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.  But Shelbyville residents have a more ambitious plan.  The artistically paintedd design is a typical horizontal sundial, requiring a real slanted gnomon. In a news article by Jeff Brown in The Shelby County Post for Nov 12, 2024, "The Blue River Community Foundation received approval Tuesday morning from the Board of Works and Public Safety to purchase and install a gnomon that will turn the art piece at the Blue River Trailhead just north of downtown Shelbyville into a functioning sundial." According to the article, the completion of the sundial will be paid for by grants and private donations.

Photo from The Shelby County Post with a "birds eye view" insert of the sundial layout.  The gnomon will cross half or more of the path.

Read the Jeff Brown's article at: ShelbyCountyPost

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Last Updated: 13 November 2024

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Photo of the Canadian $20 Silver Coin with the reverse as a Sundial. Photo courtesy of the Royal Canadian Mint. Sundial design by Anna Bucciarelli.The Canadian Royal Mint will release a fully functioning sundial coin expected to ship on 12 December, 2024.  The obverse is a profile of His Majesty, Charles III (designed by Steve Rosati) and the reverse is a full 3-dimensional sundial (designed by Anna Bucciarelli).  With a highly decorated dial face and gnomon, the dial is designed for 45° N latitude, telling time from 6am to 6pm.

The first minting of 5,000 coins is already subscribed, and we hope there will be a second minting.  The coin is 99.99% pure silver with a gnomon "styled to complement the coin base's ornate design" made of rhodium-plated brass   The coin is 38mm in diameter, weighing 31.30 g.

From the Canadian Royal Mint website: "This sundial is appropriate for mid-northern latitudes. To use your coin as a sundial, place it on a flat surface in direct sunlight and with the gnomon pointing north. Take note of where the shadow’s outer edge lines up, and that should indicate the approximate local solar time. (Like any sundial, some additional adjustments may be required due to longitude and the time of year.)" We assume of course that these adjustments are mathematical!  Longitude adjustment is made with reference to your local time zone. For example Calgary at 114° W is in the Mountain Standard Time Zone of 105° W.  That is, Calgary is 9° further west of the time zone meridian.  Each degree is 4 minutes of time so the sundial shadow West of the time zone is 9 x 4 =36 minutes "early".  (East of the time zone is "late").  If the clock says noon, the Calgary sundial shadow will show approximately 11:24 am (with an additional correction due to the sun's time excursion of +/- 15 min. called the Equation of Time).

Read more about the sundial coin at: https://www.mint.ca/en/shop/coins/2024/fine-silver-coin-the-sundial

And visit their webpage  https://www.mint.ca/en/blog/2024-10-six-canadian-sundials-to-discover highlighting six Canadian sundials - a different type of sundial for each of Canada's six time zones.

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Last Updated: 10 October 2024

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When is a watch not a watch? When it unfolds into an equatorial sundial.  The watch, designed by Yu Ishihara is called a "Watch Exclusively for Sunny Men" and was part of a contest sponsored by Seiko to "help reimagine what a watch can be", aimed at creativity and perhaps for eventual production. Read about it at https://www.seiko-design.com/powerdesignproject2024/en/sunnyman.html#modaal-box

The image at right was selected from a number of images of the Seiko "Sunny Men" watch to show the fall-winter-spring face rather than the common view of the spring-summer-fall face.  On either side is a longitude adjustment and as can be seen there is a bubble level for alignment.

No price was quoted.  It is a one of kind timepiece (at least for the present).  Watches of this class typically sell for $27,000.

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Last Updated: 30 March 2024

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A sundial or performance center or solar generator? It's all three. Called the Arco del Tiempo (Arch of Time), the design by Berlin architect Riccardo Mariano provides the projection of the sun's rays onto the ground through tinted glass apertures spanning the length of its arching ceiling. The elliptical shaped spots change every hour, telling "the solar time each day and delight visitors with a slowly evolving spectacle that bridges the terrestial and the celestion," said Land Art Generator, who commissioned the structure.  Mariano designed the arch as a pavillion with a photovoltaic skin to store energy for night-time illumination (equivalent to powering 40 average homes). During the day, it is billed as the "world's largest sundial". According to Ellen Eberhardt of DeZeen on-line magazine, "A combination of trichord truss arches, rub trusses, and purlins will support the tilted steel structure, which will be clad in a layer of galvanized metal decking and covered with custom-fabricated photovoltaic modules."

Eberhardt explains that,"The Arch of Time will serve as a "gateway" to Houston's Second Ward neighbourhood and will connect Guadalupe Plaza Park to Buffalo Bayou Park as a part of the city's ongoing initiative to provide greater access to greenspace and mitigate flooding through the design of urban parks."

The images are courtesy of Land Art Generator Initiative.

Read more at: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/07/13/worlds-largest-sundial-houston-riccardo-mariano-land-art-generator-initiative/

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Last Updated: 04 May 2024

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