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The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular separation (in units of angle) describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences , it is called the visual angle , and in optics , it is the angular aperture (of a lens ).
Additional confusion has occurred because there are two qualitatively different "size" experiences for a viewed object. [3] One is the perceived visual angle ′ (or apparent visual angle) which is the subjective correlate of , also called the object's perceived or apparent angular size. The perceived visual angle is best defined as the ...
A standard ruler is an astronomical object for which the actual physical size is known. By measuring its angular size in the sky, one can use simple trigonometry to determine its distance from Earth. In simple terms, this is because objects of a fixed size appear smaller the further away they are.
A small object nearby may subtend the same solid angle as a larger object farther away. For example, although the Moon is much smaller than the Sun, it is also much closer to Earth. Indeed, as viewed from any point on Earth, both objects have approximately the same solid angle (and therefore apparent size). This is evident during a solar eclipse.
Angular distance or angular separation is the measure of the angle between the orientation of two straight lines, rays, or vectors in three-dimensional space, or the central angle subtended by the radii through two points on a sphere.
By convention, for magnifying glasses and optical microscopes, where the size of the object is a linear dimension and the apparent size is an angle, the magnification is the ratio between the apparent (angular) size as seen in the eyepiece and the angular size of the object when placed at the conventional closest distance of distinct vision: 25 ...
Astronomers also measure objects' apparent size as an angular diameter. For example, the full moon has an angular diameter of approximately 0.5° when viewed from Earth. One could say, "The Moon's diameter subtends an angle of half a degree." The small-angle formula can convert such an angular measurement into a distance/size ratio.
The angular size redshift relation for a Lambda cosmology, with on the vertical scale megaparsecs. The angular size redshift relation describes the relation between the angular size observed on the sky of an object of given physical size, and the object's redshift from Earth (which is related to its distance, , from Earth