A NEW LOOK TO PTOLEMY'S METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE EARTH-MOON DISTANCE

Abstract

We performed a study for determining the Earth-Moon distance utilizing the method of Moon passage through the zenith, and we proposed a refinement to the mathematical modeling of this method that allows obtaining that distance without considering, at the second time measurement, that the Moon is positioned exactly at the observer's zenith direction. As in the original method, we considered in our proposal the approximation that the Moon trajectory around the Earth is circular and we did not take into account the inclination of the Moon's orbital plane. However, even with these approximations, taking into consideration the results found and the errors obtained, we concluded that the proposal represents an improvement to the referring method, and that the experimental measures were facilitated.