Friday, September 16, 2011

What are the magnitudes for the three belt stars of the constellation Orion?

I need to know the three magnitudes for the stars, Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, specifically the belt stars of Orion.|||It depends on if you mean absolute magnitude or apparent magnitude (on Earth). Absolute magnitude refers to the star's actual light output, while apparent magnitude is a measure of how bright the star appears from Earth (or some other observation point).





Altinak, Zeta Orionis, is really a triple star. The three components have absolute magnitudes of -5.25, -3, and -2.8, and apparent magnitudes of 1.7, 4, and 4.21. Alnilam, Epsilon Orionis, has an absolute magnitude of -6.4 and an apparent magnitude of 1.70. Mintaka, Delta Orionis, is a multiple star, but the available information wasn't as good; the system has an absolute magnitude of -4.99 and the major double componenent has an apparent magnitude of 2.23 (or 3.2 and 3.3 when taken separately).





Note that in magnitude, lower numbers describe brighter objects. Consider that the Sun's absolute magnitude is 4.83. Thus, those small points of light that we see as moderately bright are in fact massive stars, each one putting out more light than our Sun.|||Here, you can find the apparent and absolute magnitude (columns 9%26amp; 10, respectively):





http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/stars.鈥?/a>





Alnilam is #29, Alnitak is #31 while Mintaka is #73.





Clear skies!

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