Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Sure. So if you know how hot the star is, you know roughly the shape of
> the entire emission spectrum. :-)

Yes. Except of course it works the other way around in practice.

> > think maybe lightbulbs peak in the IR (lower temperature), so all we see is a
> > section of the tail of the spectrum.
>
> The peak is just the single wavelength at which there is the most
> energy. I think if you look at *bands* of the spectrum, it's possible
> for a wide band with low energy at any specific single wavelength to
> have a greater total power and a band containing only a single
> high-power (but narrow) peak.

What Scott said. But I know what you mean - and yes, of course. I was just
explaining why most of an incandescent bulb's energy output is not in the
visible. Look at the shape of a blackbody spectrum for 3000K. Clearly, most of
the power output is IR and beyond.

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