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 [photo courtesy of John Foad]
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Many have been following the Prime time Emmy Award winning series Downton Abbey on PBS. This British World War I period drama was filmed on location at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, which represents the fictional Downton Abbey. Many outdoor scenes were filmed in the village of Bampton, Oxfordshire. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downton_Abbey )
As you follow the lives of aristocrats and servants in this acclaimed series, keep an eye out for sundials. Attached is a photo noticed by NASS member John Foad. Want to search for yourself? Look for the dial in front of the hospital. The complete set of the series can be found on Amazon and Shop PBS.
And while you're at it, look for sundials in Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, and Father Brown. You'll be surprise how many sundials you will find.
 Dials_of_Downton_Abbey.pdf | [ ] | 313 kB |
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On September 22, 2011 Penn State University dedicated a massive granite sundial donated by trustee and alumnus Joel Myers. Designed and sculptured by artist Mark Mennin, it is installed in the university's arboretum. At the dedication Myers said, "We wanted to create something unique...The sundial is to be a destination". Though still lacking a few final touches, such as a bit of polishing, the large granite dial is functional and tells time to the nearest minute.
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[photo credit: Vincent Kessler]
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A three dimensional sundial house? You can find it at 10 rue du Diebach, Cosswiller near Strasbourg in the countryside of Alsace in France. Eric Wasser has created the "Heliodome", a tilted circular building aligned with the earth's polar axis that is a far cry from the old Buckminister Fuller "Bucky Domes".
The house has a glassed southern exposure to allow sunlight during the winter, but from the equatorial belt forward the house has a nearly conventional roof providing shade during the summer. As Wasser explains on his website, "The passive solar house is an architectural volume, a Heliodome, determined by the diurnal and annual trajectory of the sun." Read more about the details at http://www.heliodome.com/equipe.html.
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[photo courtesy of
Jackie Jones]
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All right mate, have a pint of golden sun. You can pick up a sundial beer glass designed by Jackie Jones for 51o North at The Greys Pub in Southover Street Brighton, or if you're out of the country, the dial will work in Banff, Canada, the European cities of Calais, Brussels, and Dresden, and in Kazahstan or other points of equal latitude
The sundial glass motto? “Campaigning for real time”. The sundial glass is a sun altitude type of dial using a frosted ring on one side of the glass to cast a spot of light onto the far side of the glass, calibrated with hour lines for the date of year. Not a bad way to contemplate the time while having a sip. You can get your own sundial glass at http://sundialglass.wordpress.com/
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Thanks to Andy Robertson
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Recent examination of our Sundial Registry revealed dials that no longer exist and have been replaced with something else that might resemble a sundial, but isn't. Consider the brief entry of Dial 56 that may have once existed in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 9 Mimosa Road:
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While using Google Maps, some artists living in the UK became unusual dialists when it occurred to them that the shadow cast by a skyscraper could be used as the gnomon of a really tall sundial.
The forty-seven story Beetham Tower in Manchester is 554 feet tall and dominates the city's skyline. So it occurred to Annie Harrison, Jude Macpherson and Jacqueline Wylie to use the shadow cast by this structure to chart the progress of the sun as part of an art project.
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Its not often a sundial is also a monumental piece of sculpture weighing tons, but that is what developer Fred Steiniger installed this May at the Innovation Corporate Center in Oro Valley, Arizona. Long-time NASS member and professional dialist John Carmichael was intimately involved with the 3-year long project, which is still ongoing. Carmichael still has to install a noon-line sundial. Project completion is sometime this year before the planned dedication slated for noon at Autumnal Equinox.
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[all photos courtesy of Dennis Sanford,
3Peninsula College
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Located in Port Angeles, Washington, Peninsula College recently dedicated a sundial measuring eight feet in height. The dial is notable for its unusual design: the basic construction is one of a polar dial, but also includes the sun's analemma so dial viewers can correct for the equation of time.
The dial was designed by the late Ben Davis and donated to the school in his honor by Honey Davis, his mother. Installed on campus near the Science and Technology Building, Dr. Tom Keegan perhaps expressed sentiments the best when he said, “Honey Davis’ very generous gift to Peninsula College is deeply appreciated. It’s fitting that it be placed by our Science and Technology Building so that Ben’s amazing engineering skills serve as an inspiration to our students and encourage them to stop and look and study his sundial."
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After more than a year of construction, the new Bowie City Hall and the Bowie Portal Dial off Evergreen Parkway and Emerald Avenue in Bowie, Maryland, will be dedicated on the 7th of May, 2011. The City Hall, Police Station along with two works of public art, an interior mobile and the 15-foot steel and bronze sundial will grace the City of Bowie