Lunar Parallax Demonstration Project

 Where it all started...

Following the posts on a Yahoo Lunar Observers Group, Martin Frey picked up on a question put forward by one of the forum's Italian posters...

Subject: Measuring lunar parallax: possible with amateur instruments?

A friend of mine is an astronomy instructor. As a laboratory activity,
he would like to measure the lunar parallax with two groups of students separated by hundreds or thousands km.

Is this possible with ordinary amateur astronomer instruments and equipment? Any suggestions or comments? Has any of you tried that?

Paolo


Knowing of my previous project - "Planets in Motion", Martin passed the question on to me via the uk.sci.astronomy usenet group. I acknowledged his question but thought little more of it (I rarely pay any attention to Martin ;-) ).

A few weeks later, someone reminded me of the total lunar eclipse due on the 9th November 2003.

To be honest I had totally forgotten about this event! While trying to work out how I was going to observe it and with what equipment, I had a yearning to do something rather different for this one. Finally, the penny dropped and the two requests came together.

That's how this project was born!

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