Stellar Photometry In an Introductory Physics Lab (or, Translating Flux Into Magnitudes)

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-1-2023

Department

Physics and Astronomy

School

Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Abstract

Magnitudes--how astronomers express brightnesses of stars--are confusing to those unfamiliar with them, to say the least. They use a modified version of base-10 logarithms. The smaller--or more negative--the magnitude, the brighter the object. An object with a magnitude of zero is not an object with no brightness but instead is rather bright.

Publication Title

The Physics Teacher

Volume

61

Issue

4

First Page

310

Last Page

310

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