OFFSET
-19,1
COMMENTS
The resolution limit of present astronomical instruments is about 200 micro arcseconds, corresponding to a solid angle cut out by a cone with polar angle of 0.0001 arcseconds. This constant, a, expresses the smallest resolvable solid angle as a fraction of the full solid angle. One might also say that at current top resolution, the full celestial sphere contains 1/a resolvable pixels.
See A234597 for more details on solid angle fractions.
LINKS
Stanislav Sykora, Table of n, a(n) for n = -19..1980
Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy, CHARA
FORMULA
(1-cos((0.0001/60/60)*(Pi/180)))/2.
EXAMPLE
5.8761076347744714379007908994067700311362985261950685197...e-20
Inverse:
1.7018068118460879832481638181180323127935597506413188919...e+19
PROG
(PARI) (1-cos((0.0001/3600)*(Pi/180)))/2
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
AUTHOR
Stanislav Sykora, Jun 07 2014
STATUS
approved