Distribution of apparent magnitude of stars

Hi all,

I need information about the distribution of the apparent magnitude of the stars - how many stars are brighter than magnitude 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. Googling didn't bring any useful results; maybe you will be luckier than me?

Thanx 🙂

What do you need this for?

Originally posted by David113
Hi all,

I need information about the distribution of the apparent magnitude of the stars - how many stars are brighter than magnitude 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. Googling didn't bring any useful results; maybe you will be luckier than me?

Thanx 🙂

The apparent magnitude of stars is mainly a function of distance, the nearer ones are stronger by just proximity, Alpha Centauri is just an ordinary sun sized star that would be pretty much invisible 400 ly away, but 4 ly away and it's very bright. So the distribution by apparent magnitude would just be a log graph on average based on distance.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The apparent magnitude of stars is mainly a function of distance, the nearer ones are stronger by just proximity, Alpha Centauri is just an ordinary sun sized star that would be pretty much invisible 400 ly away, but 4 ly away and it's very bright. So the distribution by apparent magnitude would just be a log graph on average based on distance.

That's fine, but I want the actual numbers - say, how many stars are brighter than magnitude n for each integer n between 0 and 15.

OK, I just found this:
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/science/star-magnitude.htm

Originally posted by David113
That's fine, but I want the actual numbers - say, how many stars are brighter than magnitude n for each integer n between 0 and 15.

OK, I just found this:
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/science/star-magnitude.htm

Good general science page, I bookmarked it. He did make one mistake, called Uranus the dimmest star visible with naked eye. Uranus of course being a planet not a star. But he just said 'hundreds' when he listed the stars at a certain magnitude, I think you wanted actual #'s, not just an estimate.

This is a list of the top 80 odd stars by apparent magnitude:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_brightest_stars

If you hunt around you should be able to get the information you want from a star catalogue. Try looking here:

http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc/sciencedata.html