Lecture Note: 1

TRIGONOMETRIC PARALLAX

Dr. Himadri Sekhar Das

Department of Physics
Assam university, Silchar
What is parallax ?
Parallax is an apparent
displacement or difference of
orientation of an object viewed
along two different lines of sight,
and is measured by the angle or
semi-angle of inclination between
those two lines.

Source: Wikipedia
What is Stellar Parallax?

Stellar parallax is the apparent change in the position of a

star that is caused only by the motion of the Earth as it
orbits the Sun.
Thus the trigonometric parallax of a star may be defined as
the angle p (in arc-second) subtended at the star A by the
mean radius a of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. This is
also called heliocentric or annual parallax.
A measurement of the parallax angle p is given by
tan p = a/d
 d = a / tan p ≈ a / p [tan p ≈ p for small angle]
 d = 1 / p AU (1 AU = 1.495978 x 1011 m)
Here p is in radian.
πc = 1800
1c = 1800/π = [(180 × 60 × 60)/3.1428]’’ = 206265’’
Thus,
d = 206265 / p’’ AU

Defining a new unit of distance, the parsec (pc) (parallax-

second), as

1 pc = 206265 AU = 3.085678 x 1016 m which leads to

d = 1 / p ’’ pc

By definition, when the parallax angle p = 1 ’’, the

distance to the star is 1 pc.

Thus, 1 parsec is the distance from which the radius of

Earth’s orbit (= 1 AU) subtends an angle of 1 ’’.
Also, 1 pc = 3.261633 lyr (light years)
  The top half of each frame shows the
appearance of the sky as seen from the Earth
(ignoring the Sun), and the bottom half shows a
fixed view looking down from above onto the plane
of the Earth's orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic).

 A red star is shown located some distance to

the right .

 When viewed from the moving Earth (top

This movie demonstrates
Trigonometric Parallax.
panel), the red star appears to move first west
(towards the right) then east (towards the left) with
respect to the distant background stars which are
so far away that their parallax motions are too small
to be seen at this scale.

 In the second half, we move the star 2x farther away and run through another
year. Now the annual the trigonometric parallax motions are 2x smaller because
the distance to the star is 2x greater. This fact, that the trigonometric parallax of a
star is inversely proportional to its distance from the Sun gives us a direct
measurement of the star's distance.

Source: http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Movies/parallax.html
Our nearest star alpha Centauri has a parallax of p=0.742-arcsec:
Limitations:
 If the stars are too far away, the parallax can be too small to measure
accurately. In general, the greater the distance, the smaller the parallax,
and so the less precise the distance measurement will be.

 The smallest parallax measurable from the ground is about 0.01-arcsec.

This means that from the ground, the method of Trigonometric Parallaxes
has the following limitations:

good out to 100 pc

only get 10% distances out to a few parsecs.

only a few hundred stars are this close

Hipparcos:

The Hipparcos satellite (launched by the European Space Agency in 1989)

measured precision parallaxes to an accuracy of about 0.001-arcsec.
Hipparcos measured parallaxes for about 100,000 stars
Got 10% accuracy distances out to about 100 pc
Good distances for bright stars out to 1000 pc.
Hipparcos represented a great leap in our knowledge of the distances (and
motions) of nearby stars. The catalog was just released in late 1997, and is
already having an impact on many areas of astronomy that rely in accurate
distances.
Thank you!!