Limb Darkening

Limb Darkening
Related Category: Astronomy: General
see sun.
More on Limb Darkening
Sun - intensely hot, self-luminous body of gases at the center of the solar system.

Limb darkening refers to the diminishing of intensity in the image of a star as one moves from the center of the image to the edge or "limb" of the image. Limb darkening occurs as the result of two effects: ...

Limb Darkening:
Limb darkening is the gradual decrease in brightness of the disk of the Sun or of another star as observed from its centre to its edge, or limb. This phenomenon is readily apparent in photographs of the Sun.

Limb Darkening. The visible disk of the Sun does does not appear uniformly bright, with the radiation from the edge or limb being less intense than that from the center.

Limb Darkening
Decrease in, and reddening of, the optical brightness of the Sun or other star from its center to its limb.
Limit Cycle ...

Limb Darkening
The decrease in the brightness of the sun or other body from its center to its limb.
Line of Nodes ...

LIMB DARKENING
The reduction in surface brightness of the limbs of the Sun or other stars compared with the centres of their visible discs.
LINE PROFILE ...

Limb Darkening - The relative faintness of the edge of the Sun's disk (limb) compared with the center of the Sun's disk
Line of Nodes - The line connecting the two nodes of the Moon's orbit around the Earth ...

limb darkening - (n.)
The dark region around the edge of the visible disk of the sun or a planet, caused by a decrease in temperature with height in the atmosphere.
limestone - (n.) ...

limb darkening
For certain solar spectral lines, a lessening of the intensity of the line from the center of the solar disk to the limb, caused by the existence of a temperature gradient in the Sun and the line-of-sight through the solar atmosphere.

limb darkening (NASA Thesaurus / NASA SP-7, 1965) A condition, sometimes observed on celestial objects, in which the brightness of the object decreases as the edges or limbs of the object are approached.

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228. Limb Darkening
The decrease in the brightness of the sun or other body from its center to its limb.

This precise measurement allowed the detection of Hamal's "limb darkening." As a gaseous sphere, the Sun is slightly darker at the edge (its "limb") than at the center, the result of our not looking as deeply into the solar gases.

This accounts for the phenomenon known as limb darkening, which refers to the fact that the Sun appears darker out on its edge.

Microlensing has been used to search for dark matter in the Milky Way and other galaxies, to hunt for planets around stars at the center of the Milky Way and to study limb darkening on distant stars.
How it works ...

The sum of these raw images gives an intensity image which shows sunspots and limb darkening. The size of the change in intensity at the three spectral positions gives a modulation image that shows roughly where magnetic fields are located.

Larger, giant stars have much bigger, much more obvious starspots, and they also exhibit strong stellar limb darkening. That is, the brightness decreases towards the edge of the stellar disk.

limb (of the sun or moon): the outer circumferential region of the sun (or other celestial body). The term limb darkening indicates that the disk of the sun does not have uniform brightness but is dimmer around the 'edges' due to increased ...

are due to the irregular surface of the Moon and are a function of the librations in longitude (see Longitude, Celestial) and latitude (see Latitude, Celestial) and the position angle from the central meridian. [S92]
Limb Darkening ...

which is relatively cool when we consider that the core of the sun heats up to 15,000,000 degrees centigrade, as it burns to create energy. Sometimes the disk of the sun can be seen to get less bright at its edge. This is called Limb darkening.

1906 - Karl Schwarzschild explains solar limb darkening
1908 - George Hale discovers the Zeeman splitting of spectral lines from sunspots
1942 - J.S. Hey detects solar radio waves
1949 - Herbert Friedman detects solar X-rays ...

See also: Solar, Sun, Limb, Light, Temperature