Galileo and optical illusion

Details Galileo and optical illusion Galileo and optical illusion

Mar 1986

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1986amjph..54..248p&link_type=abstract

American Journal of Physics, Volume 54, Issue 3, pp. 248-252 (1986).

Physics

Biographies, Tributes, Personal Notes, And Obituaries, Astrometry And Reference Systems

Scientific paper

Galileo's earliest telescopic measurements are of sufficient quality that their detailed analysis yields scientifically interesting and pedagogically useful results. An optical illusion strongly influences Galileo's observations of Jupiter's moons, as published in the Starry Messenger. A simple procedure identifies individual satellites with sufficient reliability to demonstrate that Galileo regularly underestimated satellite brightness and overestimated elongation when a satellite was very close to Jupiter. The probability of underestimation is a monotonically decreasing function of separation angle, both for Galileo and for viewers of a laboratory simulation of the Jupiter ``starfield'' viewed by Galileo. Analysis of Galileo's records and a simple simulation experiment appropriate to undergraduate courses clarify the scientific problems facing Galileo in interpreting his observations.

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