Scioly.org

Crazy Puny Man wrote:Nevermind then. Dumb question.

Not at all, questions are never dumb (besides this forum needs more activity...and it wasn't that bad a question anyway)!

I felt like an idiot after I saw the equation...staring me in the face...

Luo's right- I wouldn't expect anybody to be able to answer that question based on previous knowledge (calculus is never used in Scioly events, at least not by any national supervisors I know), it was just about being able to use the information given with some general knowledge of white dwarf structure.

Hi I'm working on astronomy over the summer, and I have some questions (several, really) about spectroscopic parallax:
1. Can you use this for any star? I understand that you can only really estimate absolute magnitude given spectral classification for main sequence stars, but you could still use the distance modulus for any star, right?

2. This website http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education ... allax.html mentions a B-V color index that they somehow use to do spectroscopic parallax for a red giant (Gamma Crucis, in the example). How does knowing the color index show that it's a red giant? (And for the example, what is the significance of Gamma Crucis being a M3.5 III star? I know that the M3.5 is the spectral classification, but what is the III? In the explanation part, they mention luminosity class--is that what this is by any chance?)

3. At the end of this webpage there's a little comment about how spectroscopic parallax "is not accurate for individual stars...[but] can yield statistically useful values" when done for many stars--why do we do spectroscopic parallax, then?

4. The Science Olympiad training handout for astronomy (http://www.soinc.org/sites/default/file ... andout.pdf) mentions that spectroscopic parallax tables might be a nice thing to have--what exactly is a spectroscopic parallax table? I googled it but couldn't find anything that seemed even vaguely useful.

Thanks so much for any help .

2. This website http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education ... allax.html mentions a B-V color index that they somehow use to do spectroscopic parallax for a red giant (Gamma Crucis, in the example). How does knowing the color index show that it's a red giant? (And for the example, what is the significance of Gamma Crucis being a M3.5 III star? I know that the M3.5 is the spectral classification, but what is the III? In the explanation part, they mention luminosity class--is that what this is by any chance?)

Yes that is the luminosity class. The different luminosity classes have different spectra (eg spectral line broadening) due to their different densities, so one can tell between a giant and main sequence of the same color.

iridium wrote:Hi I'm working on astronomy over the summer, and I have some questions (several, really) about spectroscopic parallax:
1. Can you use this for any star? I understand that you can only really estimate absolute magnitude given spectral classification for main sequence stars, but you could still use the distance modulus for any star, right?

2. This website http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education ... allax.html mentions a B-V color index that they somehow use to do spectroscopic parallax for a red giant (Gamma Crucis, in the example). How does knowing the color index show that it's a red giant? (And for the example, what is the significance of Gamma Crucis being a M3.5 III star? I know that the M3.5 is the spectral classification, but what is the III? In the explanation part, they mention luminosity class--is that what this is by any chance?)

3. At the end of this webpage there's a little comment about how spectroscopic parallax "is not accurate for individual stars...[but] can yield statistically useful values" when done for many stars--why do we do spectroscopic parallax, then?

4. The Science Olympiad training handout for astronomy (http://www.soinc.org/sites/default/file ... andout.pdf) mentions that spectroscopic parallax tables might be a nice thing to have--what exactly is a spectroscopic parallax table? I googled it but couldn't find anything that seemed even vaguely useful.

Thanks so much for any help .

1. As long as you have 2 of the three variables in the equation, you can use it for any star. You can even use it for supernovae (specifically, Type Ia-which is a standard candle)
2. Finding the color index of a star is an indirect measurement of its temperature (I think there's a way to convert-correct me if I'm wrong on this one, please), so you can correspond a star's color index with its temperature/class. There are some H-R diagrams that use a B-V color index along its horizontal axis instead of temperature or spectral class
3. I'm confused by this remark too. I can only think of two things: a) it won't work for optical binaries or b) (I think this is more probable) that spectroscopic parallax has only real application when used upon a variety of stars (i.e. to calculate distances to larger objects, such as clusters)?
4. I think what they're referring to is a table of spectral data. For each spectral class (like, say, B1, B2, B3...etc) they list the characteristics of stars at each respective class, such as luminosity, radius, surface temp, etc. I think you'll have to do a little digging to put one together

Thanks so much for the help .

Sure, no problem

Ok, I have another question...

I was looking at tests in the wiki, and on the "2013 Invitationals Astronomy" test, question 13 is this:
If Earth is 3.156E7 seconds from the sun, and 1.4957E11 meters from the sun then use the Law of Harmonies and calculate the Earth’s T2/R3 (it has superscripts, but I don't know how to do that here) ratio.
a. 2.975E-19
b. 2.977E-19
c. 2.854E-19
d. 2.999E-19

I know that the Law of Harmonies is Kepler's Third Law, so wouldn't earth's T2/R3 ratio be (1year)2/(1au)3 = 1? How does one get anything to the negative 19th power from this? And (I might as well ask this, too...) why are you told that the earth is 3.156E7 seconds from the sun? It can't be light-seconds, so I'm a little lost.

iridium wrote:Ok, I have another question...

I was looking at tests in the wiki, and on the "2013 Invitationals Astronomy" test, question 13 is this:
If Earth is 3.156E7 seconds from the sun, and 1.4957E11 meters from the sun then use the Law of Harmonies and calculate the Earth’s T2/R3 (it has superscripts, but I don't know how to do that here) ratio.
a. 2.975E-19
b. 2.977E-19
c. 2.854E-19
d. 2.999E-19

I know that the Law of Harmonies is Kepler's Third Law, so wouldn't earth's T2/R3 ratio be (1year)2/(1au)3 = 1? How does one get anything to the negative 19th power from this? And (I might as well ask this, too...) why are you told that the earth is 3.156E7 seconds from the sun? It can't be light-seconds, so I'm a little lost.

I'm pretty sure it means that the Earth's orbital period is 3.156E7 s. You calculate the T2/R3 ratio in the SI units they give you (meters and seconds). I got B if I'm not mistaken.