Modern Eddington Experiment 2024: Results and Conclusions

The main goal of the Modern Eddington Experiment 2024 (MEE2024) was to acquire images of stars near the disk of the Sun during the total eclipse of April 8th, 2024. By precisely measuring the gravitational shift in the stars’ apparent locations, the deflection coefficient predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity could be measured. The experiment was attempted by a total of thirteen telescope stations at three locations across the central path of the eclipse. While seven stations in Texas were completely clouded out, one of the stations in central Mexico had modest success, capturing 171 stars during the 4.5 minutes of totality. Our estimate for the deflection coefficient using a subset of the data from this station is 1.84 0.24 arcsec, which is consistent with Einstein’s prediction of 1.7512 arcsec. This shows that with adequate planning and practice, teams of faculty, undergraduate students, and amateur astronomers can measure the deflection coefficient using amateur-grade astronomical equipment. In this paper, we present a summary of the data collected during the eclipse and a detailed description of the open source data analysis software package that was written specifically for this project. We also discuss some of the lessons that we learned while conducting the experiment and offer equipment and procedural suggestions for those attempting to repeat the experiment during the eclipses of August 2nd, 2027 and July 22nd, 2028, which should provide some of the best opportunities to measure in the next 100+ years.