ASTRONOMICAL PLACE OF A STAR OR PLANET. Its longitude or place in the ecliptic, reckoned from the first point of Aries, according to the natural order of the signs.
ASTRONOMICAL TABLES. Tables for facilitating the calculation of the apparent places of the sun, moon, and planets.
ASTRONOMICALS. The sexagesimal fractions.
ASTRONOMY. The splendid department of the mixed sciences which teaches the laws and phenomena of the universal system. It is practical when it treats of the magnitudes, periods, and distances of the heavenly bodies; and physical when it investigates the causes. In the first division the more useful adaptation [nautical] is included (which see).
ASTROSCOPIA. Skill in examining the nature and properties of stars with a telescope.
ASTRUM, or Astron. Sirius, or the Dog-star. Sometimes applied to a cluster of stars.
ASWIM. Afloat, borne on the waters.
ASYLUM. A sanctuary or refuge; a name given to a benevolent institution at Greenwich, for 800 boys and 200 girls, orphans of seamen and marines. The Royal Military Asylum is also an excellent establishment of a similar nature at Chelsea, besides numerous others.
ASYMMETRY. A mathematical disproportion. The relation of two quantities which have no measure in common.
ASYMPTOTES. Lines which continually approximate each other, but can never meet.