Orbital Motion GIF Animations

Click on the thumbnail to view the full-resolution GIF movie.

Epicycles & Equants

Hipparchan Epicycle and Deferent

Ptolemaic Equant, Epicycle, and Deferent

Hipparchan Lunar Epicycle (approximate)

Kepler's 2nd Law

e=0.2

e=0.4

e=0.6

e=0.8

Two-Body Orbits (Center of Mass)

Circular (e=0) two-body orbits with mass ratios q=0.02, 0.05, and 0.2

e=0 q=0.02

e=0 q=0.05

e=0 q=0.2

Two-body orbits for e=0.8 and mass-ratio 0.2. The second adds uses a line to connect the two bodies.

e=0.8 q=0.2

e=0.8 q=0.2, line connecting the two bodies

Example Two-Body Systems

Earth-Moon System

Pluto-Charon System

Alberio (Beta Cygni) Binary Star System

Copyright Notice:

All of these animations are Copyright © Richard W. Pogge, All Rights Reserved.

Use Notes:

These animations were created using Python codes I wrote for this purpose. I need to refine them some before eventually releasing them on GitHub for more general use.