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Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. [1] [2] Due to foreshortening, nearby objects show a larger parallax than farther objects, so parallax can be used to determine distances.
Giuseppe Calandrelli noted stellar parallax in 1805-6 and came up with a 4-second value for the star Vega which was a gross overestimate. [3] The first successful stellar parallax measurements were done by Thomas Henderson in Cape Town South Africa in 1832–1833, where he measured parallax of one of the closest stars, Alpha Centauri.
A parsec is the distance from the Sun to an astronomical object that has a parallax angle of one arcsecond (not to scale). The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to 3.26 light-years or 206,265 astronomical units (AU), i.e. 30.9 trillion kilometres (19.2 trillion miles).
Binocular disparity refers to the difference in image location of an object seen by the left and right eyes, resulting from the eyes' horizontal separation ().The mind uses binocular disparity to extract depth information from the two-dimensional retinal images in stereopsis.
A diagram of a typical nautical sextant, a tool used in celestial navigation to measure the angle between two objects viewed by means of its optical sight. Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the ...
Parallax is an angle subtended by a line on a point. In the upper diagram, the Earth in its orbit sweeps the parallax angle subtended on the Sun. The lower diagram shows an equal angle swept by the Sun in a geostatic model. A similar diagram can be drawn for a star except that the angle of parallax would be minuscule.
A Star Trek quantum singularity is a phenomenon of multiple varieties. One such variety appears in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Parallax" which creates a mirror image along with a temporal distortion.
Spectroscopic parallax or main sequence fitting [1] is an astronomical method for measuring the distances to stars. Despite its name, it does not rely on the geometric parallax effect. The spectroscopic parallax technique can be applied to any main sequence star for which a spectrum can be recorded.