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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2021 Jun 22, 08:57 -0700
Geoffrey Kolbe, you wrote a week ago, regarding "sidereal" versus "stellar" day:
"Sidereal is derived from the Latin word "sidereus" meaning of, or pertaining to, the stars
Stellar is derived from the Latin word "stellaris" meaning of, or pertaining to, the stars
The difference would appear to be one of context, or nuance, but I am no Latin expert to explain it!"
Right. They mean the same thing, and without a decoder ring these terms do not distinguish meaning. If you search on "stellar day" in texts before 2000, there are quite a few hits that appear to be translations of papers in other languages (many of the authors were Russian when I checked). These are almost certainly not attempts to distinguish a difference from the well-known sidereal day --they're translations from a non-english equivalent of sidereal day.
Frank Reed
