Monday, February 6, 2012

What is the distance to this Cepheid variable star?

I can't figure out this question:

A classical Cepheid variable star is observed to have a pulsation period of 10 days and to have a mean apparent visual magnitude of mv= +10. For the classical Cepheid variables, the mean absolute visual magnitude is related to the period in days by the following:



Mv= -2.81logP(days) - 1.43



What is the distance to this Cepheid variable star?What is the distance to this Cepheid variable star?You nee to realise there are two steps to solving this problem. Firstly calculate the absolute magnitude using the formula given - this is simply plugging numbers into the equation. Only when you have both the absolute and apparent magnitudes you can determine the distance. This is given by:



M = m + 5 ((log D[L]) - 1)



where M is absolute magnitude, m apparent magnitude and D[L] the distance in parsecs. Rearrange for D[L] and plug in the magnitude figures you already know to calculate the distance.

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