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Because it is a right-handed system, ecliptic longitude is measured positive eastwards in the fundamental plane (the ecliptic) from 0° to 360°. Because of axial precession , the ecliptic longitude of most "fixed stars" (referred to the equinox of date) increases by about 50.3 arcseconds per year, or 83.8 arcminutes per century, the speed of ...
The heliocentric ecliptic system describes the planets' orbital movement around the Sun, and centers on the barycenter of the Solar System (i.e. very close to the center of the Sun). The system is primarily used for computing the positions of planets and other Solar System bodies, as well as defining their orbital elements .
Spherical coordinates, known as ecliptic longitude and latitude or celestial longitude and latitude, are used to specify positions of bodies on the celestial sphere with respect to the ecliptic. Longitude is measured positively eastward [5] 0° to 360° along the ecliptic from the March equinox, the same direction in which the Sun appears to ...
The greatest elongation of a given inferior planet occurs when this planet's position, in its orbital path around the Sun, is at tangent to the observer on Earth. Since an inferior planet is well within the area of Earth's orbit around the Sun, observation of its elongation should not pose that much a challenge (compared to deep-sky objects, for example).
[100] [101] The ecliptic was sometimes divided into 12 signs, each subdivided into 30 degrees, [102] [103] and the sign component of ecliptic longitude was expressed either with a number from 0 to 11. [104] or with the corresponding zodiacal symbol. [103]
Stars at the ecliptic poles appear to move in circles, stars exactly in the ecliptic plane move in lines, and stars at intermediate angles move in ellipses. Shown here are the apparent motions of stars with the ecliptic latitudes corresponding to these cases, and with ecliptic longitude of 270°.
In astronomy, an equinox is either of two places on the celestial sphere at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator. [1] [2] [3] Although there are two such intersections, the equinox associated with the Sun's ascending node is used as the conventional origin of celestial coordinate systems and referred to simply as "the equinox".
The modern definition using ecliptic longitudes, introduced by the Shixian calendar, is known as 定气法 (dìng qì fǎ, ' steady term method '). Under this method, the determination of solar terms is similar to the astronomical determination of the special cases of equinox and solstice dates, with different ecliptic longitudes to solve for.