Learn about magnitudes brightness differences of objects in the night sky for beginning astronomy. The cosmic distance ladder also known as the extragalactic distance scale is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects. With the magnitude scale adjusted to fit a logarithmic curve you can now say that one star is exactly so many times brighter than another.
An object with a distance modulus of 0 is exactly 10 parsecs away.
This video describes how to calculate absolute magnitude if we know apparent magnitude and distanceThis is a common gcse astronomy question. M is the apparent magnitude of the object. For example the Large Magellanic Cloud LMC is at a distance modulus of 185 the Andromeda Galaxys distance modulus is 244 and the galaxy NGC 4548 in the Virgo Cluster has a DM of 310. Want to know more about the basics of astronomy.