Abstract
This paper reviews recent astrometric progress in determining the Hyades cluster distance, emphasizing critical assessment of the precision and accuracy of the observations. Substantial improvement in the trigonometric parallaxes yields a mean Hyades distance modulus m - M = 3.25 ± 0.08 mag, nearly twice as precise as previous parallax results. New proper motions from three independent sources yield a mean distance modulus 3.31 ± 0.06 mag. The close agreement of the recent astrometric results suggests that the overall mean Hyades distance modulus 3.30 mag may be used with confidence in cosmic distance scale calibrations.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)