

Now close this eye and open the other one. Note how far this finger is from another object in the distant background (say, a tree, if you are outside, or a piece of furniture if you are indoors). Here is an easy way to see parallax in action: hold up one finger and close one eye. It is manifested when observing an object from different points of view against a more distant background. Parallax is a geometric phenomenon used in distance calculations. We have discussed stellar parallax in the article on length and distance but let us briefly look at it here as well, because it is fundamental in measuring distances in space. In other words, a parsec is a distance, from which a disk with a diameter of one astronomical unit will have an angular size of one arcsecond. A parsec is defined as the distance at which an object has a 1-arcsecond stellar parallax.

Where D is the actual distance measured in parsecs and p is the observed parallax angle measured in arcseconds. The parallax of a celestial body can be used to find an approximate distance using the formula These two separated points are situated on the Earth’s orbit and created by two different orbital positions of Earth as described below. Stellar parallax is the difference in direction of a star as seen from two widely separated points. It is measured by the angle or semi-angle between the two lines of sight from an observer to the object. The parallax is the apparent change in the position of an object resulting from a change in the position of the observer. Definition of Parallax and the Formula for Distance Calculation
