The Aberration of Light
Consider a monochromatic light source at rest at the origin of an inertial frame O' moving with a speed
along the x axis of an inertial frame O. A light pulse is emitted from the origin of O' in the
plane has components of velocity
and
The components of velocity of the light pulse in O are
(1)
(2)
Dividing (2) by (1) gives
For the special case when the pulse of light is emitted along the y' axis of O' so that
and
The effect of the aberration is that as the speed of O' increases,the direction of the light pulse in O becomes more aligned with the x axis
If
then for
respectively then the angles %theta that the light pulse makes with the x axis in O are 84, 53 and 26 degrees respectively.