Neptune, so the second part of the statement must refer to waiting until the V.II mission was complete. Presumably this was to avoid interactions between the missions, but without references I can't clarify it further. I did however alter the wording to try to make it clear that the risk of damage had nothing to do with the Uranus and Neptune observations.

The sentence "The image is a portion of a wide-angle image containing the sun and the region of space where the Earth and Venus were at the time with two narrow-angle pictures centered on each planet" also makes little or no sense. It's quote verbatim from the (public domain) source referenced, and makes little sense there either. However, reading that entire source makes it clear that a word is missing: it should say "a mosaic of a portion". But also, the mosaic being described is not the image presented and described in this article, but rather a mosaic showing where the narrow angle photos of Venus and Earth fit in the wide angle photo containing the sun and both planets. Frankly I find this sentence (even as I fixed it), image, and reference of little value for this paragraph, but I feared that if I just deleted it, that it would get reinstated without repair.

The confusion between the wide angle photo, the narrow angle photo, and the composite also appears in the Photograph section. Fixed awkward wording in several places. Reworded and restructured to correct the impression that the "pale blue dot" photo was part of a wide angle image, including modifying the caption of the composite image to explain the difference. Note that the four sentences starting with the one about the "darkest filter" were vebatim from the JPL web site and thus had never been adjusted to fit properly into the article. Deleted "transmitted at the speed of light" (duh, that could be added to every single statement about spacecraft communication). I left the part about the 5:30 time and and delayed transmission, but deleted the reference -- I think the delay is well known, but the reference says nothing about it. I also left "sent earlier" despite the missing antecedent (earlier than what?) in the hope that it can be filled in. I deleted the statement about 640,000 pixels, since while probably correct it's not of great interest and again the reference does not support it. (I suspect that references have gotten mixed up in editing and that the refs to the NYT blog were originally to something else, but I haven't figured out where they intended to go.) Paleolith (talk) 18:06, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts in improving the article. There was a typo in the reference originally meant to reference various points you mentioned above. I have restored the reference and the photograph section and it may be discussed about further changes. Suraj T 05:10, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
You reverted many changes that I made for the sake of fixing one reference. I spent about three hours researching and writing those changes. I'm glad you found and fixed the reference, but I do not understand at all your wholesale deletion of my corrections. Could you please explain your deletion of my changes as thoroughly as I explained why I made them, so that we can move forward and improve the article without getting an edit war? Thanks.
Also, your reference to the 1990 Sagan article needs to be improved. The article appeared in Parade magazine, a Sunday magazine which is distributed in hundreds of newspapers in the US. You found a copy distributed by the Prescott Courier, but they were only the distributor even though their name is printed on the cover (as it is with all distributors of Parade). The link is good as a reference to a copy (since the Parade web site only has archives from 2010 and 2011) but the citation should be for Parade rather than for the Prescott Courier.
I initially added a section break here in the Talk and then accidentally deleted it when I edited my post. I have restored the section break, since it does not belong as part of the preceding section.
Paleolith (talk) 16:38, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Well. You removed details for which I spent days researching. Its of no use pointing fingers at each other. We both want the article improved and there's no need for an edit war. For starters I have changed the link name you mentioned above to read PARADE Magazine.
My explanations relating to the changes I made are as follows:
  1. "would be better to delay the photograph until all the scientific observation of Uranus and Neptune had commenced" had been changed to "would be better to delay the photograph until all the Voyager 2 observation of Uranus and Neptune had been completed" as you pointed out above.
  1. You mentioned "(I do not find this statement supported in the references anyway.)" ---> ref fixed.
  2. "waiting until the V.II mission was complete" was not necessary as the original statement was was sourced by the reference.
  3. You have mentioned above: "risk of damage had nothing to do with the Uranus and Neptune observations". Ofcourse it has to do with Uranus and Neptune observations. If Voyager 1 had tried photographing Earth (at a small angle between Earth and the Sun) and if the on-board video systems got damaged it would not be possible to observe Uranus and Neptune after that. As the observation of Uranus and Neptune had a higher priority, Pale Blue Dot was delayed. This point was obvious in the statement and did not have to be changed. Anyway I changed the wording a bit to improve clarity. The change: "Though many in NASA's Voyager program were supportive, most were of the opinion that taking a picture with a small angle between the Sun and the Earth risked damaging the spacecraft's video system, and that it would be better to delay the photograph until all the Voyager 2 observation of Uranus and Neptune had been completed." ---> "Though many in NASA's Voyager program were supportive, most were of the opinion that taking a picture with a small angle between the Sun and the Earth risked damaging the spacecraft's video system, which might disrupt the further observation of Uranus and Neptune. Hence it was eventually decided that it would be better to delay the photograph until all the Voyager 1 observations of Uranus and Neptune had been completed."
  4. "The image is a portion of a wide-angle image containing the sun and the region of space where the Earth and Venus were at the time with two narrow-angle pictures centered on each planet" had been changed to "The Pale Blue Dot is originally a portion of a wide-angle image containing the sun and the region of space where the Earth and Venus were at that time. The wide-angle image was inset with two narrow-angle pictures centered on Earth and Venus."
  5. You mentioned "Reworded and restructured to correct the impression that the "pale blue dot" photo was part of a wide angle image". Correct the impression?. Its a fact. As can be understood from the photograph, Pale Blue Dot was indeed a part of the larger wide angle image.
  6. I restored the statement "transmitted at the speed of light". It was not mentioned in all sentences relating to satellite communications. Rather it was mentioned once where it was needed. Its not that only astronauts and spacecraft engineers are going to visit this page. People who have very little background knowledge in the physics of satellite communication systems are equally likely to visit this page. (Page view statistics if you are interested.) Hence I restored the statement.
  7. The statement "scheduled to be received earlier" was changed to "scheduled to be received earlier than it was received" in my change.
  8. "64000 pixels" is a technical detail about the photograph which was properly sourced. And there's no reason according to me why it should not be included in the article. Hence I restored it.
Further suggestions from you are most welcome. Suraj T 05:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the additional explanations. Several of my objections are satisfied by the fixed reference to the Sagan article.
There are two main places I still disagree. The first amounts to a question of whether statements and claims which don't make sense should be reproduced in WP, even if they can be sourced. I believe they should not. Carl Sagan, despite his reputation and popularity, is not a particularly reliable source. (This is not to criticize Sagan, but simply to point out that his goals and intents were often persuasive and poetical at least as much as scientific.)
The second deals with the wide vs narrow angle question, which I'll address below. The caption is confusing, but when read carefully and combined with other images in the collection, it tells a different story.
I now think that all references to observations of Uranus and Neptune, and reasons for the delay from 1981 to 1989, should simply be deleted. Note that the WP article on Voyager 1, despite being rather thorough, makes no reference to V1 making any observations of Uranus and Neptune. And why would it? It was too far away from them to make any useful scientific observations. (Just as the Solar System Portrait was for public, not scientific, consumption.) Sagan's paragraph about this doesn't really give the reason for the delay -- and remember that this appeared in a popular magazine and was probably heavily edited, possibly by an editor with meagre scientific knowledge, and possibly without Sagan's subsequent review, before publication. Sagan himself probably would not have cited it as a reference. Without another reference for the reason for the delay, I don't think it should be included. Ah-- [here's a NASA page] describing the post-Saturn V1. Look down to the part starting "after nearly nine years of dormancy". This makes it abundantly clear that V1's cameras were never used after 1981 except for the SSP. It gives no reason for the delay, but makes it clear that conflict in use of the cameras was NOT an issue.
The more I look, the more I think that nothing in the text of Sagan's article in Parade should be used as a source. The article should be mentioned because it reached a great many people and was undoubtedly significant in the popularization of the PBD, but it just isn't reliable. (I never read Parade, because it's basically a trash rag. I would not trust the accuracy of anything I see there.) I also tried googling several sentences from that article and could find it nowhere, and I find it quite significant that an article by Sagan appears to be so widely ignored. I take this to mean that it's not generally considered useful.
No, [it's NOT part of a wide-angle photograph!] You have misinterpreted the caption on the photo you reference. It says "The image is a portion of a wide-angle image containing the sun and the region of space where the Earth and Venus were at the time with two narrow-angle pictures centered on each planet". "The image" means the image displayed on that page -- the composite. Taking out some of the description to reduce it to its elements, it says "a portion of a wide angle image ... with two narrow-angle images". That's not describing the PBD image -- it's describing what is shown on that page: a composite of a wide angle image and two narrow angle images. Furthermore, the link I give above states very clearly that the PDB is 0.12 pixel in the narrow-angle image, thus the PDB could not have been 0.12 pixels in the wide angle image. Wide-angle and narrow-angle refer to two physically separate cameras in V1.
A good part of that paragraph described the wide-angle composite. It needs to be made much clearer which statements apply to the wide angle image, the narrow angle image, and the composite.
Citing "the speed of light" just makes it look like a mash-up of the Sagan article. I don't buy the argument that about the page being visited by people who know nothing about the physics. If they don't even know that much, this isn't the place to introduce it. I would find it far more appropriate to cite the distance from the earth.
Edward Paleolith (talk) 01:14, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

The rewritten second paragraph ("Photograph") now reads:

Between February 14, 1990 and June 6, 1990, Voyager 1 returned 60 frames back to earth, which were stored in an on-board tape recorder after being taken. One of the pictures returned was of Earth showing up as a pale blue dot [...]

Is it known when was the Pale Blue Dot frame taken? --85.10.44.112 (talk) 12:05, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

All the photographs were taken on February 14, 1990. It took almost four months to transmit them to earth; that's the range of dates. I suppose the sentence could be worded to make this clearer. 199.44.20.94 (talk) 20:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
In response to Paleolith, as far as I know, though I'm not very sure about it, Voyager 1 made pass-by observations of Uranus and Neptune and not a detailed observation like that of Jupiter or Saturn. Not every detail can be added to the Voyager 1 article. As it is not a featured article now (for it to be complete in every aspect), I would incline to believe that the non-inclusion of details about Uranus and Neptune observations in the Voyager 1 article should be a reason to not include it here.
The reason for the delay from 1981 to 1989 is clearly mentioned here as "Though many in NASA's Voyager program were supportive, most were of the opinion that taking a picture with a small angle between the Sun and the Earth risked damaging the spacecraft's video system, and that it would be better to delay the photograph until all the Voyager 2 observation of Uranus and Neptune had been completed." And this photograph was never meant to be for scientific consumption as you mentioned.
As for Sagan's reliability, I dont think it can be questioned as far as this article is concerned. Many reputable NASA sources credit Sagan for having worked with and pursued NASA to take the Pale Blue Dot image. Hence his word on what happened in taking the photograph can be used as a reliable source for use in this article, though, his reliability in other cases maybe according to your views.
Now for the reliability of The Presscot Courier. The first point in WP:NEWSORG says "When taking information from opinion pieces, the identity of the author may help determine reliability.", though it also says "Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Wikipedia article will be assessed on a case by case basis.". I suppose for this case, the benefit of doubt definitely goes to The Presscot courier. "probably heavily edited, possibly by an editor with meagre scientific knowledge, possibly without Sagan's subsequent review, Sagan probably would not have cited it as a reference, etc., according to me are your personal views and they are reasons which are not strong enough to be considered here unless you can show definitely that these were true for the article in question. Since you seem to have more knowledge on this magazine, I would request you to provide solid reasons for not considering the particular article before removing relevant details.
On the NASA page you mentioned, I'm of the opinion that it was a relative statement. The line reads "After its encounter with Saturn, Voyager 1 remained relatively quiescent, continuing to make in situ observations of the interplanetary environment and UV observations of stars." In other words, It was dormant relatively w.r.to its previous observations. In no way it says the cameras were not used even once. I agree that there are very few mentions of the observations of Uranus and Neptune. But that just means that there has not been much results obtained from it rather than it never happening.
I have not misinterpreted the caption. See this. The link you gave does not mention Pale Blue Dot is not part of a wide-angle image. In fact it does not say anything about wide angle images. Seems you mistook the link for another one. And two or more cameras can be used to take a single image. Thanks. Suraj T 05:32, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
This will be my last attempt to contribute to this article. It appears to me that your mind is made up and that you will not be swayed by references or explanations. I'm not going to get into an edit war -- I hope you have noticed that I have not altered the article since my first contribution. You are repeatedly misinterpreting simple, basic statements. Unless you are willing to listen to people who understand the source language better, I won't be able to convince you of anything.
You seem to have already forgotten our discussion of Parade Magazine. You go on at length defending the Prescott Courier, which only carried Parade as an insert and is in no way responsible for its content. If this had been an article produced by the Courier, I would treat it differently. Parade is a better reference than the Weekly World News. If something were in the WWN I would assume it's wrong. If it's in Parade, I only assume I need another source. Any dependence on Parade for a WP article makes a mockery of the concept of citation, unless you are writing about Parade itself, which is certainly not the case here. (And BTW, please learn to spell Prescott. I've been there, though only for a day.)
What do I know about Parade? I grew up reading it. It's part of American culture. Probably 50% of the US population has access to it in the Sunday newspaper. (They claim circulation of 32 million, but most of those are delivered to family homes.) No, I haven't gone looking for critical reviews of Parade. It probably isn't critically reviewed very often simply because everyone knows what it is: a popular magazine geared toward light Sunday entertainment. I gave up reading it, with no regrets, when I was in high school. It's probably been 45 years since I opened it, but I'm certain it hasn't changed. Its market and method of distribution certainly haven't changed.
You cite words from that article in Parade: "Though many in NASA's Voyager program were supportive, most were of the opinion that taking a picture with a small angle between the Sun and the Earth risked damaging the spacecraft's video system, and that it would be better to delay the photograph until all the Voyager 2 observation of Uranus and Neptune had been completed." Your reasoning depends on a very specific reading of the words, which does not even conform with the actual syntax. The statement is that the photo risked damage AND that it should wait. The sentence does NOT say that it should wait BECAUSE of the risk of damage. And in any case, I point out again that this was from an article in Parade. Even a reliable newspaper would edit an article from even someone as prominent as Sagan -- they have style standards and space limitations. Parade would edit any way they felt made the article more popular with their readership. That's not an insult to Parade, just a statement about what it is.
It's particularly notable that THIS ARTICLE CANNOT BE FOUND ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE WEB. I don't know what collections of Sagan's writings are available. But as popular as he was, I'd expect any well-regarded article he wrote to be reproduced in many places -- mostly in violation of copyright, but still in many places. The fact that this cannot be found ANYWHERE except in Parade speaks volumes.
You've again misinterpreted the NASA page. It made "in situ" observations. This means that it made observations IN PLACE -- where it was. (And made UV observations of stars.) You ignore the very next sentence, the one I quoted, which says that the CAMERAS went through "nearly nine years of dormancy". This unquestionably means that the cameras were OFF for almost nine years. I do not understand why you insist that saying V1 was somewhat active during those nine years means that its cameras were used, when the very same paragraph makes it so abundantly clear that they were not.
Surely with all the time you've spent on this, you understand the implications of the fact that on leaving Saturn, V1 was traveling at a 35 degree angle to the ecliptic. You say as far as I know, though I'm not very sure about it, Voyager 1 made pass-by observations of Uranus and Neptune. Why do you think this makes it good enough to put in WP? It's disputed and you have no reference. And if you understand the part about leaving the ecliptic plane after (and because of) the Triton observation, then you'll realize that it could not possibly have made a "pass-by observation" of Uranus and Neptune. The closest it got to Uranus was when it was observing Saturn -- not quite true, but swinging out of the ecliptic at 35 degrees kept it very far from Uranus. And I don't even know its exact path post-Saturn --it's possible that it really never did get any closer to Uranus. There are some good links on the main V1 article which show graphically the paths of V1 and V2, making it clear that they diverged in longitude as well as latitude post-Saturn. The WP article on V1 makes it clear that observations of the remaining planets were abandoned in order to make better observations of Triton.
You continue to twist the meaning of the captions on the NASA site. There are subtle shifts of meaning which escape you. I don't mind that, but you won't listen to someone who knows the language better, and I do mind that. I can't explain the words when you refuse to listen. I was trying not to "pull rank" in this regard, but you simply aren't according me the respect that I've been trying to accord you.
I give up. Goodbye. I will allow the article to continue containing all the junk you've put in.
Edward Paleolith (talk) 03:55, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Oh! I shouldn't be expressing my feelings this way, but, I find your response rather amusing. I dint stop you from editing. You are welcome to edit this article. If you aren't interested in editing this article and want to move on, you are welcome to do that as well. My linguistic abilities are more than enough for editing Wikipedia. If somebody were to block me for something, I'd care; If somebody were to initiate a sockpuppet case against me, I'd care: If someone suddenly decides not to respect me, I wouldn't care one bit. Since you have not provided relevant sources for issues raised by me, and assuming you tried to improve this article in good faith, I have listed this discussion here and asked for a third opinion. Suraj T 06:10, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Third Opinion

For someone to be able to offer a third opinion, you are going to need to summarize the specific points of dispute. You can't expect us to read 6 pages of text to extract what the dispute is really about. Gigs (talk) 14:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Dispute summary

  • Is the source from the PARADE Magazine article reliable (considering #1 in WP:NEWSORG?)?
  • Is the statement in the article: Though many in NASA's Voyager program were supportive, most were of the opinion that taking a picture with a small angle between the Sun and the Earth risked damaging the spacecraft's video system, which might disrupt the further observation of Uranus and Neptune. (in the Photograph section - 2nd paragraph. source) correctly interpreted from the source?
  • Are the statements in the article: The Voyager 1 space craft was initially expected to work only through the Saturn encounter. When the spacecraft passed Saturn in 1981 (...) but instrument calibrations delayed the photographs further. (in the Background section - 3rd paragraph. source) correctly interpreted from the source?

Third opinion provided

  • No
  • Irrelevant (see above)
  • Irrelevant

Find better sourcing for the statements. Either they are widely-available (which they should be given the coverage of Voyager) and thus sourceable, or they are confined to one not very useful paper in which case their utility is suspect at best. → ROUX ₪ 19:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Its an article from a magazine found from a google news search. What makes it unreliable? I suppose the guys from US consider it unreliable. Maybe it is unreliable. How am I to know about that? Wikipedia is global and you cannot expect editors from other parts of the world to just take your words to consider a news article as unreliable, unless the fact that it is unreliable can be ascertained from a reputable source. Another source but I guess it wont change your opinion. Suraj T 05:09, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
This has got to change your opinion. Suraj T 05:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
You asked for an opinion and I gave it. I'm sorry that it is not the opinion you were looking for. Also, that 'other source' is merely a reprint of the exact same article, which doesn't really help. What makes the statements you are sourcing to that article unreliable is the very fact that it is the only source for a very widely-discussed event. One would think there would be other discussions supporting what you have to say. And, I do not mean to be rude here, but if you are from outside of North America, and English is not your first language, I believe I now understand why the other user was becoming so frustrated with you, and why your interpretation of what sources have been saying is not quite correct. Again, I am not being rude, and my grasp of French and German (the only languages other than English I've learned) is significantly worse than your grasp of English. Also, FYI, I'm Canadian, not from the USA.
In any case, the other user above explained to you exactly why that source is unreliable. Your failure to listen to anything he had to say is, not to be a jerk here, entirely not my problem. And your.. insistence on not listening to what you have been told is apparently responsible for that user not editing since 16 August. Your petulance at my response to your summary of the issues is, likewise, inappropriate and frankly annoying. You asked for an opinion and I gave it. The correct thing to do is say 'thank you.' I believe that is a global phenomenon. → ROUX ₪ 05:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I dint mean to annoy anyone. Sorry for that. And sorry to Paleolith as well if my comments are the reason for him not editing. I agree my English is not as good as North Americans, but then again it is just a language and not knowledge. I hardly get to communicate in English with anyone in these parts. Should have thanked you earlier. Anyway thanks for your patient response.
I earlier missed the point you mentioned clearly in your response here. I understand your point, but, I haven't come across any guidelines stating that statements must be sourced to multiple sources to be considered reliable. And you might have missed out that the specific statements which we disputed including Voyager observing Neptune and Uranus might not have been widely discussed because they happened in a time period when the Voyager mission was supposedly ending. For the statements in question, I was of the opinion that a single source would suffice. Anyway this would be irrelevant now as the statements actually can be sourced to the book written by Carl Sagan. An excerpt here. Suraj T 06:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
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