SWaB: New Horizons improves parallaxes

[notFritzArgelander]

A surprisingly good side effect of NH observations.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith ... ea602b3a12

[ThinkerX]

I did notice that the error bars crept upwards for the more distant Gaia parallaxes, sometimes topping 20%.

[notFritzArgelander]

I did notice that the error bars crept upwards for the more distant Gaia parallaxes, sometimes topping 20%.

As expected with a limited baseline.

[ThinkerX]

just went and took another look at the Gaia catalog.

Past roughly 500 parsecs, the error bars are usually upwards of 10%, frequently hitting 40%-50%.

past 1000 parsecs, the majority of listings look to have errors of 50% or greater; saw many with error bars greater than the parallax measurements.

also saw quite a few negative parallaxes, something that always struck me as a little absurd.

Gaia distances probably not that reliable past 500 parsecs. of course, that is from a quick look-see.

[notFritzArgelander]

just went and took another look at the Gaia catalog.

Past roughly 500 parsecs, the error bars are usually upwards of 10%, frequently hitting 40%-50%.

past 1000 parsecs, the majority of listings look to have errors of 50% or greater; saw many with error bars greater than the parallax measurements.

also saw quite a few negative parallaxes, something that always struck me as a little absurd.

Gaia distances probably not that reliable past 500 parsecs. of course, that is from a quick look-see.

Negative parallaxes are to be expected due to random measurement errors. Of course they just mean that the parallax is to small to be measured.

[ThinkerX]

now that I think about it, Vizier has a catalog where this sort of thing was done with Voyager a long time ago...

[notFritzArgelander]

now that I think about it, Vizier has a catalog where this sort of thing was done with Voyager a long time ago...

The important thing would be to compare instrumental precision.

[Graeme1858]

Thanks for that nFA.

The Interstellar Neighbourhood 3D map is intriguing to look at!

It will be interesting to see how the experiment goes in April.

Regards

Graeme

[Thefatkitty]

Very cool; great idea and article nFA The best part was I understood the whole thing!

All the best,

[chasmanian]

incredibly amazing and awesome.
thank you nFA!!!