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Questions tagged [light-curve]

Questions about the time-dependence of the light intensity of a celestial object or region.

16 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why does Mars have a jagged light curve?

Caption: The following chart is the predicted light curve (visual magnitude as a function of time) of Mars, according to the most recent ephemeris data. Magnitude data is sampled with a 2 days ...
Harrychink's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
523 views

Gravitational mirroring: Can we theoretically see the Milky Way using a telescope?

As I am watching the beautiful deep field picture of the James Webb Space Telescope. I noticed the gravitational lensing. So I asked myself whether it is possible somehow a successive cluster of ...
user50618's user avatar
  • 263
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why did it take so long for SN1987A to reach peak brightness?

The light from SN1987A first reached us on February 23, 1987, and its brightness peaked in mid May, almost 3 months later. However, every source that I can find states that it normally only takes a ...
blademan9999's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
1k views

Get orbital period of exoplanet from light curve using astropy.timeseries

I am using astropy and I would like to calculate orbital period of an exoplanet by its star's light curve. I follow tutorial in astropy docs and I use data from Kepler in Nasa Exoplanet Archive. ...
Michal's user avatar
  • 323
5 votes
2 answers
1k views

Confused about rubber sheet analogy!

How to resolve confusions on the rubber sheet analogy of the spacetime curvatures? I am a newbie to spacetime curvature. I have watched several youtube videos on Einsteins GR and spacetime curvature ...
Sazzad Hissain Khan's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
182 views

What caused instant jumps and exactly flat periods in Kepler's light curves?

Last 65 days of Kepler's light curve for the infamous KIC 8462852 star is shown below from the published paper's graph. Skip the dips here, I wonder about two other features: Day 1559, during a ...
LocalFluff's user avatar
  • 11.4k
5 votes
1 answer
140 views

How do you tell if a variable star is periodic or not by its light curve?

I have light curves for a particular star. I'm able to construct a periodogram of the stars' light curve, a plot of the power of the light curve vs. the signal's period. For a nonperiodic but ...
tgs123's user avatar
  • 65
5 votes
1 answer
132 views

Sudden spikes on the light curve of a Quasar from K2 mission

I obtained the optical light curve of 3C 273 QSO from the MAST repository off the K2 mission and plotted it by making the FITS into a CSV file through Pandas dataframe and plotting the obtained ...
mnuizhre's user avatar
  • 165
4 votes
2 answers
417 views

On the "periodic" lightcurves of Active Galactic Nuclei

So apparently they are all lightcurves of (likely candidates) Active Galactic Nuclei and in some way or the other they all appear to be periodic: I'd like to know the reason for this and the ...
Ambica Govind's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
443 views

Light curves for Chandra

I am working with Chandra data. I only have the corrected PI files for the sources. Is there a way to plot the light curve from this PI file. I wanted to extract the color magnitude ultimately.
Walker's user avatar
  • 51
4 votes
1 answer
385 views

How do I get temperature and diameter from a light curve?

I recently learned that short-period pulsating stars vary in diameter and temperature when they pulsate. If I have a light curve for such an object, is it possible to calculate its diameter and ...
Zachary Kennedy's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
538 views

Has the new type II supernova SN 2023ixf's subtype been determined yet, and is a tentative light curve possible? Is it still getting brighter?

Wikipedia's article on SN 2023ixf begins: SN 2023ixf is a type II (core collapse) supernova located in the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). It was first observed on May 19, 2023 by Koichi Itagaki and ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
1 answer
73 views

How much time do I have left to easily spot the recently brightened Recurrent Nova RS Ophiuchi with binoculars and mild light pollution?

Excellent answers to Binocular-friendly star map to find the Recurrent Nova RS Ophiuchi? provide some helpful maps for circa 8° FOV binoculars, but due to spatial and potential meteorological ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
2 answers
166 views

Classification and discovery of stars

How do astronomers find the difference between a 'Cephid Variable Star' and distinct normal stars with opaque objects blocking it's light, like stars with planets revolving around them while both ...
Aathesh Vigram's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
180 views

Comprehensible full manual for bolometric light curve reconstruction

Could anyone point me to some manual or tutorial, possibly step-by-step one, on reconstruction of (quasi-) bolometric light curve using UBVRI-photometry data? Both links and names are fine for me.
Tajimura's user avatar
  • 177

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