Humans have been utterly fascinated with the night sky and the millions of stars sprinkled throughout the huge expanse. Out of the numerous stars, some are brighter than others, and closer to the ...

August evenings in the Northern Hemisphere are prime for seeking out globular star clusters. Among the brightest and best for northerners is the Hercules Cluster (M13), which British astronomer Thomas ...

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 ...

When we observe the stars in the night sky, their brightness can be pretty dramatic, but the way astronomers measure brightness is not how one might intuitively think about it. In astronomy, ...