When teaching: Out with magnitudes, in with monochromatic luminosities!
| dc.creator | Verbunt, Frank | |
| dc.date | 2008-07-09 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T09:49:21Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T09:49:21Z | |
| dc.description | The goal of this document is to illustrate that teaching the concepts of magnitudes is a needless complication in introductory astronomy courses, and that use of monochromatic luminosities, rather than arbitrarily defined magnitudes, leads to a large gain in transparency. This illustration is done through three examples: the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, the cosmic distance ladder, and interstellar reddening. I provide conversion equations from the magnitude-based to the luminosity-based system; a brief discussion; and a reference to sample lecture notes. I suggest that we, astronomers in the 21st century, abolish magnitudes and instead use (apparent) monochromatic luminosities in non-specialist teaching. Given the large gain in transparency I further propose that we seriously consider using (apparent) monochromatic luminosities also in research papers, bringing optical astronomy in line with astronomy at other wavelengths. Comments are welcome. | |
| dc.description | 8 pages, 6 figures | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/0807.1393 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.1393 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/164551 | |
| dc.subject | Astrophysics | |
| dc.title | When teaching: Out with magnitudes, in with monochromatic luminosities! | |
| dc.type | text |