The Advantages Of Parallax

The telescope is an optical instrument designed to make distant objects appear nearer. It contains an arrangement of lenses or mirrors or both that gathers visible light, permitting direct observation or photographic recording of distant objects. (Lacki, B. C. 2011). With the use of telescopes we have been able to learn a lot more about the planets in our universe. It has helped us understand about some of the history of everything around us. Also it has been able to track asteroids and comets or any randomly flying objet in outer space that might become threatening to our planet.

A stars luminosity is measured by the apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude of the star and the amount of the light that is being emitting from it’s surface.

The farther away a star is, the less its parallax. The light year is a unit used to express stellar distance, which is the distance light travels in a year, which is approximately 9.5 trillion kilometers (5.8 trillion miles). The parallax angles are very small. Proxima Centauri is the parallax angle nearest to the star. It is less than one second or arc, which equals 1/3600 of a degree. A human finger is roughly 1 degree wide. The distances to stars are so large that conventional units such as kilometers or astronomical units are often too cumbersome to use.

Many physical properties of stars can be found by using a little bit of light. One property of a star is luminosity. Luminosity is the quantity of energy created in a star and then released as electromagnetic radiation. The brightness of a star is a blend of luminosity and distance of a star and can also depend on the quantity of energy absorbed in the direction of a star. Another property of a star is distance. Astronomers use parallax to establish the distance to an object. As Earth travels around the Sun, they monitor neighboring stars from various positions. They are then able to measure how much the star seems to move to establish the distance to the star.

An astrolabe is used by astronomers and navigators to measure the inclined position of a celestial body, to identify stars and planets, and to determine local latitude. Based on research, most attribute the invention of the earliest astrolabe to Hipparchus. The name even has its origins from the Greek words astron and lambanien meaning "the one who catches the heavenly bodies (Meech, 2000). Historically, astrolabes were intricately designed brass disks, and could serve multiple purposes. They could determine the position of celestial objects, measure the time of the night (or of the day, using it as a mobile sundial or, more accurately by measuring the altitude of the sun), measure the time of the year, compute what part of the sky is visible at any time, determine the altitude of any object over the horizon, and determine the current latitude (Meech,

Generally in astronomy, light pollution and thick atmospheres distort and impair images from optics like telescopes. Light pollution crowds out the targets being observed, while the atmosphere dims the light received from them. When choosing the location for the building of a new telescope, it is highly beneficial to build in areas with a thinner atmosphere and low light pollution . This is why mountaintops are typically the preferred sites for new telescopes, and why Mauna Kea is a highly desirable location. A new telescope called the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is revolutionary in

Today we have new technology that allows us to do many incredible things. One of those things is the ability to calculate the stars, where they will go and where

Conducting this lab first we went through the steps oh how to find the apparent magnitude of the sun at different distances. This experience walked us through how the distance has a direct affect on the apparent magnitude of a star. It also noted the change of astronomical units to parsecs. Secondly, we completed a couple more table’s of the comparison of apparent magnitude to the distance of the stars Sirius and Betelgeuse. Even though these

Astronomers use Cepheid stars to measure distance. First, the period of a distant Cepheid is measured. The period is the length of time between brightness peaks. Next, they measure the peak luminosity of the star itself; this gives them the apparent brightness. Then, assuming that all Cepheids of the same period have the same absolute brightness, the distance is computed

The Hubble telescope is a compound telescope design where light enters the telescope through the opening and bounces off the primary mirror to a secondary mirror. Then the secondary mirror reflects the light through a hole in the center of the primary mirror to a focal point behind the primary mirror. At the focal point, half transparent mirrors distribute the light to the various scientific instruments. The Hubble Telescope mirrors are made of glass and coated with multiple layers of pure aluminum that are three-millionths of an inch thick and a coat of magnesium fluoride that is one-millionth of an inch thick to make them reflect visible, infra-red and ultraviolet light. The primary mirror weighs 1825 pounds and the secondary mirror weighs in at 27.4 pounds.

Its purpose was to give earlier astronomers a clearer view that ground based telescopes could not back then. The light that once was blocked from the atmosphere would now be seen by astronomers with the help of the orbiting telescope. When I compared the two telescopes the first differences were that The Hubble Space Telescope was orbiting and space while The ALMA was a ground based telescope. Certainly there were advantages to both telescopes, one being The Hubble Space Telescope makes a complete orbit, 353 miles above the surface, around the Earth in 97 mins (Hubblesite). Meanwhile, The ALMA being ground based collects information while in one location using the earth's own rotation to see different areas into space. Of course, one would think that a space telescope would be better the a ground based telescope but they would be wrong. In further research, I found that both telescopes are reflecting telescopes using a large mirrors to bounce wavelengths to the center of the telescope and then into instruments the sends the information to certain instruments that makes images. Also, The ALMA has a clarity that is ten times sharper than The Hubble Space Telescope. Indeed showing its strength as a ground based telescope with 66 antennas for clarity of

According to a newsletter sent out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the purpose of the Hubble Space Telescope was, and is, to gather light from cosmic objects so scientists can better understand the universe around us. Up until the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, all telescopes were Earth based and had the disadvantage of having to peer at the stars through the Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth’s atmosphere provides a large amount of distortion when viewing very far objects, like space, through a telescope. Placing a telescope in space eliminates the distortion and provides images that are significantly clearer and in turn, easier to examine. The Hubble Space Telescopes six different science instruments

Optical astronomers have the sun to deal with. Because our sun is closer to us than other stars, a greater amount of light reaches us. When the sun is out, it effectively blocks visible light waves emitted by a distant star from reaching us. At night there is no interference. Radio Astronomers have the advantage in that they are able to observe at any time of the day. Since the sun does not produce radio waves, there is no interference received by the telescope from the sun.

Another disadvantage is that the refracting telescope don't focus the colours very well because the light just bounces of and creates different colours that are just bending and refracting everywhere,focusing different colours at different points. Makes it really hard to make it to focus and to bring them all together and see the proper colorful picture that is wanted. This is also known as chromatic aberration. This could be solved by using the coated lenses to reduce this problem to the minium.

Satellites and spacecrafts have been launched for various purposes. The atmosphere in space is used for television programmes, radio broadcasts, telecommunication, etc. Satellites provide advanced disaster warning and help to forecast the weather. Distance educational programmes, natural resources management, etc. are controlled by satellites. Space research can help us to find the origin of the