Measuring the distance to a nearby star

Meanwhile... While Astromut is looking elsewhere.

Nice work as usual mate.

A Mathemagician!

Nice job in explanation and demonstration as to why mathematics is interesting and important every day.

i usually put my thumb up and close one eye....

How many light years is your thumb from your eye?

Reflected waves on a plane to discontinuity, lol

Wolf 359 ia where the borg first engaged starfleet.

I had to look up parallax again. I have to use a calculator just to add up the estimate of a shopping list!

You, Sir, are amazing!

Isn't this completely relative to distance of the background stars? If so, how were those distances verified to begin with?

Or are the background stars assumed to be infinity?

Last Edited by 300BLK on 06/12/2020 08:31 AM

BULLSHIT!

YOU CAN'T TRIANGULATE A LIGHT MILLIONS OF LIGHT YEARS AWAY (SUPPOSEDLY)

NOBODY TAKES YOU SERIOUSLY ASTROFANBOIDOGGY

Hey Astro- can you shed some light (pun intended) on our binary star system, or will you just pretend it's not, like everyone else? I already know the answer, just thought I'd ask.

Wolf 359?

I knew it! Astro is in league with the Borg!

:astrokahn:

That was great acomplishment!
Thank you for posting Astro

Very comprehendible~

Parallax does not work beyond 500 ly.

You are not obligated to believe in a universe larger than 500 ly.

Many stars show NEGATIVE PARALLAX ie the background stars are CLOSER than the star being measured!

A solid case can be made that the stars are much CLOSER than made out..... as close as 2 ly, even as close as 60 LIGHT-DAYS!

It's a wonder that any parallax was measured before using a baseline of 2au every 6 months. New horizons at 46au and in stellar terms, that star is very close. Even the background stars don't budge. How smaller angle were they measuring doing the old way and must have been a very limited range for distance measure. Good vid, and great explanation though.

WOLF 359?
First time I heard that, I was a kid
watching the Outer Limits in 1964.

Does parallax work in measuring breast size and separation? Asking for a friend.

Great work as always sir.

5 stars.

Astronomers derive distances to the nearest stars (closer than about 100 light-years) by a method called stellar parallax. This method that relies on no assumptions other than the geometry of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. You are probably familiar with the phenomenon known as parallax.

Try this. Hold out your thumb at arm's length, close one of your eyes, and examine the relative position of your thumb against other distant (background) objects, such as a window, wall, or tree. Now look at your thumb with your other eye. What do you notice? Move your thumb closer to your face and repeat the experiment. What was different this time?

This is a demonstration of the parallax effect: the apparent shift in position of a relatively nearby object against more distant ones when viewed from different vantage points.

It's amazing how many stupid haters I get, and it's not like they even agree with each other except for their hatred of me.

[link to starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov (secure)]

distant simultaneity is not absolute, but depends on the observer's reference frame

There is no such thing as simultaneously events especially at these distances.

[link to starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov (secure)]

Question:

How do we measure the distances to things in space?

[link to starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov (secure)]

Wrong.