Laser transit-time measurements between earth and moon with a transportable system

A high radiance, pulsed laser system with a transportable transmitting unit was used to measure the transit times of 25 ns, 10 joule, and 530 nm pulses from earth to the Apollo 15 retroreflector on the moon and back

The Distance To The Hyades Cluster Based On Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor Parallaxes

Trigonometric parallax observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) 3 of seven Hyades members in six fields of view have been analyzed along with their proper motions to determine the distance to the cluster. Knowledge of the convergent point and mean proper motion of the Hyades is critical to the derivation of the distance to the center of the cluster. Depending on the choice of the proper-motion system, the derived cluster center distance varies by 9%. Adopting a reference distance of 46.1 pc or m - M = 3.32, which is derived from the ground-based parallaxes in the General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes (1995 edition), the FK5/PPM proper-motion system yields a distance 4% larger, while the Hanson system yields a distance 2% smaller. The HST FGS parallaxes reported here yield either a 14% or 5% larger distance, depending on the choice of the proper-motion system. Orbital parallaxes (Torres et al.) yield an average distance 4% larger than the reference distance. The variation in the distance derived from the HST data illustrates the importance of the proper-motion system and the individual proper motions to the derivation of the distance to the Hyades center; therefore, a full utilization of the HST FGS parallaxes awaits the establishment of an accurate and consistent proper-motion system.NASA HST GTO, HF-1042.01-93A, HF-1046.01-93A, NAS526555Astronom

The Distance to the Hyades Cluster Based on HST Fine Guidance Sensor Parallaxes

Trigonometric parallax observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope's Fine Guidance Sensor #3 (HST FGS) of seven Hyades Cluster members in six fields of view have been analyzed along with their proper motions to determine the distance to the cluster. Knowledge of the Cluster's convergent point and mean proper motion are critical to the derivation of the distance to the center of the cluster. Depending on the choice of the proper-motion system, the derived cluster center distance varies by 9%. Adopting a reference distance of 46.1 pc or m-M=3.32, which is derived from the ground-based parallaxes in the General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes (1995 edition), the FK5/PPM proper-motion system yields a distance 4% larger, while the Hanson (1975) system yields a distance 2% smaller. The HST FGS parallaxes reported here yield either a 14% or 5% larger distance depending on the choice of the proper-motion system. Orbital parallaxes (Torres et al. 1997a, 1997b, 1997c) yield an average distance 4% larger than the reference distance. The variation in the distance derived from the HST data illustrates the importance of the proper-motion system and the individual proper motions to the derivation of the distance to the Hyades Cluster center, therefore a full utilization of the HST FGS parallaxes awaits the establishment of an accurate and consistent proper-motion system.Comment: 7 pages; This study is collaborated with 8 institution

Spatial variation of fundamental couplings and Lunar Laser Ranging

If the fundamental constants of nature have a cosmic spatial variation, there will in general be extra forces with a preferred direction in space which violate the equivalence principle. We show that the millimeter-precision Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation provides a very sensitive probe of such variation that has the capability of detecting a cosmic gradient of the ratio between the quark masses and the strong interaction scale at the level ∇ ln(mquark/ΛQCD) ∼ 2.6 × 10−6 Glyr−1, which is comparable to the cosmic gradients suggested by the recently reported measurements of Webb et al. We also point out the capability of presently planned improved equivalence principle tests, at the ∆g/g . 10−17 level, to probe similar cosmic gradients