Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-optics-and-electrodynamics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/paper-1/1/c/solution
Past exam of the optics and electrodynamics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 Paper 1 1 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-20
During the time light crosses a telescope of length , Earth moves sideways by approximately . The telescope must tilt towards Earth's motion so that both ends intercept the ray. Thus the annual stellar aberration amplitude at a transverse sightline is .
Taking one orbital year as days and treating the orbit as circular,This is the instantaneous shift relative to a stationary heliocentric observer, not the doubled peak-to-peak annual excursion. The exact Lorentz transformation for a ray transverse in that frame gives , with the same first-order result.
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