Who was the first person to measure the distance from earth to a star useing the Parallax method?

Answer 1

This method was first successfully used by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel in 1838 when he measured the distance to 61 Cygni with a heliometer, and it remains the standard for calibrating other measurement methods (after the size of the orbit of the earth is measured by radar reflection on other planets).

I hope that this is of some assistance.

Answer 2

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel 1838 on 61 Cygni

Answer 3

This very simple relation yields insight toward the scale of the nearby stars. This understanding came in 1838 thanks to the observations of Friedrich Bessel at the Prussian Observatory in Berlin, Germany. He measured the parallax angle of the star 61 Cygni to be about a third of an arcsecond, yielding the first reliable distance to a nearby star (which turns out to be 3.2 parsecs, or about 10 light-years). Of course, at that time the properties of light were yet to be discovered, so these enormous distances were described in parsecs, not light-years.

Answer 4

"The first stellar parallax was measured in 1838 by Friedrich Bessel for the star 61 Cygni."

Answer 5

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

Answer 6

Johannes Kepler

Answer 7

Mr. Spock