Orbital projection for an example of a MS+BH system with M_BH = 10 M_⊙, M_LC = 15 M_⊙, a_LC = 1.17 au, and e = 0.6. The solid ellipse represents the true orbit, with the semi-major axis shown as the two stars connected by a red line. The dashed ellipse shows the orbit projected with i = 60°, Ω = 52.9°, and ω = 242.4°. The projected semi-major axis is shown as a dashed red line. The blue triangles connected with a dashed line show the semi-major axis of the projected orbit, α.