[...]
A quick explanation of 'fluxes' might well be welcomed.
'fluxes' as in Carie's post ("
GANDALF is a program which reads in the spectral data and carefully measures the flux in the emission lines.")?
I think, in this context, it simply means the energy per second per square cm per angstrom (or perhaps ... per square m per nm?). The energy per second part is pretty obvious; the per unit wavelength is important because what's of interest (in research of this kind) is the spectral energy density, or distribution (as a function of either wavelength or frequency), or the power (energy per unit time) in one emission line vs another. The per unit area is a bit more obscure, but this allows the fluxes of different objects, observed with different telescopes (etc), to be compared directly.
If you're interested,
here is GANDALF's author's webpage with a direct reference to GANDALF.
