ellipticity
Noun
Meaning
Deviation of an ellipse or a spheroid from the form of a circle or a sphere; especially, in reference to the figure of the earth, the difference between the equatorial and polar semidiameters, divided by the equatorial; thus, the ellipticity of the earth is /.
Source: Webster's dictionarySynonyms
Hypernyms
Examples
the oblateness of the planet
Aside from the reversal of handedness, the ellipticity of polarization is also preserved (except in cases of reflection by a birefringent surface).
Ellipticals main The Hubble classification system rates elliptical galaxies on the basis of their ellipticity, ranging from E0, being nearly spherical, up to E7, which is highly elongated.
It is important to note that the ellipticity of a galaxy on the sky is only indirectly related to the true 3-dimensional shape (for example, a flattened, discus-shaped galaxy can appear almost round if viewed face-on or elliptical if viewed at an angle).
KSB calculate how a weighted ellipticity measure is related to the shear and use the same formalism to remove the effects of the PSF.
Light reflected by a metal at non-normal incidence will generally have its ellipticity changed as well.