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The inspiral of compact objects like black holes or neutron stars can be approximated using point masses very well. However, very interesting astronomical information is contained in effects to gravitational waves arising from the object's higher multipoles (or their finite size). Some of these effects can be modeled by an extension of the point mass action. Based on such an action, contributions of dipole (i.e., spin) and quadrupole to the post-Newtonian (PN) approximation can be obtained. The quadrupole effects are the first which encode information of the internal structure of the compact objects, e.g., they allow an distinction between black holes and neutron stars and also different equations of state.