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In astronomy, surface brightness (SB) quantifies the apparent brightness or flux density per unit angular area of a spatially extended object such as a galaxy or nebula, or of the night sky background. An object's surface brightness depends on its surface luminosity density, i.e., its luminosity emitted per unit surface area.
An image of NGC 45, a low surface brightness spiral galaxy, by GALEX. UGC 477 is located over 110 million light-years away in the constellation of Pisces. [1]A low-surface-brightness galaxy, or LSB galaxy, is a diffuse galaxy with a surface brightness that, when viewed from Earth, is at least one magnitude lower than the ambient night sky.
Its main purpose is to take images of ultra-low surface brightness galaxies at visible wavelengths of light. It is well suited for this purpose because its lenses have specially-coated optical glass that reduces scattered light.
In contrast, the term brightness in astronomy is generally used to refer to an object's apparent brightness: that is, how bright an object appears to an observer. Apparent brightness depends on both the luminosity of the object and the distance between the object and observer, and also on any absorption of light along the path from object to ...
An object's surface brightness is its brightness per unit solid angle as seen in projection on the sky, and measurement of surface brightness is known as surface photometry. [9] A common application would be measurement of a galaxy's surface brightness profile, meaning its surface brightness as a function of distance from the galaxy's center.
A more complex definition of absolute magnitude is used for planets and small Solar System bodies, based on its brightness at one astronomical unit from the observer and the Sun. The Sun has an apparent magnitude of −27 and Sirius, the brightest visible star in the night sky, −1.46. Venus at its brightest is -5.
While apparent magnitude is a measure of the brightness of an object as seen by a particular observer, absolute magnitude is a measure of the intrinsic brightness of an object. Flux decreases with distance according to an inverse-square law , so the apparent magnitude of a star depends on both its absolute brightness and its distance (and any ...
It has a surface brightness magnitude of 14.07, meaning it is a low-surface brightness galaxy. [5] Group membership. The four galaxies of Hickson compact group 71.