Starlight

Magnitude

13.1 - Understand the astronomical magnitude scale and how apparent magnitude relates to the brightness of stars as viewed from Earth

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13.2 - Understand the term absolute magnitude

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13.3 - Be able to use the distance modulus formula to determine the absolute (M) or apparent magnitude (m) of a star, given the distance to the star (d): M = m + 5 − 5log d where d is the distance in parsec

We measure the brightness of a star by its magnitude. There are two types of magnitude:

Apparent magnitude is how bright an object is to us on Earth.

Absolute magnitude is how bright a star would appear in space from a certain distance.