Astronomy Question! Help!?

Question

Using the distance formula, determine the absolute magnitude of the sun. If the sun were 10 parsecs away, would we be able to see it in the night sky with the naked eye?

Answer 1

There are a variety of ways to do this, so you need to dig the appropriate "distance formula" out of your text. You should find that the absolute magnitude of the Sun (that is, how bright the Sun would appear to be if it were 10 ps away) is a little under 5. So at a distance of 10 parsecs it would be visible to the naked eye (you can see down to magnitude 6 if conditions are excellent) but you'd need a good dark-sky location to do so.