Luminosity and Colour

of Stars

Original: Michael Balogh, Univ. Waterloo

Modified by H.L. Malasan for internal use

The physics of stars

A star begins simply as a
roughly spherical ball of
(mostly) hydrogen gas,
responding only to gravity
and its own pressure.
To understand how this simple
system behaves, however,
requires an understanding
of:

X-ray

ultraviolet

infrared

radio

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Fluid mechanics
Electromagnetism
Thermodynamics
Special relativity
Chemistry
Nuclear physics
Quantum mechanics

Course Outline
Part I
Basic properties of stars and electromagnetic radiation
Stellar classification
Measurements of distance, masses, etc.

Part II
Chemical composition of stars (interpretation of spectra)
Stellar structure (interiors and atmospheres)
Energy production and transport

Part III
Stellar evolution (formation, evolution, and death)
White dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes

The nature of stars

Betelgeuse

Stars have a
variety of
brightnesses and
colours
Betelgeuse is a red
giant, and one of the
largest stars known
Rigel is one of the
brightest stars in
the sky; blue-white
in colour
Rigel

Apparent brightness of stars

The apparent brightness of stars depends on both:
their intrinsic luminosity
their distance from us
Their colour is independent of distance
The five brightest stars

Star name

The five nearest stars

Relative
Distance
brightness (light years)

Star name

Relative
Distance
brightness (light years)

Proxima
Centauri

0.0000063 4.2

Sirius

8.5

Canopus

0.49

98

Alpha
Centauri

0.23

4.2

Alpha Centauri 0.23

4.2

0.000040

5.9

Vega

0.24

26

Barnards
star
Wolf 359

0.000001

7.5

Arcturus

0.25

36

0.00025

8.1

Capella

0.24

45

Lalande
21185

The Astronomical Unit

Astronomical distance scale:

Basic unit is the Astronomical Unit (AU), defined as the

semimajor axis of Earths orbit

How do we measure this?

Relative distances of planets from sun can be determined
from Keplers third law:
2
3

P a
2

E.g. given Pearth, Pmars:

PEarth aEarth

PMars aMars

1AU = 1.49597978994108 km

Parallax
p

1 AU
The parallax is the apparent shift in position of a nearby star, relative to
background stars, as Earth moves around the Sun in its orbit

This defines the unit 1 parsec = 206265 AU = 3.091013 km ~ 3.26 light years

Measuring Parallax
The star with the largest parallax is Proxima
Centauri, with p=0.772 arcsec. What is its
distance?

These small angles are very difficult to

measure from the ground; the
atmosphere tends to blur images on scales
of ~1 arcsec. It is possible to measure
parallax angles smaller than this, but only
down to ~0.02 arcsec (corresponding to a
distance of 1/0.02 = 50 pc).
Until recently, accurate parallaxes were
only available for a few hundred very
nearby stars.

A star field with 1 seeing

Hipparcos

The Hipparcos satellite (launched 1989) collected

parallax data from space, over 3 years

120,000 stars with 0.001 arcsec precision astrometry

More than 1 million stars with 0.03 arcsec precision
The distance limit corresponding to 0.001 arcsec is 1
kpc (1000 pc).

Since the Earth is ~8 kpc from the Galactic centre it is clear

that this method is only useful for stars in the immediate

solar neighbourhood.

Parallax: summary
1.
2.
3.
4.

A fundamental, geometric measurement of distance

Can be measured directly
Limited to nearby stars
Is used to calibrate other, more indirect distance
indicators. Ultimately even our estimates of
distances to the most remote galaxies rests on a
reliable measure of parallax to the nearest stars

Break

The electromagnetic spectrum

Different filters transmit light of

different wavelengths.
Common astronomy filters are
named:

U B V R I

The Earths atmosphere blocks

most wavelengths of incident
radiation very effectively. It is
only transparent to visual light
(obviously) and radio wavelengths.

Observations at other wavelengths

have to be made from space.

Blackbodies
The energy radiated from a surface element dA is given by:

B (T )d dA cos d B (T )d dA cos sin dd

Units of B(T): W/m2/m/sr

Blackbodies
The energy radiated from a surface element dA is given by:

B (T )d dA cos d B (T )d dA cos sin dd

Units of B(T): W/m2/m/sr
Energy quantization leads to a
prediction for the spectrum of
blackbody radiation:

c
B (T )
u (T )
4

2hc 2
hckT
e 1

Plancks law
Calculate the luminosity of a spherical blackbody:
Each surface element dA emits radiation isotropically
Integrate over sphere (A) and all solid angles ()

L d

2 / 2

B d dA cos sin dd
0 0

AB d

Properties of blackbody radiation

1. The wavelength at which
radiation emission from a
blackbody peaks decreases with
increasing temperature, as given
by Wiens law:

max T 0.290 cm K

2. The total energy emitted (luminosity) by a

blackbody with area A increases with
temperature (Stefan-Boltzmann equation)
This defines the effective temperature of a star
with radius R and luminosity L

L 4R 2Te4

Examples
The sun has a luminosity
L=3.8261026 W and a radius
R=6.96108 m. What is the
effective temperature? At what
wavelength is most of the energy
radiated?

max T 0.290 cm K
L 4R 2Te4

Example
Why does the green sun look yellow?
The human eye does not detect all wavelengths of light
equally

Examples
Spica is one of the hottest stars
in the sky, with an effective
temperature 25400 K. The peak
of its spectrum is therefore at
114 nm, in the far ultraviolet, well
below the limit of human vision.
We can still see it, however,
because it emits some light at
longer wavelengths

max T 0.290 cm K
L 4R 2Te4

Apparent magnitudes
The magnitude system expresses fluxes in a given
waveband X, on a relative, logarithmic scale:
f

m X mref 2.5 log

f
ref

Note the negative sign means brighter objects

have lower magnitudes
Scale is chosen so that a factor 100 in brightness
corresponds to 5 magnitudes (historical)

The magnitude scale

f

m X mref 2.5 log

f
ref

One common system is to measure relative to Vega

By definition, Vega has m=0 in all bands. Note this does not mean Vega is
equally bright at all wavelengths!
Setting mref=0 in the equation above gives:

mX 2.5 log f 2.5 log fVega, X

2.5 log f m0, X

Colour is defined as the relative flux between two different

wavebands, usually written as a difference in magnitudes

Apparent magnitudes
The faintest (deepest) telescope image
taken so far is the Hubble Ultra-Deep
Field. At m=29, this reaches more than
1 billion times fainter than what we can
see with the naked eye.

m X mref 2.5 log

f
ref

Object

Apparent
mag

Sun

-26.5

Full moon

-12.5

Venus

-4.0

Jupiter

-3.0

Sirius

-1.4

Polaris

2.0

Eye limit

6.0

Pluto

15.0

Reasonable telescope limit (8-m

telescope, 4 hour integration)

28

Deepest image ever taken

(Hubble UDF)

29

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