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Want to create an astrolabe? A planisphere? Or one of a wide variety of sundials? François Blateyron has created a series of software programs suitable for the first time dialist or for experts. An interesting testimonial comes from Jim Tallsman of Artisan Sundials: “You may be interested to know that, for the 6th year, I used Shadows to lay out the Sawyer Prize Dial for NASS (North American Sundial Society), a special edition Spectra sundial. There are now 350+ Spectra dials out there under the sun, in 7 countries and about 40 US states. I used Shadows for every one of them. I use Shadows almost every day - I guess that makes me one of your power users! Thank you again for making it and for your ongoing efforts to continually improve it!” Visit shadowspro.com for this very polished sundial software. |
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Want software that allows you to draw a variety of gnomonic sundials with a variety of details? Then Orologi Solari e Meridiane is the site for you. Gian Casalegno, an experienced Italian sundialist, offers both software and explanations of sundial construction. Illustrated here is the orologio del pastore, the shepard dial. (To allow easier construction, the gnomon is actually a slit in the top cardboard flange.) Want to draw dials with Babylonian (Hours from Sunrise) or Italian Hours (Hour to Sunset) or Temporal Hours (12 hours in the daylight)? It’s available at the click of a button with Gian’s software.
http://digilander.libero.it/orologi.solari
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Need help with sundial design? Miroslav Broz’s Czech Republic site provides a wonderful collection of calculators for sun position, equation of time, and the calculator software itself. Also has catalog of Czech Republic sundials. http://mail.astrohk.cz/~mira/shc/shc.php?lang=gb |
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This sight has a potpourri of calculators for astronomy and for the dialist, includig calculators for time, sun and moon position, and more. http://users.zoominternet.net/~matto/Java/index.htm |
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And you though the Department of Energy was only about electricity. NREL provides a solar calculator with many options: position, declination, sunrise, sunset and much more. Prints a table of data for any start-end date.[Link] http://www.nrel.gov/midc/solpos/spa.html |
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This is the official site of US Naval Observatory Tables of sunrise and sunset. Tables can be imported into MS Excel for graphing. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php Soon this link will change to the single portal http://www.usno.navy.mil |
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At Carl Sabanski’s site you can get “SUN” an Excel spreadsheet by Ricardo Cernic. It provides a full solar ephemeris in English, Portuguese, French, Spanish. Provides Italian, Babylonian, and Temporal Hours as well as Local Solar Time and Sidereal Time. http://www.mysundial.ca/tsp/sun.html |
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Want to draw your own analemma? Visit Walter Sanford’s site for a number of links and tools for the dialist and download the NASS Excel spreadsheet SunAnalemma.xls. Lots of excellent references to computing and drawing the sun’s analemma. http://www.wsanford.com/~wsanford/exo/sundials/analemma_calc.html |
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Providence College and Prof. Richard B. Goldstein has the math and answers for you at the “Sun Positions, Formulas, and Sundials” site. On-line Java calculators and excellent description of equations used in dialing. http://www.providence.edu/mcs/rbg/java/sun.htm |
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Need an almanac? You can get one quickly at astroastronomy.com. Simple charts when you need them. http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/2008.shtml |
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Sustainable by Design provides a suite of shareware tools on sustainable energy topics, including sun angle, sun position, and solar path. Good resource for both dialist and architect. Analyze louver shading and window overhang design. http://susdesign.com/tools.php |
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Here is Dr. Daniel Roth’s simple Azimut und Elevation der Sonne calculator based on equations from Pfeger’s Astronomy with the Personal Computer. Simple to use. http://www.infraroth.de/index.html?nav_p.html,aziele.html |
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric agency (NOAA) provides sunrise-sunset calculator and calculator for solar declination, azimuth, elevation, and equation of time. PDF files are available for low and high accuracy solar position equations as well as sun. http://www.srrb.noaa.gov/highlights/sunrise/gen.html |
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Want to know how a vertical dial is laid out? Visit the virtual sundial of Queen’s College, Cambridge, UK and change its position and orientation. See the resulting hour lines, solstice and equinox lines. Uses Java. http://www.quns.cam.ac.uk/Queens/images/software/sundial.html |
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Here is a simple sun calculator by Senol Gulgonul providing time of sunrise, mid-day, sunset, twilight and for a given time, the azimuth and elevation of the sun. Provides links to other calculator sites. http://www.geocities.com/senol_gulgonul/sun/ |
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Want to see a sundial designed for a house in Ghana? And examine the code that created it? It’s a Java applet (with code) re-implemented by Martin Richards that was originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University. The code is nicely documented. We hope that Geraldine enjoyed her back yard sundial. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/sundial/SunDial.html |
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L.J. Coletti’s Great Circle Studio has a simple sun calculator, but with a twist. Output can be done in HTML, Text, or as a 2D or 3D plot in horizontal or ecliptic coordinates. You can also find a SunMap, a graphical map of the world with current day/night boundaries and solar data of Julian date, Greewich (AT) time, equation of time, solar declination, right assension and ecliptic longitude. Nicely done. http://www.gcstudio.com/ |
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For a given time and date or Julian day you can see the earth using one of several displays including Living Earth, NASA Blue Marble and NASA Visible Earth or Topological map. You can overlay the mage with clouds, infra-red, water vapor and weather data. Addition Internet Links are available. Neat Stuff. http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html |
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Jurgen Giesen has created a whole series of Sundial Java Applets at the GeoAstro website. You can find everything from sundial construction to a SunMap Clock to views of solar eclipses. This is great astrodynamics. There is a charge for obtaining the applets. http://www.jgiesen.de/GeoAstro/GeoAstro.htm |
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