Measurement of Parallax Lab
1. What is the objective of today’s lab?
2. What is the apparatus used in today’s lab?
3. Under what circumstances might we want to use Parallax to measure a distance?
4. What is the "distant " object be that we will measure the distance to in this lab?
5. Draw a diagram of the measurements we will use to find the distance to our "distant" object (See Figure 1 in your lab manual)
6. (True or False) We will rotate our graph paper 900 and make a second measurement to our distant object.
7. What does the distance between points A and B represent if we are trying to measure the distance to a near star from the earth?
8. Give the formula for the parallax angle a. Show diagram.
( See Figure 1 in your lab manual)
9. (True or False) We will measure the distance to our "distant" object directly using a meter stick.
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Answers.
3. If the object's height is too great or its distance is too far away to measure directly with a tape measure, or an intervening object such as a mountain or river prevents the direct measurement.
4. A piece of paper with a black vertical stripe on it.
7. The average diameter of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.