True longitude is the conventional orbital angle formed from the longitude of ascending node, argument of periapsis and true anomaly. For a coplanar Kepler orbit it is the actual polar longitude of the position vector. For an inclined orbital plane the sum of angles is generally not the projected azimuth. The mean longitude uses mean anomaly in place of , so . For small orbital eccentricity, Kepler's equation gives , while the eccentric-to-true anomaly relation gives ; hence . This periodic difference matters when separating a slow resonant argument from a rapidly varying geometric angle.