BSS Sundialist and Webmaster Passes
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Richard Mallet at Cornell Univ. Sundial
Richard Mallet, former British Sundial Society Trustee, Council Member and former BSS Webmaster passed away on Nov 7th, 2016 with funeral held on Dec 12th, 2016. He lived in Eaton Bray, UK and had many interest in physics, mathematics, and sundialing. Those of us maintaining websites know of the difficulty in perserving order, yet always allowing for expansion of new material. "After a near disaster with the [British] Sundial Society's then heavily modified and entirely non-compliant website, Richard stepped in at no charge to the Society to rewrite it using the then new Expression Web software from Microsoft. This proved very successful and was of course fully W3C compliant."
Over the next year, the North American Sundial Society website will migrate from an older version of the Joomla Content Management System to the fully maintainable Joomla 3.x version. The majority of content and organization will remain intact, but new innovations are expected.
Read more about Richard Mallet's life at: http://www.ppowers.com/mallett.htm
Seattle - Sundial Capital of North America
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In the May 14, 2013 edition of The Seattle Times University of Washington professor Woody Sullivan was honored as ‘Mr. Sundial’ for his persistence in declaring Seattle as the Sundial Capital of North America. Dr. Sullivan has worked on more than a dozen dials in Seattle, including the large 20x30 foot vertical dial on southwest wall of the Physics and Astronomy building at UW and the elegant 11x17 foot reflection sundial painted on the ceiling of his garage at N 47° 41.232, W 122° 21.562. A small circular mirror outside the south facing window reflects a spot of light onto the ceiling.
The reflection sundial was a labor of love taking over 3 years to create. Woody marked over 700 locations on the ceiling that allowed him to draw the local solar time, dates, hours of daylight, solar azimuth and altitude, analemma, and even hours to dawn. And being a radio astronomer, he marked the transit sidereal time for two radio sources. The dial was painted with marvelous beauty by a local mural artist, Jim Noonan. The sundial is very personal to Woody, showing time marks for the date he married to the birthdays of himself, his wife, and two daughters. The zodiac painted along the ecliptic has a local touch, representing Pisces by a pair of sockeye; Cancer by a Dungeness crab; and Capricorn as a mountain goat. There is even a compass rose.
Fred Sawyer, president of the North American Sundial Society (NASS) is quoted by Erik Lacitis, Seattle Times staff reporter, saying “it’s likely true that Sullivan’s garage sundial is one of the best in North America.” When the NASS visited Seattle for the 2011 annual sundial conference, they visited Woody’s Reflection Dial and a marker was added to it for the date and time of itsofficial dial dedication held on Saturday 22 August 2011. “We toasted the sundial with an appropriate wine, ‘Wehlener Sonnenuhr’ by Joh. Hos. Prum, the fine Mosel Kabinett from the German vineyard with a large vertical sundial.” said Roger Bailey, the society’s secretary.
Among Dr. Sullivan’s accomplishments in the world of sundials began in the early 1990’s when the University of Washington’s Physics and Astronomy Building was being designed. He suggested a large vertical (southwest declining) sundial. The dial was completed in 1994 and Woody was hooked. He also helped design sundials used on the Mars exploration rovers Sprit and Opportunity that landed ion the Martian surface in 2004. A campaign to build sundials all around our world ensued with the motto “Two Worlds One Sun”. [photos from NASS]
Italian Gnomonist Giacomo Agnelli Dies
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Dear Friends,
A great loss has hit our gnomonic community in Italy. Our friend Giacomo Agnelli died about a week ago. Giacomo was one of the great gnomonists of the past. He had written dozens of articles in engineering and horology, also dealing with mechatronics [mechanical] sundials. He had worked at the European space project, and had frequent ...articles for our magazines [on] gnomonics. He had participated in all meetings of horology in Italy and was known for his satirical cartoons and gnomonic caricatures ...
Marjorie Kelly Webster, Collector of Sundials and Scientific Instrument Passes at 95
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Along with her husband, Mrs. Webster spent much of her life and fortune combing auction catalogs and antiquarian shops to create a collection of early scientific instruments so renowned, it is considered in the same company as the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford University and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, according to Bolt, Adler planetarium vice president for collections. The Websters are primarily responsible for the world-class collection of scientific instruments at the Adler.
NASS is supporting the Adler to catalog their sundial collection enhanced over the years by Marjorie Kelly and her husband.
Biography of Gino Schiavone
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Gino Schiavone: After studying Liberal Arts at Loyola University and Fine Arts at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles I began a career of what I called “making wonderful things.” Some thirty years ago I happened upon some books about sundials at a library. This happy accident changed my life. These books introduced me to the wide range of sundials and methods for their design. I was enthralled and inspired; I was in love. I decided to make fine sundials and embarked on a new course of study.
NASS Conference Coming to Louisville, KY - June 25-28, 2026
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UPDATE: We will have a special tour of the Kentucky Viet Nam Memorial Sundial. See the attachment about the construction of this wonderful memorial.
Get ready to travel. This year the 31th NASS annual conference will be held in Louisville, KY at the Hyatt Regency Hotel June 25th - June 28th. The conference starts Thursday June 25th at 4:30pm with an opening reception, introductions, and as always, the popular door prizes. Friday we will tour the local sundials via motor coach, including the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial in nearby Frankfort. Other dials on the tour include Cave Hill Cemetery & Arboretum, the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, then on the banks of the Ohio River and dedicated to the Revolutionary War hero General George Rogers Clark, Founder of Louisville.
Saturday and Sunday we have a full retinue of sundial talks and the NASS annual general meeting. The conference will conclude at 12:00 pm on June 28th. If you have sundials, photos, books, etc. that you would like to display, please let us know so we can arrange to have sufficient table space available. We will try to allocate ½ table per display. Plan to bring your projects to show.
Hotel reservation details at the Hyatt Regency and Conference registration plans can be found in the following PDF. Register now for this exciting conference.
 Kentucky Vietnam Memorial.pdf | [ ] | 9938 kB |
| NASS Register Louisville 2026.pdf | [ ] | 183 kB |
2025 Conference -Ottawa
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The annual NASS Conference was held 7-10 August, 2025 in Ottawa. As usual, the conference began late Thursday afternoon with an introduction social and a "grab bag give away", taking your chances with tickets to win the bag's prize. Will Grant was the final winner of the Walton Double Planar Polar Sundial, but Paul Ulbrich beat the statistic odds and won this prize three times, ultimately conceding the dial to Will.
Friday was a bus tour of Ottawa dials, including the corner dials at the Mother House of the Sisters of Charity (NASS #127) and the hemispherium dial originally located in Rideau Falls Park, but now located in Rockcliffe Park Pavillion (NASS #449). The highlight of the tour was a visit to the Canada Science and Technology Museum. We were greeted by David Pantalony, Curator of Science and Medicine, who introduced us to the archival collection of sundials and solar compasses. This was followed by historical remarks from Jean-François Lozier, Curator, French North America of the Canadian Museum of History. After examining dials (look but don't touch) we paused for lunch in the Archive room. The day ended at our Ottawa hosts home where Mike Moghadam showed his sundial and his wife Esther and family provided refreshments.
Saturday and Sunday consisted of a wide variety of dialing presentations. Frank King presented a double header on "Eine Block Sonnenuhr" and the mystery of the seven dials woodcut. Others discussed sundial projects (Paul Ulbrich, Mark Montgomery), odd sundials (Fred Sawyer), vector mathematics for sundials (Roger Goyder, Zoon Nguyen and Evan Boxer Cook), the sunlight itself and how it affects bio-rhythms (Pam Morris), navigating in the Arctic (Tom Kreyche), trips to exotic sundials (Geoff Parsons) and Will Grant's trip to Columbia and the Muisica Indian megaliths. All this and more. Read the attached Retrospective for details.
Group photo at Dominion Observatory in front of Bldg 9, the dome for the Astrograph seen at the museum.
12 (Back Row Left to Right) Steve Johnson, Bob & Bo Manning (barely visible), Bill Thibault, Geoff Parson, Jack Aubert, Mark Montgomery, Marvin Taylor (barely visible), Evan Boxer-Cook, Mike Moghadam, Steve Lelievre, Jeff Brewer, Maddy Lelievre, Russell Goyder, Christine Northeast, Jim Stegenga, Will Grant, José Montes, Tom Kreyche. (Front Row Left to Right) Dave & Joyce Robinson, Bob Kellogg, Frank King, Bryan & Kathy Preas, Thad Weakley, Pam Morris, Chris & Roger Bailey, Paul Ulbrich, Phil & Fred Sawyer. (Center-Front) Martha Villegas. Not in the photo were Marc Boon & Susan Hayes, Lizzy Longsworth, Phyllis Montgomery and Kate Aubert.
| 2025_NASS_Conference_Ottawa.pdf | [ ] | 2746 kB |
2021 Conference - Philadelphia
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The North American Sundial Society, after by-passing the 2020 Conference due to Covid restrictions, held the 26th annual meeting from August 5th - 8th at the Hilton Garden Inn, Center City, Philadelphia. The venue was similar to past conferences: Thursday night social and door prizes for attendees, Friday a bus tour of 11 sundials in the Philadelphia area, Saturday sundial presentations and annual dinner, finishing on Sunday with more sundial presentations and the annual general meeting (AGM).The dial tour took us walking through Philadelphia parks and arboratums and visits to University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, and Haverford College.
At Swarthmore we saw the modern vertical declining dial on Kohlberg Hall, designed by Martin Cowan. Frederick Orthlieb, professor and chair of the Dept of Engineering at Swarthmore "had a part in locating the bent-plate gnomon so as to give correct indications on the vertical wall. As installed, the gnomon's indicating edge (which lies on a Polar Axis) casts quite a short shadow in Autumn and Winter and requires some observing skill to make a close estimate of indicated time, but in Spring and Summer the longer shadow moves over the granite hour marks very plainly."
For the annual group photo attendees gathered around the "Point Where Things Change", a N-S meridian dial commissioned in 2001 by the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Philadelphia and designed by Michael Grothusen. The dial is on the grounds of Tasepoint Corporate Headquarters.
From Left to Right: Bill Gottesman, Joyce Robinson, Pam Morris, David Robinson, Bob Kellogg, George Wilson, Jack Aubert, Will Grant, Betsy Wilson, Jim Holland, Bill Thibault, Art Paque, Tish Grant, Fred Sawyer, Philomena Sawyer, Phyllis Montgomery, Jeff Kretsch , Mark Montgomery, Marvin Taylor, Zoon Nguyen, Kate Aubert, Pat O'Hearn, Roger Dignard, Paul Ulbrich.
| 2021_NASS_Conference_Philadelphia.pdf | [ ] | 0 kB |
3D Printing Tutorials
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Look for the new menu tab:3D Printing Tips. Starting this December (2019) NASS begins a series of tutorials using OpenSCAD and other software for designing and printing 3D objects. As you might guess, we'll focus on creating sundials and other shadow casting objects. Download your copy of OpenSCAD at http://www.openscad.org and join our tutorials. If you want even more detail on 3D sundials, join NASS and receive The Compendium with Bill Gottesman, Steve Lelievre, Bob Kellogg and others writing in the regular column "3D Design and Printing Sundials."