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The adjustment from an astronomical magnitude in a particular observational band to the bolometric magnitude, accounting for energy outside that band. It depends on the stellar spectrum, hence on effective temperature, composition and surface gravity. A ratio of observed single-band luminosities should not be inserted into the Stefan–Boltzmann law as a bolometric ratio without allowing for different corrections.

The Stefan–Boltzmann law gives $L=4\pi R^2\sigma T_{\mathrm{eff}}^4$ for bolometric luminosity. HenceWith the central values above, this is approximately $1.51$ for the first geometry and $0.67$ for the second. If only one-band luminosities are measured, bolometric corrections are needed before using this formula for effective temperatures.

Two direct methods are fitting the continuum stellar spectrum or several photometric colors to a stellar atmosphere model, and measuring temperature-sensitive absorption lines or line ratios in a stellar spectrum. The former includes the approximate black-body radiation estimate ${\lambda }_{\max }T=b$ from Wien's displacement law; the latter uses ionization and excitation populations. Observations during total eclipse or spectral disentangling help separate the two stellar spectra.

For comparable composition and accessible fuel fractions, the main-sequence lifetime is proportional to available nuclear fuel divided by luminosity, $t_{\mathrm{MS}}\propto M/L$. Estimate the masses from a calibrated mass-luminosity relation $L\propto M^{\alpha }$ in the appropriate mass range. ThenFor illustration $\alpha =3.5$ gives about $1.27$ and $5.6$ for the two graphical luminosity ratios. The common main sequence approximation is additional physics; eclipse depths alone do not determine masses or ages. A main sequence consistency check would also favor the second geometry because ordinary main-sequence stars have radius and effective temperature increasing with mass.