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Luminosity to magnitude |
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| Nov17-11, 02:08 PM | #1 |
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Luminosity to magnitude
I am trying to find out how fast a star's magnitude changes over time, and have two columns of data.
The first is the time since the stay left the main sequence, and the second is Log (L/L_sun). I am unsure as to how to chance the luminosity values into magnitudes, which means I cant answer the question. I thought it might be m=2.5 log L but I dont know if this is correct or not. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated Thanks :D |
| Nov17-11, 02:20 PM | #2 |
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Depends whether you want apparent or absolute magnitude.
For apparent the formula would be [itex]m_1 - m_2 = -2.5 \log{\frac{L_1}{L_2}}[/itex] |
| Nov17-11, 03:05 PM | #3 |
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But i'm not given actual luminosities, i've been given Log (L/L_sun)
so for example one of my values is 4.4799, how would i turn this into a magnitude? And yes, I was looking for an apparent magnitude, forgot to mention it in my first post |
| Nov17-11, 03:15 PM | #4 |
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Luminosity to magnitude
[itex]m_1 = m_{sun} - 2.5\log{\frac{L}{L_{sun}}}[/itex]
where [itex]m_{sun} = –26.74[/itex] So for the value you gave you'd get [itex]m_1 = -26.74 - 2.5*4.4799[/itex] which gives a pretty high magnitude as the lower the magnitude, the brighter the object. |
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