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Equatorial   /ˌikwətˈɔriəl/   Listen
adjective
Equatorial  adj.  Of or pertaining to the equator; as, equatorial climates; also, pertaining to an equatorial instrument.



noun
Equatorial  n.  (Astron.) An instrument consisting of a telescope so mounted as to have two axes of motion at right angles to each other, one of them parallel to the axis of the earth, and each carrying a graduated circle, the one for measuring declination, and the other right ascension, or the hour angle, so that the telescope may be directed, even in the daytime, to any star or other object whose right ascension and declination are known. The motion in right ascension is sometimes communicated by clockwork, so as to keep the object constantly in the field of the telescope. Called also an equatorial telescope. Note: The term equatorial, or equatorial instrument, is sometimes applied to any astronomical instrument which has its principal axis of rotation parallel to the axis of the earth.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Equatorial" Quotes from Famous Books



... which soon assumes a motion of rotation upon its axis from the general law which gives a circular movement to all fluids that are drawn towards a common centre. The centrifugal force thus generated tends to throw off matter from the equatorial regions of the great orb, but is restrained by the attraction of gravitation, which would prevent any separation of the parts, if the sun itself did not now begin to cool down, and consequently to shrink in size. Under ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... fancy. Let any one consider in his mind's eye the enormous untouched assets still remaining for mankind in the vast spaces filled with the tangled forests of South America, or the exuberant fertility of equatorial Africa or the huge plains of Canada, Australia, Southern Siberia and the United States, as yet only thinly dotted with human settlement. There is no need to draw up an anxious balance sheet of our assets. There is still an uncounted plenty. And every human ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... Wallenstein, where Count Isolani having said, "Pooh! we are all his subjects," i. e. soldiers, (though unproductive labourers,) not less than productive peasants, the emperor's envoy replies—"Yet with a difference, general;" and the difference implies Sir James's scale, his vine-dresser being the equatorial case between the two extremes of the envoy.—Malthus again, in his population-book, contends for a mathematic difference between animal and vegetable life, in respect to the law of increase, as though ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -- Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... in the most hypothetical form, to ask whether the Aurora Borealis and Australia may not be the discharge of electricity, thus urged towards the poles of the earth, from whence it is endeavouring to return by natural and appointed means above the earth to the equatorial regions. The non-occurrence of it in very high latitudes is not at all against the supposition; and it is remarkable that Mr. Fox, who observed the deflections of the magnetic needle at Falmouth, by the Aurora Borealis, gives that direction of ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... not subdivided; but permitted to constitute a single genus, of which there are nearly twenty species—all of them inhabiting equatorial America. ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid


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