Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An instrument in which a mirror is automatically moved so that it reflects sunlight in a constant direction. It is used with a pyrheliometer to make continuous measurements of solar radiation.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An instrument consisting of a mirror carried by clockwork in such a way as to reflect the sun's rays in a fixed direction. The name is also improperly applied to a porte-lumière.
Wiktionary
- n. A device that includes a plane mirror which turns so as to keep reflecting sunlight toward a predetermined target, compensating for the sun's apparent motions in the sky. The target may be a physical object, distant from the heliostat, or a direction in space, and is almost always stationary relative to the heliostat, so the light is reflected in a fixed direction.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An instrument consisting of a mirror moved by clockwork, by which a sunbeam is made apparently stationary, by being steadily directed to one spot during the whole of its diurnal period; also, a geodetic heliotrope.
Etymologies
- Circa 1750, from New Latin heliostata, from Ancient Greek ἥλιος (helios, "sun") + Latin status ("stationary"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“According to the report, it features over 1,000 freestanding heliostat mirrors that follow the arc of the sun.”
“The Pit Power Tower design has heliostat fields on both sides of the pit and so you need two receivers.”
Solar Updraft Towers to Generate Food and Energy | Inhabitat
“You also need to look at losses from suboptimal heliostat-receivers alignment resulting in further losses.”
Solar Updraft Towers to Generate Food and Energy | Inhabitat
“He took a highspeed across the stony plains of the Piedmont to the heliostat terminus at Port Richmond, and caught the first flight out.”
“The single largest cost component of the system is the heliostat field.”
“New stretch-membrane heliostats will also be added to the existing heliostat field to increase the system's energy output.”
“De Laquil and others (1993) use similar values for heliostat costs in their estimates.”
“Cover photos (clockwise from top right-hand corner): (1) Central receiver tower and heliostat field at Solar One, a 10-MW solar-thermal plant in the Mojave Desert, California, now under conversion to Solar Two, a central receiver plant with storage capabilities.”
“With the telescope, micrometer, heliostat, and spectroscope came desire for more complex instruments, resulting in the invention of the photoheliograph, invoking the aid of photography to make permanent the results of these exciting researches.”
“Images of the sun are thrown into the observatory by an ingenious instrument run by clockwork, and called a heliostat.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘heliostat’.
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ENVI - general
abatement potential, adiabatic process, afforestation, albedo, alkene, anthropic activity, anthropogenic dis..., anthropogenic for..., anthropogenic, of..., olefin, atmospheric conve..., atmospheric tides and 229 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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dolphins gambolling
based on quote by Hesychius of Batos thornbush
who it is believed lived sometime between 700 and 900 AD
The heart that is freed from imaginings ends up by producing in itself hol...reflection, examen, nepsis, ruminate, contemplate, muller, soul-searching, reflect, flash, coruscate, redound, debuscope and 16 more...
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-stat
things that check or hold in place
rheostat, coelostat, siderostat, heliostat, hemostat, thermostat, aerostat, cryostat, photostat, chemostat, vorinostat, orthostat and 7 more...
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ecbrenner's list
flatline, luddism, apocalipstick, muttsucker, leviathan of fore..., flint, coryphaeus, donnybrook, bandwidth, bagpipe the mizen, cheesed off, asterism and 525 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, H
hurlyburly, hurtle, hodgepodge, heartwood, hatch, halo, hooptedoodle, hacienda, hairpin, heyday, hardscrabble, hopper and 208 more...
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bertilak's Words
antidisestablishm..., feldercarb, wainscoting, eleemosynary, oxymoron, fuliginous, libration, lammergeier, saxifrage, ichor, lambent, smaragdine and 414 more...
Tweets
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ecbrenner "An instrument consisting of a mirror mounted on an axis moved by clockwork by which a sunbeam is steadily reflected in one direction." --Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Mar 27, 2009