Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pisces (Psc)  ·  Contains:  Extremely wide field
Hipparchus and the Moon, AstroGG
Hipparchus and the Moon
Powered byPixInsight

Hipparchus and the Moon

Hipparchus and the Moon, AstroGG
Hipparchus and the Moon
Powered byPixInsight

Hipparchus and the Moon

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

A little late to the lunar eclipse image party but I took my time on this one. I wanted to show the Moon crossing the Earth’s circular shadow. I started by aligning the stars in each image. Then I had to compensate for the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. During the eclipse, the Earth moved 0,1 degree along the ecliptic causing the shadow to be elliptical instead of circular. In the same time, the Earth turned around its axis causing a parallax shift of 0,35 degree along the celestial equator. With the final image, I could measure the shadow’s diameter (=1,6 degrees) relative to the Moon’s diameter (=0,6 degree) to compute the Earth-Moon distance using Hipparchus method. I found roughly 350 000 km.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Hipparchus and the Moon, AstroGG

In these collections

Solar system