The Venus Transit 2004

... Brief InfoSheet B4

Approximated method for the calculation of the parallax

In order to understand the calculation of the parallax of the Sun, i.e. the calculation of the distance Earth-Sun from the observation of the transit of Venus from two observations of the transit from two different place on Earth, we present a simplified method since the direct complete calculation of the parallax is impossible without several iteration. We will suppose as known several parameters of the motion of the Earth and Venus around the Sun. We suppose that we have two simultaneous observations which give the distance between the two apparent centres of the planet Venus on the solar disc.

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