The astronomical magnitude system, initially developed by Hipparchus and refined by Ptolemy, quantifies the brightness of celestial objects, with brighter objects having lower magnitudes. Norman R.

The initial magnitude scale was established by Greek astronomer Hipparchus around 135 B.C.E., categorizing approximately 850 stars into six ranges from 1st (brightest) to 6th (faintest) magnitude.

There are a number of ways to measure the magnitude of an earthquake. Most scales are based on the amplitude of seismic waves recorded on seismometers. These scales account for the distance between ...

II.—APPARENT MAGNITUDES: (b) PHOTOGRAPHIC. WITH the application of photography to astronomy it was inevitable that attempts should be made to determine apparent magnitudes by photography. Visual ...

I.—APPARENT MAGNITUDES: (a) VISUAL.THE magnitude of a star, as determined by direct astronomical observation, is a measure of its apparent brightness on a scale which has been precisely defined only ...

What is the baseline for determining the magnitude scale of celestial objects? Why do brighter objects have negative numbers? Dean Treadway Knoxville, Tennessee The first observer to catalog ...