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Luminosity is an absolute measure of radiated electromagnetic energy per unit time, and is synonymous with the radiant power emitted by a light-emitting object. [1] [2] In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of electromagnetic energy emitted per unit of time by a star, galaxy, or other astronomical objects. [3] [4]
Prior to photographic methods to determine magnitude, the brightness of celestial objects was determined by visual photometric methods.This was simply achieved with the human eye by compared the brightness of an astronomical object with other nearby objects of known or fixed magnitude: especially regarding stars, planets and other planetary objects in the Solar System, variable stars [1] and ...
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.
Therefore, the stellar luminosity function is used to derive a mass function (a present-day mass function, PDMF) by applying mass–luminosity relation. [2] The luminosity function requires accurate determination of distances, and the most straightforward way is by measuring stellar parallax within 20 parsecs from the earth.
In astronomy, absolute magnitude (M) is a measure of the luminosity of a celestial object on an inverse logarithmic astronomical magnitude scale; the more luminous (intrinsically bright) an object, the lower its magnitude number.
The mass/luminosity relation is important because it can be used to find the distance to binary systems which are too far for normal parallax measurements, using a technique called "dynamical parallax". [8] In this technique, the masses of the two stars in a binary system are estimated, usually in terms of the mass of the Sun.
Temperature description: . T eff - Temperature Effect, usually associated with luminous object; T max - Temperature Maximum, usually associated with non-luminous object; T avg - Temperature Average, usually associated with non-luminous object
The cosmic distance ladder (also known as the extragalactic distance scale) is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects.