2010 Conference - Burlington
Kat Pond Equatorial Sundial with Bill GottesmanFrom paper sundials to street side sundials, NASS celebrated its annual conference in Burlington, VT. Kate Pond’s “Come Light, Visit Me” sundial, in collaboration with Bill Gottesman, was dedicated at Champlain College. The sundial uses the properties of an equatorial ring, casting the shadows of time upon itself.
Fred Sawyer talked about Antique Hour Lines, showing finally that the lines are amazingly complex, but come very close, but not exactly to the traditional notion of a straight line. André Bouchard discussed Le Gnomoniste, a review of the Quebec sundial society 1993-2010. Roger Bailey gave a short presentation on the solstice points on analemmatic sundials that can be used as sight lines for summer and winter solstice. Roger Bailey gave a detailed talk on the Ibn Al-Shatir Sundial, whose design he studied in detail to produce the Ottoman Garden dial in Missouri.
Bert Willard, the Springfield Telescope makers Historian and Curator described the sundials and sunclocks from James Hartness and Russell Porter. Porter is also know for his leadership in amateur astronomy. Jack Aubert probed into the question of who was first to describe the Equation of Time and the figure “8” analemma. Finding that the first to draw it with reference to a mean time meridian was Grandjean de Fouchy at the Palace de Petit Luxembourg in Paris sometime before 1741.
Read the Retrospective: 
2010_NASS_Conference_Burlington.pdf
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2009 Conference - Portland
Clark Analemmic Equatorial SundialThe Portland tour of sundials included Colby Lamb’s Sundial and workshop, a patio sundial of Rob and Julie Brown that also served as a water sprinkler, a vertical mosaic dial at Stephenson Elementary School, the analemmatic sundial at Marylhurst University designed by John Schilke of NASS and Jan Dabrowski, and across the Willamette River to Reed College and a 1912 vertical sundial designed by Dr. F. L. Griffin. Then more sundials at the National History Site, Fort Vancouver, and ending with the Clark College Equatorial Sundial with a new analemmic gnomon. Roger Bailey outlined how he helped Soap Lake’s monumental sculpture become a summertime sundial. Bill Gottesman showed a realization of Fred Sawyer’s Horizontal Equant Dial that adjusts by simple rotation for the Equation of Time. And most interesting was Silvio Magnani’s presentation on an interactive reflecting heliochronometer in Milan, Italy.
Read about this and much, much more by downloading the Retrospective:
2009_NASS_Conference_Portland.pdf
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2008 Conference - St. Louis
Ottoman Dial at St. Louis Botanical GardenDon Snyder was a superb host for the St. Louis conference. He organized an interesting tour that included the Jefferson Barracks 1817 sundial (now part of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency), the angel holding a vertical sundial on the wall of the St. Louis University Hospital, and the several dials at the Jewel Box in Forest Park. At the Missouri History Museum, conferees saw the “Forgotten Sundial” designed by Thomas Jefferson. At Danforth Campus of Washington University was the 1908 Cupples Dial, and finally at the Missouri Botanical Gardens two dials were dedicated: Ron Rhinehart’s cross-gnomon equatorial and Roger Bailey’s “Ottoman Garden” sundial, based on Ibn Al-Shatir’s dial carved at the Great Mosque in Damascus in 1371. At the conference, the major talk was on the Cahokia Woodhenge, presented by Michael Friedlander, professor of physics and astronomy at Washington University.” And of course there were NASS speakers in abundance talking of dials, dialing scales, and new approaches to the Equation of Time.
Read the Retrospective: 2008_NASS_Conference_St_Louis.pdf
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2007 Conference - McLean
Mac Oglesby Demonstrates Rope and Spar DialIn McLean, Virginia close to Washington, D.C. NASS held its 13th annual conference. At the Analemma Society’s site in Observatory Park, Tony Moss’ dial, the “Jamestown Commemorative Dial,” was dedicated in front of over 50 school children and twice as many adults. This is the first sundial installation in what is planned to be an International Sundial Garden. Other highlights of the sundial tour included the Lyman Briggs Memorial Dial at the National Institute of Science and Technology, the Latitude Observatory (once used to study the daily variation in the earth’s wobble and rotation rate), the Vernon Walker Education Center dial, and the vertical dial on the wall of Jack and Kate Aubert. The conference talks included Roger Bailey on “God’s Longitude and the Lost Colony,” Woody Sullivan’s “Ten Tons of Basalt and Tenths of Degrees,” Fred Sawyer’s discussion on the 17th century battle over the priority of inventing the stereographic quadrant dial, Kevin Karney’s “Variability in the Equation of Time” over geological epoch periods (well, for at least 500 years), and much more. Most impressive was Julian Chen’s “Omnidirectional Lens in Sundials and Solar Compasses” using spheres filled with solution of copper sulfate to focus the sunlight onto a dial.
Learn about the history of the Briggs Sundial: BriggsDial.pdf
Download the retrospective: 2007_NASS_Conference_McLean_VA.pdf
NASS Attendees at NIST Briggs Sundial in Maryland
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2006 Conference - Vancouver
Albinson Slpit Analemmatic SundialArt meets science: John Carmichael held a workshop on DeltaCAD, a flexible computer aided design program for designing sundials and later in the conference with “Some New Sundials I” showed the result of such designs in beautiful stain glass sundials. From the history domain, Fred Sawyer told the story of Captain Sturmy, a 17th century mariner and author of “Gnomonical Scales,” now part of the Shadow Catchers series. Len Berggren discussed the sundials of Geminos of Rhodes in his text “Introduction to the Phenomena,” written about the first century BCE. Chuck Nafziger showed his light concentration sundial with Braille markings to show time-telling to the vision impaired, and Professor Woody Sullivan displayed a prototype of the One-World-Two-Suns Mars sundial. On the pavement of the parking lot, Brian Albinson drew out the split-analemma analemmatic sundial.
See these sundials and more … download the PDF: 2006_NASS_Conference_Vancouver.pdf
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2005 Conference - Chicago
NASS Attendees Inspect Wheaton Memorial Sundial This conference contrasted the old and the new. Steve Luecking presented “Rope Geometry”, an outdoor exercise to draw an ellipse on the ground and draw a horizontal dial using only a knotted cord and stakes in the fashion of ancient Egyptian “rope pullers” (civil engineers). When the conferees visited the Museum of Science and Industry, they were able to see a collection of dials, including a fine example of a first century AD dial, a slight variant of a hemisphaerium. Klau Eichholz talked about Fr. Franz Xaver Josef Bovius and the restoration of his 1716 dial at Solnhofen. On the modern fron, Mike Shaw led the group carefully through the steps of understanding and creating the ingenious Universal Diallist’s Companion. By special arrangement, Fred Sawyer distributed copies of this very useful device to everyone in attendance. Fred then introduced another new dial of his devising, the Hectemoros Dial. Tony Moss discussed two power point presentations “Using and Understanding Sundials” and “Concepts for Students of Sundialling”. A highlight of the conference was the announcement that the North American Sundial Society had been asked to be technical advisor on sun shadows for an episode of the television series “NUMB3RS.” Plus many other presentations by Larry McDavid, Don Petrie, Roger Bailey and a workshop on 3D CAD by SteveLuecking.
Download the retrorespective: 2005_NASS_Conference_Chicago.pdf
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