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← HistoryWhich 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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