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In astronomy, the ecliptic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system commonly used for representing the apparent positions, orbits, and pole orientations [1] of Solar System objects. Because most planets (except Mercury) and many small Solar System bodies have orbits with only slight inclinations to the ecliptic, using it as the ...
The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of Earth around the Sun. [ 1][ 2][ a] From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic against the background of stars. [ 3] The ecliptic is an important reference plane and is the basis ...
Astronomical coordinate systems. A star 's galactic, ecliptic, and equatorial coordinates, as projected on the celestial sphere. Ecliptic and equatorial coordinates share the March equinox as the primary direction, and galactic coordinates are referred to the galactic center. The origin of coordinates (the "center of the sphere") is ambiguous ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Redirect page. Redirect to: Ecliptic coordinate system#Spherical coordinates
Solar longitude. Solar longitude, commonly abbreviated as Ls, is the ecliptic longitude of the Sun, i.e. the position of the Sun on the celestial sphere along the ecliptic. It is also an effective measure of the position of the Earth (or any other Sun-orbiting body) in its orbit around the Sun, [ 1] usually taken as zero at the moment of the ...
Analemma plotted as seen at noon GMT from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich (latitude 51.48° north, longitude 0.0015° west). Owing to the tilt of Earth's axis (23.439°) and the Earth's orbital eccentricity, the relative location of the Sun above the horizon is not constant from day to day when observed at the same clock time each day. [ 1 ]
Lunar node. The lunar nodes are the two points where the Moon's orbital path crosses the ecliptic, the Sun's apparent yearly path on the celestial sphere. A lunar node is either of the two orbital nodes of the Moon, that is, the two points at which the orbit of the Moon intersects the ecliptic. The ascending (or north) node is where the Moon ...
A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon 's directly sunlit portion as viewed from the Earth (because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, the same hemisphere is always facing the Earth). In common usage, the four major phases are the new moon, the first quarter, the full moon and the last quarter; the four minor ...