Will+and+Sam's+Star+Magnitude+Page

A Guide to the Cosmos!
By Sam Metzger and Will Mcauliffe Orange

Apparent Magnitude and Absolute Magnitude.
Apparent Magnitude="The brightness of a star or other celestial body as viewed by the unaided eye." Absolute Magnitude= " The magnitude of a star as it would appear to a hypothetical observer at a distance of 32.6 light years."

These definitions essentially mean that absolute magnitude is how the stars would look if they were all lined up next to each other 32.6 light years away from the earth. Absolute magnitude is used because apparent magnitude is skewed by how far away are from the earth. So to us the sun is the brightest star in the universe but in actuality it is a relatively dim star when it is lined up next to other stars at 32.6 light years away from earth.

Some Conditions that affect the apparent magnitude of stars:
-Time of day -Light Pollution (lights in cities, streetlights, and carlights.) - Cloudy Skies



This is an example of an apparent magnitude. Even though all of these celestial bodies aren't stars this chart is still an excellent example of how an apparent magnitude chart works.

Star Magnitude Chart Specifics Important!
The chart above works in such a way that one point on the chart equals a star that is 2.5 times as bright. For example a star that is ranked as a -2 on the star magnitude chart is 2.5 times brighter than a star that ranks at a -1. This process goes up exponentially so that a star ranked at -4 would be 6.25 times as bright as our star that ranked at a -2.

For example: How many times brighter is a star with a magnitude -6 than a star with magnitude -1?

Answer: 97.65625 times brighter!

Hipparchus Past and Present
Hipparchus is the man who created the first catalogue of stars. It contained around 850 stars. Hipparchus not only listed the star's positions in the sky but he went on to rank their brightness on a scale of 1 to 6. To our knowledge this is the first chart of star magnitude ever!

We've come a long way since Hipparchus' 850 star catologue. Today astronomers at UCLA using two of the largest telescopes can explore into deep space discovering new galaxies and documenting brand new stars. Hipparchus would be extremely proud.

This information comes from the Star Magnitude lab that we worked on and class notes that we took. We also recieved several handouts in class that star magnitude charts.