Talk:1639 transit of Venus: Difference between revisions

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How Horrocks (accidentally...) arrived at the distance to the sun

I added a few lines at the beginning of the "Results" section. His observation didn't really allow him to determine the distance (AU=astronomical unit). (It takes careful measurements, including timing, at two places far removed from each other, as was done in later observation campaigns.) It seems Horrocks was mainly interested in measuring the apparent size of Venus (as was his colleague Crabtree). He then used an assumption which it seems was more or less shared by some other contemporaries, that the sizes (diameters) of the planets were proportional to their distance from the sun. This then would of course allows to determine the actual distance of Venus (expressed in earth radii) and thus the AU. Thus this was more of a lucky guess, as Venus is only some rough 30% larger than what would be expected from the assumed "law". For the moment I don't have a better reference than: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005A%26G....46a..14H

  Greetings,79.3.206.62 (talk) 17:05, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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+== How Horrocks (accidentally...) arrived at the distance to the sun ==
+I added a few lines at the beginning of the "Results" section. His observation didn't really allow him to determine the distance (AU=astronomical unit). (It takes careful measurements, including timing, at two places far removed from each other, as was done in later observation campaigns.) It seems Horrocks was mainly interested in measuring the apparent size of Venus (as was his colleague Crabtree). He then used an assumption which it seems was more or less shared by some other contemporaries, that the sizes (diameters) of the planets were proportional to their distance from the sun. This then would of course allows to determine the actual distance of Venus (expressed in earth radii) and thus the AU. Thus this was more of a lucky guess, as Venus is only some rough 30% larger than what would be expected from the assumed "law". For the moment I don't have a better reference than:
+http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005A%26G....46a..14H
+   Greetings,[[Special:Contributions/79.3.206.62|79.3.206.62]] ([[User talk:79.3.206.62|talk]]) 17:05, 3 June 2012 (UTC)