[AstroNet] Moon's Parallax - partners requested

[Kevin Govender]

Dear all

Our colleagues in Italy are looking for partners from Africa to assist with
a measurement of the moon's parallax. The measurement will take place on
28th December 2014. Please contact Andrea (copied here) if you are
interested in participating or know a group who would be interested.
Details of the project from Andrea:


*Since ancient times, people wonder how far are the celestial bodies. The
basic idea to estimate the distance to a near celestial body is to spot out
its parallax, i.e. its apparent shift with respect to much further bodies
when observed from two different viepoints. This perfectly applies to the
Moon. If we observe the Moon from two widely-separated places on Earth, we
can see its shift with respect to the stars and, by applying trigonometry,
measure its distance. The Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region
of the Aosta Valley (OAVdA), Italy, is going to plan this measure on
Sunday, December 28th, 2014, during the 2nd edition of the ESO Astronomy
Camp. The topic of the Camp, educational initiative organised by the
European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Sterrenlab with the OAVdA, is
distances in the Universe. Over 50 students aged 15 to 18 from four
continents will take part to the Camp. If you are interested in being part
of the network of observers and join the students of the ESO Astronomy Camp
for this special experience, taking all together at the same time a picture
of the Moon from different places on Earth, you can read more at
http://www.oavda.it/italiano/documents/20141215_Lunar_parallax_u1.pdf
<http://www.oavda.it/italiano/documents/20141215_Lunar_parallax_u1.pdf>*

Regards
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Govender
IAU Office of Astronomy for Development
www.astro4dev.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.saasta.ac.za/pipermail/astronet/attachments/20141216/0ed29c5b/attachment.html>