Home UK English apparent magnitude

Meaning of apparent magnitude in English:

apparent magnitude

Pronunciation

noun

Astronomy

  • The magnitude of a celestial object as it is actually measured from the earth.

    Compare with absolute magnitude

    ‘Having such a metric obviates a major analytic problem caused by discrete characters, which is that units of the same apparent magnitude are not necessarily equivalent.’
    • ‘That is, it would be 84,000 times as faint as Quaoar, making its apparent magnitude + 30.8.’
    • ‘Sol at - 26.74 apparent magnitude is the brightest star as seen from Earth.’
    • ‘The resulting complete image with a million pixels would be as bright as the full Moon at apparent magnitude - 12.5.’
    brightness, brilliance, radiance, luminosity