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Stellar parallax
a way to measure stellar distance by how far it shifts against the background stars
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parsec
the distance to a star whose parallaz is one second of arc
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flux
a measure of the flow of energy out of a surface, usually applied to light
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absolute visual magnitude (Mv)
intrinsic brightness of a star; the apparent visual magnitdue the star would have if it were 10 parsces away
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luminosity
the total amount of energy a star radiates in one second
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Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram
a plot of instrinsic brightness vs. surface temperature of stars
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main sequence
the region of the H-R diagram running from upper left to lower right
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giant (star)
large, cool, highly luminous star in the mid-to-upper right of the H-R diagram
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supergiant (star)
exceptionally lumionous star; diamtere is 10 to 1000 times that of the sun
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red dwarf
a faint, cool, low-mass, main sequence star
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white dwarf
dying star that has collapsed to the size of Earth and is slowly cooling off, found in lower left of the H-R diagram
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lumoinsity classes
categories of stars of similar lumionsity, determined by the widths of lines in their spectra
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spectroscopic parallax
the method of determining a star's distance by comparing its apparent magnitude with its absolute magnitude as estimated from its spectrum
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binary stars
pairs of stars that orbit around their common center of mass
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visual binary system
a binary star system in which the two stars are seperately visible in the telescope
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spectroscopic binary system
a star system in which the stars are too close together to be visible seperatley, bu we determine that there are two stars by seeing two spectra.
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eclipsing binary system
a binary star system in which the stars eclipse each other
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light curve
a graph of brightness vs. time
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mass-luminosity relation
the relationship which states that the more massive a main-sequence star is, the more luminous it is
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