1.
Constellation
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A constellation is formally defined as a region of the celestial sphere, with boundaries laid down by the International Astronomical Union. The constellation areas mostly had their origins in Western-traditional patterns of stars from which the constellations take their names, in 1922, the International Astronomical Union officially recognized the 88 modern constellations, which cover the entire sky. They began as the 48 classical Greek constellations laid down by Ptolemy in the Almagest, Constellations in the far southern sky are late 16th- and mid 18th-century constructions. 12 of the 88 constellations compose the zodiac signs, though the positions of the constellations only loosely match the dates assigned to them in astrology. The term constellation can refer to the stars within the boundaries of that constellation. Notable groupings of stars that do not form a constellation are called asterisms, when astronomers say something is “in” a given constellation they mean it is within those official boundaries. Any given point in a coordinate system can unambiguously be assigned to a single constellation. Many astronomical naming systems give the constellation in which an object is found along with a designation in order to convey a rough idea in which part of the sky it is located. For example, the Flamsteed designation for bright stars consists of a number, the word constellation seems to come from the Late Latin term cōnstellātiō, which can be translated as set of stars, and came into use in English during the 14th century. It also denotes 88 named groups of stars in the shape of stellar-patterns, the Ancient Greek word for constellation was ἄστρον. Colloquial usage does not draw a distinction between constellation in the sense of an asterism and constellation in the sense of an area surrounding an asterism. The modern system of constellations used in astronomy employs the latter concept, the term circumpolar constellation is used for any constellation that, from a particular latitude on Earth, never sets below the horizon. From the North Pole or South Pole, all constellations south or north of the equator are circumpolar constellations. In the equatorial or temperate latitudes, the term equatorial constellation has sometimes been used for constellations that lie to the opposite the circumpolar constellations. They generally include all constellations that intersect the celestial equator or part of the zodiac, usually the only thing the stars in a constellation have in common is that they appear near each other in the sky when viewed from the Earth. In galactic space, the stars of a constellation usually lie at a variety of distances, since stars also travel on their own orbits through the Milky Way, the star patterns of the constellations change slowly over time. After tens to hundreds of thousands of years, their familiar outlines will become unrecognisable, the terms chosen for the constellation themselves, together with the appearance of a constellation, may reveal where and when its constellation makers lived. The earliest direct evidence for the constellations comes from inscribed stones and it seems that the bulk of the Mesopotamian constellations were created within a relatively short interval from around 1300 to 1000 BC
2.
Sagittarius (constellation)
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Sagittarius is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy and its name is Latin for the archer, and its symbol is, a stylized arrow. Sagittarius is commonly represented as a centaur pulling-back a bow and it lies between Scorpius and Ophiuchus to the west and Capricornus to the east. The center of the Milky Way lies in the westernmost part of Sagittarius, as seen from the northern hemisphere, the constellations brighter stars form an easily recognizable asterism known as the Teapot. The stars δ Sgr, ε Sgr, ζ Sgr, and φ Sgr form the body of the pot, λ Sgr is the point of the lid, γ2 Sgr is the tip of the spout and these same stars originally formed the bow and arrow of Sagittarius. Marking the bottom of the teapots handle (or the shoulder area of the archer, are the bright star Zeta Sagittarii, named Ascella, and the fainter Tau Sagittarii. The constellation as a whole is often depicted as having the appearance of a stick-figure archer drawing its bow. Sagittarius famously points its arrow at the heart of Scorpius, represented by the reddish star Antares, following the direct line formed by Delta Sagittarii and Gamma2 Sagittarii leads nearly directly to Antares. Fittingly, Sagittarii is Alnasl, the Arabic word for arrowhead, and Delta Sagittarii is called Kaus Media, Kaus Media bisects Lambda Sagittarii and Epsilon Sagittarii, whose names Kaus Borealis and Kaus Australis refer to the northern and southern portions of the bow, respectively. α Sgr despite having the alpha appellation, is not the brightest star of the constellation, instead, the brightest star is Epsilon Sagittarii, at magnitude 1.85. Sigma Sagittarii is the constellations second-brightest star at magnitude 2.08, Nunki is a B2V star approximately 260 light years away. Nunki is a Babylonian name of origin, but thought to represent the sacred Babylonian city of Eridu on the Euphrates. Zeta Sagittarii, with apparent magnitude 2.61 of A2 spectra, is actually a star whose two components have magnitudes 3.3 and 3.5. Delta Sagittarii, is a K2 spectra star with magnitude 2.71 and only 85 light years from Earth. Eta Sagittarii is a star with component magnitudes of 3.18 and 10, while Pi Sagittarii is actually a triple system whose components have magnitudes 3.7,3.8. The Bayer designation Beta Sagittarii is shared by two systems, β¹ Sagittarii, with apparent magnitude 3.96, and β² Sagittarii. The two stars are separated by 0. 36° in the sky and are 378 light years from earth, Beta Sagittarii, located at a position associated with the forelegs of the centaur, has the traditional name Arkab, meaning achilles tendon. Nova Sagittarii 2015 No.2 was discovered on March 15,2015, by John Seach of Chatsworth Island, NSW and it lies near the center of the constellation
3.
Star
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A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, many other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped into constellations and asterisms, astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. However, most of the stars in the Universe, including all stars outside our galaxy, indeed, most are invisible from Earth even through the most powerful telescopes. Almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium are created by stellar nucleosynthesis during the stars lifetime, near the end of its life, a star can also contain degenerate matter. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, metallicity, and many properties of a star by observing its motion through space, its luminosity. The total mass of a star is the factor that determines its evolution. Other characteristics of a star, including diameter and temperature, change over its life, while the environment affects its rotation. A plot of the temperature of stars against their luminosities produces a plot known as a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. Plotting a particular star on that allows the age and evolutionary state of that star to be determined. A stars life begins with the collapse of a gaseous nebula of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium. When the stellar core is sufficiently dense, hydrogen becomes steadily converted into helium through nuclear fusion, the remainder of the stars interior carries energy away from the core through a combination of radiative and convective heat transfer processes. The stars internal pressure prevents it from collapsing further under its own gravity, a star with mass greater than 0.4 times the Suns will expand to become a red giant when the hydrogen fuel in its core is exhausted. In some cases, it will fuse heavier elements at the core or in shells around the core, as the star expands it throws a part of its mass, enriched with those heavier elements, into the interstellar environment, to be recycled later as new stars. Meanwhile, the core becomes a remnant, a white dwarf. Binary and multi-star systems consist of two or more stars that are bound and generally move around each other in stable orbits. When two such stars have a close orbit, their gravitational interaction can have a significant impact on their evolution. Stars can form part of a much larger gravitationally bound structure, historically, stars have been important to civilizations throughout the world
4.
Zodiac
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The zodiac is an area of the sky centered upon the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The paths of the Moon and visible planets also remain close to the ecliptic, within the belt of the zodiac, in western astrology and astronomy, the zodiac is divided into twelve signs, each sign occupying 30° of celestial longitude. Because the signs are regular, they do not correspond exactly to the boundaries of the twelve constellations after which they are named, the English word zodiac derives from zōdiacus, the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek zōidiakòs kýklos, meaning circle of little animals. Zōidion is the diminutive of zōion, the name reflects the prominence of animals among the twelve signs. The construction of the zodiac is described in Ptolemys vast 2nd century AD work, the term zodiac may also refer to the region of the celestial sphere encompassing the paths of the planets corresponding to the band of about eight arc degrees above and below the ecliptic. The zodiac of a planet is the band that contains the path of that particular body, e. g. the zodiac of the Moon is the band of five degrees above. By extension, the zodiac of the comets may refer to the band encompassing most short-period comets, the division of the ecliptic into the zodiacal signs originates in Babylonian astronomy during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. The zodiac draws on stars in earlier Babylonian star catalogues, such as the MUL. APIN catalogue, around the end of the 5th century BC, Babylonian astronomers divided the ecliptic into twelve equal signs, by analogy to twelve schematic months of thirty days each. Each sign contained thirty degrees of longitude, thus creating the first known celestial coordinate system. Because the division was made into equal arcs, 30° each, in Babylonian astronomical diaries, a planet position was generally given with respect to a zodiacal sign alone, less often in specific degrees within a sign. When the degrees of longitude were given, they were expressed with reference to the 30° of the zodiacal sign, in astronomical ephemerides, the positions of significant astronomical phenomena were computed in sexagesimal fractions of a degree. For daily ephemerides, the positions of a planet were not as important as the astrologically significant dates when the planet crossed from one zodiacal sign to the next. The Babylonian star catalogs entered Greek astronomy in the 4th century BC, Babylonia or Chaldea in the Hellenistic world came to be so identified with astrology that Chaldean wisdom became among Greeks and Romans the synonym of divination through the planets and stars. Hellenistic astrology derived in part from Babylonian and Egyptian astrology, horoscopic astrology first appeared in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Dendera zodiac, a dating to ca.50 BC, is the first known depiction of the classical zodiac of twelve signs. The earliest extant Greek text using the Babylonian division of the zodiac into 12 signs of 30 equal degrees each is the Anaphoricus of Hypsicles of Alexandria. Particularly important in the development of Western horoscopic astrology was the astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy, whose work Tetrabiblos laid the basis of the Western astrological tradition. Under the Greeks, and Ptolemy in particular, the planets, Houses, Ptolemy lived in the 2nd century AD, three centuries after the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes by Hipparchus around 130 BC
5.
Centaur
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A centaur, or occasionally hippocentaur, is a mythological creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse. The centaurs were usually said to have born of Ixion. Another version, however, makes them children of a certain Centaurus and this Centaurus was either himself the son of Ixion and Nephele or of Apollo and Stilbe, daughter of the river god Peneus. In the later version of the story his twin brother was Lapithes, ancestor of the Lapiths, Centaurs were said to have inhabited the region of Magnesia and Mount Pelion in Thessaly, the Foloi oak forest in Elis, and the Malean peninsula in southern Laconia. Another tribe of centaurs was said to have lived on Cyprus, according to Nonnus, they were fathered by Zeus, who, in frustration after Aphrodite had eluded him, spilled his seed on the ground of that land. Unlike those of mainland Greece, the Cyprian centaurs were horned, there were also the Lamian Pheres, twelve rustic daimones of the Lamos river. They were set by Zeus to guard the infant Dionysos, protecting him from the machinations of Hera, the Lamian Pheres later accompanied Dionysos in his campaign against the Indians. Centaurs subsequently featured in Roman mythology, and were familiar figures in the medieval bestiary and they remain a staple of modern fantastic literature. The strife among these cousins is a metaphor for the conflict between the lower appetites and civilized behavior in humankind, theseus, a hero and founder of cities, who happened to be present, threw the balance in favour of the right order of things, and assisted Pirithous. The Centaurs were driven off or destroyed, another Lapith hero, Caeneus, who was invulnerable to weapons, was beaten into the earth by Centaurs wielding rocks and the branches of trees. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as wild as untamed horses, like the Titanomachy, the defeat of the Titans by the Olympian gods, the contests with the Centaurs typify the struggle between civilization and barbarism. The Centauromachy is most famously portrayed in the Parthenon metopes by Phidias, a painted terracotta centaur was found in the Heros tomb at Lefkandi, and by the Geometric period, centaurs figure among the first representational figures painted on Greek pottery. An often-published Geometric period bronze of a warrior face-to-face with a centaur is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Greek art of the Archaic period, centaurs are depicted in three different forms. Some centaurs are depicted with a human torso attached to the body of a horse at the withers, where the neck would be. Class B centaurs are depicted with a body and legs, joined at the waist with the hindquarters of a horse. A third type, designated Class C, depicts centaurs with human forelegs terminating in hooves, Baur describes this as an apparent development of Aeolic art, which never became particularly widespread. At a later period, paintings on some amphoras depict winged centaurs, Centaurs were also frequently depicted in Roman art. The most common theory holds that the idea of centaurs came from the first reaction of a culture, as in the Minoan Aegean world
6.
Sun
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The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a perfect sphere of hot plasma, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, accounting for about 99. 86% of the total mass of the Solar System. About three quarters of the Suns mass consists of hydrogen, the rest is mostly helium, with smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star based on its spectral class and it formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into a disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core and it is thought that almost all stars form by this process. The Sun is roughly middle-aged, it has not changed dramatically for more than four billion years and it is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large enough to engulf the current orbits of Mercury, Venus, and probably Earth. The enormous effect of the Sun on Earth has been recognized since prehistoric times, the synodic rotation of Earth and its orbit around the Sun are the basis of the solar calendar, which is the predominant calendar in use today. The English proper name Sun developed from Old English sunne and may be related to south, all Germanic terms for the Sun stem from Proto-Germanic *sunnōn. The English weekday name Sunday stems from Old English and is ultimately a result of a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis, the Latin name for the Sun, Sol, is not common in general English language use, the adjectival form is the related word solar. The term sol is used by planetary astronomers to refer to the duration of a solar day on another planet. A mean Earth solar day is approximately 24 hours, whereas a mean Martian sol is 24 hours,39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. From at least the 4th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the Sun was worshipped as the god Ra, portrayed as a falcon-headed divinity surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent. In the New Empire period, the Sun became identified with the dung beetle, in the form of the Sun disc Aten, the Sun had a brief resurgence during the Amarna Period when it again became the preeminent, if not only, divinity for the Pharaoh Akhenaton. The Sun is viewed as a goddess in Germanic paganism, Sól/Sunna, in ancient Roman culture, Sunday was the day of the Sun god. It was adopted as the Sabbath day by Christians who did not have a Jewish background, the symbol of light was a pagan device adopted by Christians, and perhaps the most important one that did not come from Jewish traditions
7.
Stellar classification
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In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the rainbow of colors interspersed with absorption lines, each line indicates an ion of a certain chemical element, with the line strength indicating the abundance of that ion. The relative abundance of the different ions varies with the temperature of the photosphere, the spectral class of a star is a short code summarizing the ionization state, giving an objective measure of the photospheres temperature and density. Most stars are classified under the Morgan–Keenan system using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. Each letter class is subdivided using a numeric digit with 0 being hottest and 9 being coolest. The sequence has been expanded with classes for other stars and star-like objects that do not fit in the system, such as class D for white dwarfs. In the MK system, a luminosity class is added to the class using Roman numerals. This is based on the width of absorption lines in the stars spectrum. The full spectral class for the Sun is then G2V, indicating a main-sequence star with a temperature around 5,800 K, the conventional color description takes into account only the peak of the stellar spectrum. This means that the assignment of colors of the spectrum can be misleading. There are no green, indigo, or violet stars, likewise, the brown dwarfs do not literally appear brown. The modern classification system is known as the Morgan–Keenan classification, each star is assigned a spectral class from the older Harvard spectral classification and a luminosity class using Roman numerals as explained below, forming the stars spectral type. The spectral classes O through M, as well as more specialized classes discussed later, are subdivided by Arabic numerals. For example, A0 denotes the hottest stars in the A class, fractional numbers are allowed, for example, the star Mu Normae is classified as O9.7. The Sun is classified as G2, the conventional color descriptions are traditional in astronomy, and represent colors relative to the mean color of an A-class star, which is considered to be white. The apparent color descriptions are what the observer would see if trying to describe the stars under a dark sky without aid to the eye, or with binoculars. However, most stars in the sky, except the brightest ones, red supergiants are cooler and redder than dwarfs of the same spectral type, and stars with particular spectral features such as carbon stars may be far redder than any black body. O-, B-, and A-type stars are called early type
8.
Magnitude (astronomy)
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In astronomy, magnitude is a logarithmic measure of the brightness of an object, measured in a specific wavelength or passband, usually in the visible or near-infrared spectrum. An imprecise but systematic determination of the magnitude of objects was introduced in ancient times by Hipparchus, astronomers use two different definitions of magnitude, apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude. This distance is 10 parsecs for stars and 1 astronomical unit for planets, a minor planets size is typically estimated based on its absolute magnitude in combination with its presumed albedo. The brighter an object appears, the lower the value of its magnitude, with the brightest objects reaching negative values. The Sun has an apparent magnitude of −27, the full moon −13, the brightest planet Venus measures −5, and Sirius, an apparent magnitude can also be assigned to man-made objects in Earth orbit. The brightest satellite flares are ranked at −9, and the International Space Station, ISS, the scale is logarithmic, and defined such that each step of one magnitude changes the brightness by a factor of the fifth root of 100, or approximately 2.512. For example, a magnitude 1 star is exactly a hundred times brighter than a magnitude 6 star, the magnitude system dates back roughly 2000 years to the Greek astronomer Hipparchus who classified stars by their apparent brightness, which they saw as size. To the unaided eye, a prominent star such as Sirius or Arcturus appears larger than a less prominent star such as Mizar. For all the other Stars, which are seen by the Help of a Telescope. Note that the brighter the star, the smaller the magnitude, Bright first magnitude stars are 1st-class stars, the system was a simple delineation of stellar brightness into six distinct groups but made no allowance for the variations in brightness within a group. He concluded that first magnitude stars measured 2 arc minutes in apparent diameter, with second through sixth magnitude stars measuring 1 1⁄2′, 1 1⁄12′, 3⁄4′, 1⁄2′, the development of the telescope showed that these large sizes were illusory—stars appeared much smaller through the telescope. However, early telescopes produced a spurious disk-like image of a star that was larger for brighter stars, early photometric measurements demonstrated that first magnitude stars are about 100 times brighter than sixth magnitude stars. Thus in 1856 Norman Pogson of Oxford proposed that a scale of 5√100 ≈2.512 be adopted between magnitudes, so five magnitude steps corresponded precisely to a factor of 100 in brightness. Every interval of one magnitude equates to a variation in brightness of 5√100 or roughly 2.512 times. Consequently, a first magnitude star is about 2.5 times brighter than a second star,2.52 brighter than a third magnitude star,2.53 brighter than a fourth magnitude star. This is the modern system, which measures the brightness, not the apparent size. Using this logarithmic scale, it is possible for a star to be brighter than “first class”, so Arcturus or Vega are magnitude 0, and Sirius is magnitude −1.46. As mentioned above, the scale appears to work in reverse, the larger the negative value, the brighter
9.
Stellar parallax
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Stellar parallax is parallax on an interstellar scale, the apparent shift of position of any nearby star against the background of distant objects. Stellar parallax is so difficult to detect that its existence was the subject of debate in astronomy for thousands of years. It was first observed by Giuseppe Calandrelli who reported parallax in α-Lyrae in his work Osservazione e riflessione sulla parallasse annua dall’alfa della Lira, then in 1838 Friedrich Bessel made the first successful parallax measurement ever, for the star 61 Cygni, using a Fraunhofer heliometer at Königsberg Observatory. Once a stars parallax is known, its distance from Earth can be computed trigonometrically, but the more distant an object is, the smaller its parallax. Even with 21st-century techniques in astrometry, the limits of accurate measurement make distances farther away than about 100 parsecs too approximate to be useful when obtained by this technique. Relatively close on a scale, the applicability of stellar parallax leaves most astronomical distance measurements to be calculated by spectral red-shift or other methods. Stellar parallax measures are given in the units of arcseconds. The distance unit parsec is defined as the length of the leg of a right triangle adjacent to the angle of one arcsecond at one vertex, because stellar parallaxes and distances all involve such skinny right triangles, a convenient trigonometric approximation can be used to convert parallaxes to distance. The distance is simply the reciprocal of the parallax, d =1 / p, for example, Proxima Centauri, whose parallax is 0.7687, is 1 /0.7687 =1.3009 parsecs distant. Stellar parallax is so small that its apparent absence was used as an argument against heliocentrism during the early modern age. James Bradley first tried to measure stellar parallaxes in 1729, the stellar movement proved too insignificant for his telescope, but he instead discovered the aberration of light, the nutation of Earth’s axis, and catalogued 3222 stars. The parsec is defined as the distance for which the annual parallax is 1 arcsecond, annual parallax is normally measured by observing the position of a star at different times of the year as Earth moves through its orbit. Measurement of annual parallax was the first reliable way to determine the distances to the closest stars, the first successful measurements of stellar parallax were made by Friedrich Bessel in 1838 for the star 61 Cygni using a heliometer. Being very difficult to measure, only about 60 stellar parallaxes had been obtained by the end of the 19th century, astrographs using astronomical photographic plates sped the process in the early 20th century. Automated plate-measuring machines and more sophisticated technology of the 1960s allowed more efficient compilation of star catalogues. In the 1980s, charge-coupled devices replaced photographic plates and reduced optical uncertainties to one milliarcsecond, stellar parallax remains the standard for calibrating other measurement methods. The angles involved in these calculations are very small and thus difficult to measure, the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, has a parallax of 0.7687 ±0.0003 arcsec. This angle is approximately that subtended by an object 2 centimeters in diameter located 5.3 kilometers away
10.
Luminosity
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In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of energy emitted by a star, galaxy, or other astronomical object per unit time. It is related to the brightness, which is the luminosity of an object in a spectral region. In SI units luminosity is measured in joules per second or watts, values for luminosity are often given in the terms of the luminosity of the Sun, which has a total power output of 7026384600000000000♠3. 846×1026 W. The symbol for solar luminosity is L⊙. Luminosity can also be given in terms of magnitude, the absolute bolometric magnitude of an object is a logarithmic measure of its total energy emission. In astronomy, luminosity is the amount of energy a body radiates per unit of time. It is most frequently measured in two forms, visual and bolometric, although luminosities at other wavelengths are increasingly being used as instruments become available to measure them, a bolometer is the instrument used to measure radiant energy over a wide band by absorption and measurement of heating. When not qualified, the term luminosity means bolometric luminosity, which is measured either in the SI units, watts, a star also radiates neutrinos, which carry off some energy, contributing to the stars total luminosity. In practice bolometric magnitudes are measured by taking measurements at certain wavelengths, a stars luminosity can be determined from two stellar characteristics, size and effective temperature. The former is represented in terms of solar radii, R⊙, while the latter is represented in kelvins. To determine a stars radius, two metrics are needed, the stars angular diameter and its distance from Earth, often calculated using parallax. However, for most stars the angular diameter or parallax, or both, are far below our ability to measure with any certainty, an alternate way to measure stellar luminosity is to measure the stars apparent brightness and distance. Because luminosity is proportional to temperature to the power, the large variation in stellar temperatures produces an even vaster variation in stellar luminosity. Because the luminosity depends on a power of the stellar mass. The most luminous stars are young stars, no more than a few million years for the most extreme. In the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, the x-axis represents temperature or spectral type while the y-axis represents luminosity or magnitude. The vast majority of stars are found along the sequence with blue Class 0 stars found at the top left of the chart while red Class M stars fall to the bottom right. Certain stars like Deneb and Betelgeuse are found above and to the right of the main sequence, blue and white supergiants are high luminosity stars somewhat cooler than the most luminous main sequence stars. A star like Deneb, for example, has a luminosity around 200,000 L⊙, a type of A2
11.
Hipparcos
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Hipparcos was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency, launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the measurement of the positions of celestial objects on the sky. This permitted the determination of proper motions and parallaxes of stars, allowing a determination of their distance. When combined with radial velocity measurements from spectroscopy, this pinpointed all six quantities needed to determine the motion of stars, the resulting Hipparcos Catalogue, a high-precision catalogue of more than 118,200 stars, was published in 1997. The lower-precision Tycho Catalogue of more than a million stars was published at the same time, Hipparcos follow-up mission, Gaia, was launched in 2013. Problems were dominated by the effects of the Earths atmosphere, but were compounded by complex optical terms, thermal and gravitational instrument flexures, a formal proposal to make these exacting observations from space was first put forward in 1967. Although originally proposed to the French space agency CNES, it was considered too complex and its acceptance within the European Space Agencys scientific programme, in 1980, was the result of a lengthy process of study and lobbying. The spacecraft carried a single all-reflective, eccentric Schmidt telescope, with an aperture of 29 cm, a special beam-combining mirror superimposed two fields of view,58 degrees apart, into the common focal plane. This complex mirror consisted of two mirrors tilted in opposite directions, each occupying half of the entrance pupil. The telescope used a system of grids, at the surface, composed of 2688 alternate opaque and transparent bands. The apparent angle between two stars in the fields of view, modulo the grid period, was obtained from the phase difference of the two star pulse trains. An additional photomultiplier system viewed a beam splitter in the path and was used as a star mapper. Its purpose was to monitor and determine the attitude, and in the process. These measurements were made in two broad bands approximately corresponding to B and V in the UBV photometric system. The positions of these stars were to be determined to a precision of 0.03 arc-sec. The spacecraft spun around its Z-axis at the rate of 11.25 revolutions/day at an angle of 43° to the Sun, the Z-axis rotated about the sun-satellite line at 6.4 revolutions/year. The spacecraft consisted of two platforms and six panels, all made of aluminum honeycomb. The solar array consisted of three sections, generating around 300 W in total
12.
Apparent magnitude
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The apparent magnitude of a celestial object is a number that is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth. The brighter an object appears, the lower its magnitude value, the Sun, at apparent magnitude of −27, is the brightest object in the sky. It is adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere, furthermore, the magnitude scale is logarithmic, a difference of one in magnitude corresponds to a change in brightness by a factor of 5√100, or about 2.512. The measurement of apparent magnitudes or brightnesses of celestial objects is known as photometry, apparent magnitudes are used to quantify the brightness of sources at ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths. An apparent magnitude is measured in a specific passband corresponding to some photometric system such as the UBV system. In standard astronomical notation, an apparent magnitude in the V filter band would be denoted either as mV or often simply as V, the scale used to indicate magnitude originates in the Hellenistic practice of dividing stars visible to the naked eye into six magnitudes. The brightest stars in the sky were said to be of first magnitude, whereas the faintest were of sixth magnitude. Each grade of magnitude was considered twice the brightness of the following grade and this rather crude scale for the brightness of stars was popularized by Ptolemy in his Almagest, and is generally believed to have originated with Hipparchus. This implies that a star of magnitude m is 2.512 times as bright as a star of magnitude m +1 and this figure, the fifth root of 100, became known as Pogsons Ratio. The zero point of Pogsons scale was defined by assigning Polaris a magnitude of exactly 2. However, with the advent of infrared astronomy it was revealed that Vegas radiation includes an Infrared excess presumably due to a disk consisting of dust at warm temperatures. At shorter wavelengths, there is negligible emission from dust at these temperatures, however, in order to properly extend the magnitude scale further into the infrared, this peculiarity of Vega should not affect the definition of the magnitude scale. Therefore, the scale was extrapolated to all wavelengths on the basis of the black body radiation curve for an ideal stellar surface at 11000 K uncontaminated by circumstellar radiation. On this basis the spectral irradiance for the zero magnitude point, with the modern magnitude systems, brightness over a very wide range is specified according to the logarithmic definition detailed below, using this zero reference. In practice such apparent magnitudes do not exceed 30, astronomers have developed other photometric zeropoint systems as alternatives to the Vega system. The AB magnitude zeropoint is defined such that an objects AB, the dimmer an object appears, the higher the numerical value given to its apparent magnitude, with a difference of 5 magnitudes corresponding to a brightness factor of exactly 100. Since an increase of 5 magnitudes corresponds to a decrease in brightness by a factor of exactly 100, each magnitude increase implies a decrease in brightness by the factor 5√100 ≈2.512. Inverting the above formula, a magnitude difference m1 − m2 = Δm implies a brightness factor of F2 F1 =100 Δ m 5 =100.4 Δ m ≈2.512 Δ m
