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Apparent magnitude (m) is a measure of the brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity , its distance, and any extinction of the object's light caused by interstellar dust along the line of sight to the observer.
Apparent magnitude, the brightness of an object as it appears in the night sky. Absolute magnitude, which measures the luminosity of an object (or reflected light for non-luminous objects like asteroids); it is the object's apparent magnitude as seen from a specific distance, conventionally 10 parsecs (32.6 light years).
The apparent magnitude is the observed visible brightness from Earth which depends on the distance of the object. The absolute magnitude is the apparent magnitude at a distance of 10 pc (3.1 × 10 17 m), therefore the bolometric absolute magnitude is a logarithmic measure of the bolometric luminosity.
When appearing on light bulb packages, brightness means luminous flux, while in other contexts it means luminance. [5] Luminous flux is the total amount of light coming from a source, such as a lighting device. Luminance, the original meaning of brightness, is the amount of light per solid angle coming from an area, such as the sky.
apparent magnitude. Also visual brightness (V). A measure of the brightness of a celestial body as seen by an observer on Earth, adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere. The brighter the object appears, the lower its magnitude. appulse The closest approach of one celestial object to another, as viewed from a third body.
In astronomy, a phase curve describes the brightness of a reflecting body as a function of its phase angle (the arc subtended by the observer and the Sun as measured at the body). The brightness usually refers the object's absolute magnitude, which, in turn, is its apparent magnitude at a distance of one astronomical unit from the Earth and Sun.
Their brightness can be approximated as = + + = + + (), where , are the total and nuclear apparent magnitudes of the comet, respectively, , are its "absolute" total and nuclear magnitudes, and are the body-sun and body-observer distances, is the Astronomical Unit, and , are the slope parameters characterising the comet's activity.
An object's surface brightness is its brightness per unit solid angle as seen in projection on the sky, and measurement of surface brightness is known as surface photometry. [9] A common application would be measurement of a galaxy's surface brightness profile, meaning its surface brightness as a function of distance from the galaxy's center.