Questions tagged [luminosity]
Questions regarding the amount of energy produced by an object per unit of time.
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How could a hobbyist astronomer determine apparent magnitude of a star?
Apparent magnitude is a rather complex way to determine the brightness of a star. Quoting the introduction text from the linked to Wikipedia page:
The apparent magnitude (m) of a celestial body is ...
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Is the Sun really a medium size star?
It is often said that the Sun is a medium size, or even dim star. Is this true?
According to this list of stars within 21 light years, there are, out of the closest 121 stars, only six brighter than ...
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What's the issue with Olbers' paradox?
I'm not quite grasping the reasoning behind Olbers' Paradox, or why an eternal, non-expanding and spatially infinite universe would be incompatible with a dark sky. For simplicity, let's suppose that ...
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Visible Stars in Andromeda Galaxy
So when I look at images taken of Andromeda, I see a lot of individual stars.
Image by André van der Hoeven
It seems to me that the actual individual stars that far away would be too small to ...
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Spectral class and luminosity of hydrogen bomb explosions?
Since hydrogen bombs detonating are like tiny little stars, I wonder what luminosity and spectral classification they would get if one were to categorize them like this. E.g. Starfish Prime and the ...
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Is there a relation between mass, radius, and luminosity in deuterium-burning brown dwarfs?
I'm a worldbuilder and my setting has a lot of brown dwarfs.
While I'm trying to keep my setting as science-compliant as possible, I can't seem to find any resources for brown dwarfs like there are ...
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How actively is Deep Learning being used in exoplanet identification?
Papers, like this one from Google, show that Deep Learning and Machine Learning are effective in detecting exoplanets from luminosity data provided by telescopes like TESS or Kepler.
These models ...
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How bright will Alpha Centauri A be from Earth when it becomes a red giant?
As of right now, both stars from Alpha Centauri are in their main sequence stages, but eventually Alpha Centauri A is going to quickly expand in a matter of time, and I’m pretty sure its luminosity is ...
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Why does the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram's x-axis go from large temperatures to lower?
In my textbook, the H–R diagram’s y-axis is $\log(L/L_{\odot})$ and values are higher as we go higher on the scale, but the x-axis is $\log(T_\text{eff})$ and gets smaller as we proceed to the right.
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Increase in Luminosity of the star
The Luminosity of a star is proportional to the 4 th power of its temperature and square of its radius. Also the mass-luminosity relationship says that the luminosity of star is proportional to ...
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What is the frequency distribution for luminosity classes in the Milky Way Galaxy?
I'm working on a game concept that does some mild simulation of realistic stellar classes and luminosities. In particular, I'd like to roughly model the general frequencies of the classes and ...
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What is meant by the notation $A^{\times{B}}_{\div{C}}$; where A,B,C are real numbers?
I have come across a few papers using the notation $A^{\times{B}}_{\div{C}}$; where A,B,C are real number. For example, $3000^{\times{3}}_{\div{4}}$.
An example can be Eqn (4) in Stern & Laor (...
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What is the most appropriate way to estimate the helium composition of a star?
Say we have to estimate the helium content in Proxima Centauri.
We begin by calculating the content of helium in the Sun (source): $24.85$% of $2.10^{30}$ kg.
Mostly all the energy is generated due ...
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What is the radiant intensity of the celestial sphere?
Specifically, excluding the Sun and the Moon:
How much energy, as light and other frequencies reaches a point in space on the average, if you add up all the sources like distant stars, the Milky Way, ...
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How can I convolve a template spectrum with a photometric filter response spectrum?
Suppose I have a template stellar population spectrum (say, from Bruzual & Charlot 2003) which runs from like 1000 Angstroms to 160,000 Angstroms and which has x-axis wavelength units of Angstroms ...
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Measuring the mass of the luminous matter in a galaxy
The mass of total matter in a galaxy can be measured using the rotation curve of the galaxy. However, how do people determine the mass of luminous matter in the galaxy, as a function of the distance ...
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How bright would it be on the "face" of Titan
If you were planing a maned mission to Titan and wanted to find a landing site that would get the most visible light for the longest amount of time, your first logical choice would be the dark side of ...
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How to calculate luminosity in g-band from absolute AB magnitude and luminosity distance?
How can I calculate the (non-bolometric) luminosity $L$ of a galaxy (or a star for that matter) over a given band from its AB apparent magnitude $m_{AB}$ over that band and its luminosity distance $...
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What happens to the Gas Pressure when working out the Eddington Luminosity?
I am looking at how the Eddington Luminosity is derived and I do no understand why we only care about $P_{rad}$?
When working out $L_{Edd}$ you take the ratio between $dP_{rad}/dr$ and $dP_{...
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What is the infrared self-luminosity value of Jupiter and Saturn?
I'm looking for these data to apply them to the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism but I can't find the values. Or at least if there is an order of magnitude compared to the solar luminosity.
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Could a black hole's accretion disk be bright through natural means?
This question is based on this description of the Cormoran Supermassive Black Hole in the Orion Arm's website:
Surrounding this event horizon is an (apparently artificial) accretion
disk about 4AU in ...
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Color of planets
I am developing an astronomy software and need to know the color of each planet in the Solar System, when observed with the naked eye. I cannot find that information after googling for a while. Is ...
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What does a + (plus) mean in stellar classification?
I've noticed some stellar classifications might look like this:
A0IV+G: (HD 70003)
F3IV+F0IV (HD 82434)
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What does Eddington Limit (Eddington Luminosity) Show?
We know Eddington Limit (Eddington Luminosity) is calculated with this formula:
$$L_{Ed} \approx 3 * 10^4 * L_{sun} * \frac{M}{M_{sun}}$$
Example: For a black hole with $10^4 M_{sun}$, we get
$$L_{...
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Is it possible that quasars are not powered by black holes but some other kind of compact, massive object?
AFAIK, objects in the universe thought to be black holes show evidence of radiatively inefficient accretion flow. But is this the case with Quasars? If not, is there a possibility that the core of a ...
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Can solar luminosity & activity be predicted?
Can a star's luminosity and its activity, solar flares and sunspots, be predicted?
If so, with what accuracy & precision?
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Is it dangerous to look at an L-type brown dwarf from too close?
Are some L-type brown dwarves bright enough so that it would be dangerous to the eyes if one looked at them from habitable distance or closer? If not, are the weakest M-type stars undangerous to look ...
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Does the luminosity of a star on its main sequence increase or remain approximately constant?
From my understanding, the luminosity of a main sequence star should increase because, in its core, hydrogen is being burnt into helium which means that the number density of hydrogen decreases and ...
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Conversion of magnitudes to Jansky and MAGPHYS?
I'm a bit puzzled and not an observer, so please bear with me if I'm being stupid here.
The code MAGPHYS specifies Jansky (Jy) as the input unit for flux through ...
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How can I estimate the M/L ratio from a fitted SED on a galaxy?
This answer (here in the forum) provides background to my question: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/5953
I am trying to understand the process in which a stellar population synthesis (SPS) is ...
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Finding luminosity of a star with magnitude
I'm working on my assessment for Physics in the IB, and I'm planning to investigate stars in spiral galaxies and determine their ages. For this I'm going to use data from the SDSS (Sloan digital sky ...
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If the Sun were bigger but colder, Earth would be hotter or colder?
That is the question. I know the concepts of luminosity $(L=4\pi R^2F)$ and the flow $F=\sigma· T^4$, with $T$ the temperature in its surface. But how I use that to know if the Earth would get warmer ...
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What's the relation between the parallax distance and the luminosity distance?
I have read that Riess and his team are able to measure $H_0$ from supernovae calibrated using Cepheid in a model independent way.
from what I have gathered they find the absolute luminosity of ...
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Convolve a SED with a filter. Is convoluting the mathematical operation?
I know that in order to get the Flux of a star (or something else) in a particular filter from its SED (luminosity per unit wavelength), I need to convolve the spectrum (SED) with the filter response. ...
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Estimating a star's radius, temperature, and luminosity based on its mass
(See updated figure and description below.)
I've been trying to generate ballpark estimates for the radius, temperature and luminosity of stars in the main sequence based solely on their masses (...
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How to correct observed flux densities for redshift
Say I have a spectrum of a galaxy at a redshift $z$, in flux density units of erg/s/cm^2/Angstrom. I'd like to recover the spectrum (in the same flux density units) at z=0, i.e. at its rest ...
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Luminosity Schechter function for galaxies
Just a question I am having trouble understanding. I have the Schechter luminosity function for galaxies, given as:
$$\Phi(L)dL=\Phi_{0}\left({\frac{L}{L_{\star}}}\right)^{\alpha}e^{-\frac{L}{L_{\...
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How is the Lithium Depletion Boundary used to determine the age of a stellar cluster?
According to my understanding of Soderblom et al. (2014), lithium ages of stars are determined as follows:
Determine lithium abundance from equivalent width measurement of Li$_{\mathrm{I}}$ ...
user5341
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Brightness and flux density
The alpha star in a constellation has the highest brightness, but does that mean it has the highest flux density among the other stars in the constellation?
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Stellar mass of galaxies
Given the magnitudes (in the i-band) of certain galaxies, I would like to calculate their stellar mass (in terms of solar masses). So far, I have calculated their absolute magnitudes and gotten to ...
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What is the Fundamental plane for Elliptical Galaxies?
An alternate explanation rather than from wikipedia is preferable.
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How is the difference of bolometric magnitudes not dependent on the stars' radii?
The difference of 2 bolometric magnitudes is given by:
$$M_{bol, ★} - M_{bol, ☉} = -2.5 \cdot \log \left( \frac{L_★}{L_☉} \right)$$
But Pogson's equation is:
$$M_{bol, ★} - M_{bol, ☉} = -2.5 \cdot \...
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Period-Luminosity Relation of Cepheids via Gaia Data
I was trying to verify Leavitt's Law of Period Luminosity Relationships of Cepheid Variables using Gaia data. To do this I calculated the period using the Lomb Scargle Periodogram for 1450 stars and ...
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Luminosity of Neowise
So, I have been trying to figure out the bolometric luminosity of the comet C/2020 F3 (Neowise) on the 22nd of June, 2020. At that time, Neowise was $1.4$ AU away from Earth and had an apparent ...
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How to convert luminosity at rest frame wavelength of 1450 A to absolute magnitude at 1450 A?
How do I convert the luminosity (erg sec$^{-1}$ Hz$^{-1}$) of a quasar at a rest frame wavelength of 1450 Angstroms to absolute magnitude at the same wavelength?
I know that the bolometric ...
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Difference between luminosity, luminous flux, and radiant flux?
I've looked this up, and was wondering the differences between them. Luminosity is the total energy emitted by a source, in watts. However, I'm confused about luminous flux and radiant flux. Since ...
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Red dwarf variation in Luminosity
I recently saw this video. The creator of the video says that one of the reasons for non-existence of life on planets around red dwarfs might be that these stars can increase luminosity roughly by a ...
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On finding the magnitude of Stars
I am wondering how I would be able to predict the Magnitude of fictional stars, given we know enough about them. As the formulae I can find online are mostly getting overly high values that don't seem ...
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Deriving phase of a pulsating star from list of Julian date values of observing brightness
I want to convert the list of Julian date values of observing brightness of a Cepheid variable into its phase.
The equation I found in the Internet is the following:
$$\mathrm{Phase}= \frac{\mathrm{...
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Protoplanetary disk luminosity - looking for a sanity check please
I've been told to "consider an Earth-mass of interplanetary grains (roughly spherical with a radius of a few microns) in a protoplanetary disk. Let the particles be in a torus with a cross-...
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