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One who studies the daily motions and positions of the planets. Howell.

ce of a greater circle; or a small circle, whose center, being fixed in the deferent of a planet, is carried along with the deferent, and yet, by its own peculiar motion, carries the body of the planet fastened to it round its proper center. The schoolmen were like astronomers which did feign eccentries, and epicycles,…

The date at which a planet or comet has a longitude or position.

A circle around whose circumference a planet or the center of ann epicycle was conceived to move uniformly; -- called also eccentric equator.

pparent time. -- Equation of the center (Astron.), the difference between the place of a planet as supposed to move uniformly in a circle, and its place as moving in an ellipse. -- Equations of condition (Math.), equations formed for deducing the true values of certain quantities from others on which they depend, whe…

equinoctial, and on maps, globes, etc., the equinoctial line. Equator of the sun or of a planet (Astron.), the great circle whose plane passes through through the center of the body, and is perpendicular to its axis of revolution. -- Magnetic equator. See Aclinic.

Wandering; deviating from an appointed course, or from a direct path; roving. Seven planets or errant stars in the lower orbs of heaven. Sir T. Browne.

se; roving about without a fixed destination; wandering; moving; -- hence, applied to the planets as distinguished from the fixed stars. The earth and each erratic world. Blackmore.

Exercising its highest influence; -- said of a planet. [Obs.] Chaucer.

That place of a planet in the zodiac in which it was supposed to exert its strongest influence.

or bent like a sickle; as, a falcate leaf; a falcate claw; -- said also of the moon, or a planet, when horned or crescent- formed.

e same apparent position and distance with respect to each other, thus distinguished from planets and comets.

osed to heliocentric, as seen from the sun; as, the geocentric longitude or latitude of a planet.

eatise on this science. Astronomical, or Mathematical, geography treats of the earth as a planet, of its shape, its size, its lines of latitude and longitude, its zones, and the phenomena due to to the earth's diurnal and annual motions. -- Physical geography treats of the conformation of the earth's surface, of the d…

The planet Uranus, so named by its discoverer, Sir W. Herschel.

or house of life, downward, or in the direction of the earth's revolution, the stars and planets passing through them in the reverse order every twenty- four hours.

aketh an ill seat, but ill ways, ill markets, and ill neighbors. Bacon. There 's some ill planet reigns. Shak.

An irregularity, or a deviation, in the motion of a planet or satellite from its uniform mean motion; the amount of such deviation.

Nearer the sun than the earth is; as, the inferior or interior planets; an inferior conjunction of Mercury or Venus.

Capable of being inhabited; habitable. Systems of inhabitable planets. Locke.