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Which mechanism limited astrolabe precision during celestial altitude measurement?

A)Hygroscopic expansion of the alidade arm
B)Parallax error induced by sphere projection
C)Backlash in the gear train construction
D)Refraction errors due to atmospheric variations

💡 Explanation

During altitude measurement of celestial bodies, parallax error occurs because an astrolabe projects the 3D celestial sphere onto a 2D plane, causing distortion at the user eye location that increases with object angular distance. This limits accuracy; therefore parallax error predominates, rather than material expansion failures, backlash caused by manufacturing faults without gears, atmospheric refraction variations which causes distortion.

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