(54.) Siebert, "The Early Search for
Stellar Parallax:
The trouble was, the
stellar parallax was so small that not till the 1830s did telescopes become sufficiently refined to detect it.
His conclusion: Bessel justly receives credit for the first determination of
stellar parallax. After presenting the scientific case with lawyerly precision, Otto Struve explains, "The important thing, however, is not ...
In the wobble of Gamma Draconis, Bradley had gathered the first definitive proof, not of
stellar parallax, but of the Earth's orbital movement around the Sun.
Bessel would finish, in a dead heat, the 2,000-year race to measure a
stellar parallax, and thus determine the true distance to the stars.