Comment by seanhunter

The phrase "highly elliptical" is one where I know exactly what they mean but the more I think about it the more wrong it seems. It should be "Highly eccentric orbit".

All shapes which satisfy {(x,y)| x^2/a^2 + y^2/b^2 = 1} for fixed values of a,b in R are elliptical. Something is either elliptical or not - it's not a matter of degree. A circle is just as elliptical as a more eccentric ellipse in the same way that a square is just as rectangular as a more elongated rectangle.