Example of a negative parallax arising from the astrometric data processing. Solid blue lines, true path of the object; red dots, the individual measurements of the source position on the sky; dashed orange lines, the source pathaccording to the least-squares astrometric solution, which here features a negative parallax. Left: path on the skyshowing the effect of proper motion (linear trend) and parallax (loops). Right: right ascension and declination of the source as a function of time. In the fitted solution the negative parallax effect is equivalent to a yearly motion of the star in the opposite direction of the true parallactic motion (which gives a phase-shift of π in the sinusoidal curves in the right panels). The error bars indicate a measurement uncertainty of 0.7 mas, the uncertainties on Δα* and Δ δ are assumedto be uncorrelated.