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Ancient Astronomy, Distances, and Parallax measurements

All the talk about the possible precision of naked-eye measurements means nothing when we compare with actual measurements made by the Ancients. While anyone would have been able to make accurate ...
Pierre Paquette's user avatar
7 votes
Accepted

Why does the sunrise time at a particular location at a particular date change abruptly over the years?

@Teemu had the right idea: It's time zones. The specified location is in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta. Years before the adoption of India Standard Time (UTC+5:30), Kolkata had its own time zone, ...
David Hammen's user avatar
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4 votes
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What were the estimated distances of planets from the Earth in the geocentric model?

Ptolemy didn't know. The geocentric model gives the astronomer little ability to measure extraterrestrial distances, as the Earth doesn't move. The baseline for parallax measurements is thus limited ...
John Doty's user avatar
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