International Nuclear Event Scale INES rating. Further, the actual accident damage values do not reflect the INES scores. A quantifiable, continuous scale might be preferable to the INES, in the same way that the antiquated Mercalli scale for earthquake magnitudes was superseded by the continuous physically-based Richter scale. The following arguments have been proposed: firstly, the scale is essentially a discrete qualitative ranking, not defined beyond event level 7. Secondly, it was designed as a public relations tool, not an objective scientific scale. Thirdly, its most serious shortcoming is that it conflates magnitude and intensity. An alternative nuclear accident magnitude scale (NAMS) was proposed
Apparent magnitude brightness of sources at ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths. An apparent magnitude is usually measured in a specific passband corresponding to some photometric system such as the UBV system. In standard astronomical notation, an apparent magnitude in the V ("visual") filter band would be denoted either as "m" or often simply as "V", as in ""m" = 15" or ""V" = 15" to describe a 15th-magnitude object. The scale used to indicate magnitude originates in the Hellenistic practice of dividing stars visible to the naked eye into six "magnitudes". The brightest stars in the night sky were said to be