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Concept
First-magnitude star
Summary
First-magnitude stars are the brightest stars in the night sky, with apparent magnitudes lower (i.e. brighter) than +1.50. Hipparchus, in the 1st century BC, introduced the magnitude scale. He allocated the first magnitude to the 20 brightest stars and the sixth magnitude to the faintest stars visible to the naked eye.
In the 19th century, this ancient scale of apparent magnitude was logarithmically defined, so that a star of magnitude 1.00 is exactly 100 times as bright as one of 6.00. The scale was also extended to even brighter celestial bodies such as Sirius (-1.5), Venus (-4), the full Moon (-12.7), and the Sun (-26.7).
Hipparchus ranked his stars in a very simple way. He listed the brightest stars as "of the first magnitude", which meant "the biggest." Stars less bright Hipparchus called "of the second magnitude", or second biggest. The faintest stars visible to the naked eye he called "of the sixth magnitude".
During a series of lectures given in 1736 at the University of Oxford, its then Professor of Astronomy explainedː
The fixed Stars appear to be of different bignesses, not because they really are so, but because they are not all equally distant from us. Those that are nearest will excel in Lustre and Bigness; the more remote Stars will give a fainter Light, and appear smaller to the Eye. Hence arise the Distribution of Stars, according to their Order and Dignity, into Classes; the first Class containing those which are nearest to us, are called Stars of the first Magnitude; those that are next to them, are Stars of the second Magnitude ... and so forth, 'till we come to the Stars of the sixth Magnitude, which comprehend the smallest Stars that can be discerned with the bare Eye. For all the other Stars, which are only seen by the Help of a Telescope [...]
And even among those Stars which are reckoned of the brightest Class, there appears a Variety of Magnitude; for Sirius or Arcturus are each of them brighter than Aldebaran [...
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