ASTR 1103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Starflight, Light Curve, Orbital Period
9 Feb 2020
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Document Summary
Centre of mass: centre of mass the balance point of the system, the more massive a star is, the shorter its distance to the centre of mass will be. Three kinds of binary systems: visual binary systems, spectroscopic binary systems, eclipsing binary systems. Visual binary systems: a binary star system where both stars separately visible in the telescope, astronomers can visually map the orbits of both stars and make calculations based off that. Light curve: a graph of brightness vs. time commonly used when analyzing variable stars and eclipsing binary systems. Mass-luminosity relation: applies to main sequence stars, the more massive a star is, the more luminous it is. Density: mass divided by volume, giants and super giants high luminosity and low density, main sequence stars similar to the sun, white dwarfs low luminosity and high density. Sky surveys: allow production of astronomical catalogues, available to astronomers and the public.
