What's New Under The Sun

Tuesday, 10 June 2025 18:51

  Prosciutto di Portici (Ham) Sundial Photo: Getty Images The Prosciutto di Portici Sundial, more often called the Portici Ham Sundial, dates from the first century somewhere between  8 BCE to 79 CE.  This small silvered bronze dial was uncovered on 11 June, 1755 in the ruins of Herculaneum (current day Portici) in the "Villa of the Papyri", buried in...

Friday, 06 June 2025 21:01

  Sundial dedication May 31, 2025.  At left is Kathleen Stuckey Fox, with the City Proclamation presented by Mayor Pat Moeller and City Council on-lookers Carla Fiehrer and Susan Vaughn offering congratulations. On May 31, 2025 at 1pm, the Hamilton, Ohio, sundial (NASS Sundial Registry #1109) was re-dedicated in Monument Park. Originally dedicated in 1941 to the...

Monday, 24 March 2025 21:33

Several years ago Frans decided to write the course on sundials that included self assessment questions to force students not only to read the text, but to internalize the concepts. And a final submittal question "not necessarily a difficult question, but: no answer, no new lesson." Thus Frans Maes began writing lessons and sending them out to students. NASS has now used his material to create...

Monday, 24 March 2025 15:37

In a 24 March 2025 article from the on-line Science Advisor (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Phie Jacobs summarizes the "great debate" of the yearly shift from standard time to daylight savings time.  In January 2025 the US Senate introduced the Sunshine Protection Act to permanently have daylight savings time year round. Certainly 54% of Americans do not like the...

Friday, 21 March 2025 19:26

Perhaps the most famous alignment circle in the United States is the Cahokia Woodhenge near St. Louis constructed between 700-1400 CE by Cahokia Indigenous native Americans. But there were an estimated 10,000 other earthen mounds that once were scatter across the mid-west.. In an article from Atlas Obscura (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/octagon-earthworks-ohio) by Olivia Young on March...

Friday, 21 March 2025 18:37

The Hamilton dial is in the restorative care of Jarrett and Celene Hawkins (Hawkins & Hawkins Custom, LLC in Cincinnati Ohio https://www.studio-hawkins.com/) in preparation for the dial's dedication on Saturday, May 31, 2025. The face of the Hamilton Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) sundial has been cleaned and bead-blasted showing the dial as it was cast 84 years ago. In the process,...

Tuesday, 11 February 2025 00:27

We will celebrate our 30th annual NASS Sundial Conference in Ottawa, Ontario 7-10 August 2025.  But you need to register by April 15th to get theFull and Partial attendee rates at a discount. We will be staying at Le Germain Hotel Ottawa, 30 Daly Avenue, Ottawa ON Canada.  We have a block of rooms at a discount daily room rate of 284 CAD (approx. 216 USD) plus HST and MAT taxes. ...

Tuesday, 17 December 2024 23:47

In November 2024, a team consisting of members from SPL, TTDG and CMD of VSSC successfully designed and installed an accurate and fully functional sundial at the Rocket Garden of VSSC Space Museum, Thumba (8.53°N, 76.86°E). Following a space theme, the vertical gnomon is a 3-stage rocket that casts its daily and seasonal shadow on a dial face 1 1/2 meters by 1 meter.  The the sundial face...

Saturday, 16 November 2024 00:07

Esteban Martínez Almirón has published a new book Historical Sundials: Forgotten Andalusian Treasures (Relojes de Sol Históricos Tesoros Andaluces Olvidados) In it he reviews over 400 sundials from the Andalucian region of southern Spain Originally to celebrate the 25th year of the website https://relojandalusi.org/ Esteban Martínez Almirón began showing his sundial drawings on the site....

Wednesday, 13 November 2024 19:36

It isn't often that a sundial face is created before the gnomon is attached.  In Shelbyville IN a large, circular art piece in the form of a sundial, was created at the Blue River Trailhead early in 2024.  If they had chosen an analemmatic sundial, a walker of the trail could have simply stood on the appropriate date and used his or her own shadow to tell the local solar time. ...

Monday, 04 November 2024 18:38

The Sun Tower's shadow marks the passing of the seasons credit Jonathan Leijonhufvud For two years News Atlas (https://newatlas.com/architecture/) has reported on the progress of the construction of the Sun Tower in Yantai, China.  The 164-foot (50m) curved conical tower was designed by OPEN Architecture symbolized the watch towers of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644 CE)...

Monday, 04 November 2024 17:30

NASS Registered Sundial #1109 at https://sundials.org/index.php/sundial-registry/onedial/1109 is one of a series of bronze sundials presented by Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, dedicated to the memory of the Grand Army of the Republic. Unfortunately the dial in Hamilton, Ohio, suffers from neglect and the gnomon has long been missing. With support, this dial has been designated...

Volume V. New & Easie Method to The Art of Dyalling 1688

Details
Hits: 10583

Strode1688NewAndEasieMethodThomas Strode- A NEW AND EASIE METHOD TO THE ART OF DYALLING.

CONTAINING I. All Horizontal Dyals, all Upright Dyals, Reflecting Dyals, Dyals without Centres, Nocturnal Dyals, Upright Declining Dyals, without knowing the Declination of the Plane. II. The most Natural and Easie Way of Describing the Curve-Lines of the Suns Declination on any Plane. The like never before Published. By Thomas Strode, Esq; of Maperton in the County of Somerset. LONDON. Printed, by H.C. for J. Taylor, at the Ship, and T. Newborough, at the Ball, in St. Paul's Church-Yard, MDCLXXXVIII. 1688.  (72 pages)

"To The Reader. Courteous Reader, This was chiefly composed for some near Relations; but the Method being Natural, Easie, and not Common, I think I ought to communicate, and not to Bury it with me. I do not Publish this as to prefer it before Trigonometrical Calculation of Dyals, for no way can be Exacter than that; but this is to save that Labour in Young Beginners, lest they should be dejected with the tediousness of the other: And this Discourse but little short in Exactness with that...

"The Method of drawing the Parallels of the Suns Declination, will give (if I am not deceived) a Diversion to those of the Highest Forms in the Mathematicks, being not Extant (as I have great reason to believe) in any Author; being grounded on such Paradoxes in the Conicks, That some of them on the first View will hardly be admitted; for with Gratefulness, I do acknowledge, That I received Seeds and Plants from some eminent Persons of the Royal Society, since deceased; but being removed into my barren Soil, and Cultivated and Manured according to the new Husbandry, produced Fruit beyond my Expectation, whereof this is part; besides their Geometrical way of Delineating their Curves, I have for the Latitude of London, in a Direct South Dyal, given the Distances of the Points of the Hyperbole on Parallels to the Transverse Axe, from the Conjugate, which by a Diagonal Scale will quickly be placed."

This can be ordered from LuLu Books: Strode: A New and Easie Method To the Art of Dyalling (1688)