Richter magnitude scale Richter magnitude scale The so-called Richter magnitude scale – more accurately, "Richter's magnitude scale", or just "Richter magnitude" – for measuring the strength ("size") of earthquakes refers to the original "magnitude scale" developed by Charles F. Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 paper, and later revised and renamed the Local magnitude scale, denoted as "ML" or "M". Because of various shortcomings of the ML scale most seismological authorities now use other scales, such as the moment magnitude scale (), to report earthquake magnitudes, but much of the news media still refers to these as "Richter" magnitudes. All magnitude scales
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