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The Nature of Light

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An Introduction to Observational Astrophysics

Part of the book series: Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics ((ULNP))

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Abstract

Our understanding of the universe at large comes almost exclusively from our understanding of light and how quantum mechanics explains the physical features we see in the spectra of astronomical objects. Astronomers measure the brightness of astronomical objects in terms of flux and magnitude. The use of coloured filters enables us to examine specific characteristics of the object being observed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Use only specially designed solar H-\(\alpha \) filters to observe the Sun. Standard H-\(\alpha \) filters   are unsafe.

  2. 2.

    Available at http://www.sdss3.org/dr8/algorithms/sdssUBVRITransform.php.

  3. 3.

    Recall that low magnitudes are increasingly bright, so if there is less light at the blue end, the blue magnitude increases in value, and hence so does the B-V colour.

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Gallaway, M. (2020). The Nature of Light. In: An Introduction to Observational Astrophysics. Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43551-6_2

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