Radiometry has been of fundamental importance in astronomy from the early beginnings. Initially, astronomers had their own radiometric system, based on extraterrestrial standards, namely the irradiance of stars expressed in visual magnitudes. Observing and comparing magnitudes in specific spectral bands then led to the astronomical spectrophotometry. The advent of astronomical high-resolution spectroscopy offered the possibility to interpret observations through physical models of stellar atmospheres. Such models had to be constructed based on physics-related units, and such units, rather than magnitudes, were then used for observational tests of the models. In this review, we provide an overview of how to achieve a valid laboratory calibration, and discuss ways to reliably extend this calibration to the spectroscopic telescope's performance in space. Recently, the quest for independent calibrations traceable to laboratory standards has become a well-supported aim, and has led to plans for now also launching calibration rockets for the visible and infrared spectral range. A survey of the calibration of instruments observing from the X-ray to the infrared spectral domains rounds off this review.
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