What's New Under The Sun

Sunday, 24 March 2024 18:30

There are lots of maps showing where to go for the April 8th 2024 total solar eclipse and others showing the statistical chance of clouds such as https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/02/22/april-eclipse-clouds/  From Little Rock Arkansas to the Mazatlan coast there is a high probability of clear weather.  The cities from Indianapolis through Cleveland OH, Rochester and Syracuse...

Sunday, 24 March 2024 01:42

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...

Wednesday, 06 March 2024 00:17

  Dr. Federica Gigante, from Cambridge Univerity's History Faculty, discovered a rare astrolabe sequestered in a museum at Verona, Italy.  Publishing in Nuncius (1 March 2024) Dr. Gigante presents "a hitherto unknown remarkable astrolabe from Al-Andalus which likely belonged to the collection of Ludovico Moscardo (1611–1681) assembled in Verona in the seventeenth century. The...

Friday, 23 February 2024 17:42

The North American Sundial Society (NASS) will hold its 2024 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from Thrursday June 20th to Sunday June 23rd.  The conference will  be held at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, 900 West Georgia Street, Vancouver BC.  The conference will start Thursday afternoon with a traditional reception and sundial door prizes.  Friday will be a...

Friday, 23 February 2024 16:53

Spanish sundialist Esteban Martínez has launched the resolution to establish the World Sundial Day to occur each year on the Spring Equinox.  According to the petition circulated by Martinez, "Reason  Sundials represent the union of disciplines as disparate as Astronomy, Mathematics, [and] Geography...They have an undoubted didactic value in teaching astronomy to young people and as...

Saturday, 18 November 2023 18:21

NASS is pleased to announce the upcoming third instance of Elements of Dialing, our introductory course about sundials, their history, and the science that makes them work. The free 13-lesson course, intended for those are new to sundialing, runs from January 2024. The course coordinator will be Steve Lelievre, our Secretary and editor of The Compendium. Steve will be assisted from time to time...

Sunday, 05 November 2023 16:30

Smithsonian Magazine holds a photo-of-the-day contest. Winner on 30 Oct 2023 was Harita Sistu who took a photo of the large sundial of Jantar Mantar, Jaipur India (taken in July 2022). Harita notes: "I wanted to try my best to capture just how massive the instrument is and bring focus into the incredible skill that went into designing and constructing it." See other NASS...

Friday, 14 July 2023 23:08

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...

Saturday, 01 July 2023 00:36

According to NewAtlas.com (https://newatlas.com/architecture/sun-tower-open/), construction of the Sun Tower exhibition building and outdoor theater is underway in the Chinese city of Yantai. The tower is being constructed by a French firm, Ducks Sceno and the engineering firm Arup, raising to 50m (164 ft) gracefully into the sky.  The tower symbolizes the historic watch towers of...

Sunday, 25 June 2023 22:17

Julie Baumgardner in The Art Newspaper of Jan 13, 2023 reports on the construction project of Point of Infinity, a nearly 70 foot (21m) hyperbolic cone will reach toward the sky as part of a 50 million dollar park development on Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island. In a competition held by the San Francisco Arts Commision on behalf of the Treasure Island Development Authority, Hiroshi...

Thursday, 30 March 2023 00:03

In the Swiss mountains near the resort of Zermatt just beneath the Matternhorn, Stir World reports that "famed luxury Swiss watchmaker Hublot announced Daniel Arsham as its new ambassador, with a compelling piece of temporary land art. Aptly titled "Light & Time", the work is a Hublot-inspired 20-metre sundial resting in the shadows of the Matterhorn mountain." This sculptural is billed as...

Sunday, 18 December 2022 23:00

Sklar Bixby and Jeremy Meel, students at Santa Fe College in Florida took on a project to design and 3D-print a new sundial for the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium in Gainesville Florida (located on Santa Fe's Northwest Campus). Under the guidance of Dr. Philip Pinon, Sklar and Jeremy took on a semester long project as part of the Exploring Honors Mathematics class. They designed a horizontal sundial...

 

What is the NASS Repository?

The North American Sundial Society makes available a treasure trove of dialing material on a single DVD ! To purchase The NASS Repository and other NASS publications, see the NASS Publications Order Form or go to the bottom of this page
Compendium Cover Dec 2008

So what does the NASS Repository contain??

Compendium Back Issues - All 108 issues from the first 27 years of the NASS journal are presented in PDF format, with known errors corrected and hyperlinks both within and across the issues.

Sundial Registry - A link to the ever-expanding online registry of sundials (over 1000) in North America, including locations, brief descriptions and many photos. Also a link to the Registry Sundial map.

Aked/Severino Gnomonics Bibliography - This is an important listing of over 10,000 works on dialing and is probably the largest such compilation ever assembled. (copyright Charles Aked / Nicola Severino)

The British Sundial Society Sundial Glossary - This glossary of more than 500 terms relating to sundials includes definitions, cross-links, equations and the beginnings of a chronology. Over 50 of the main entries have been linked to more detailed articles available elsewhere on the DVD, thus providing the option to choose between a brief definition and a detailed account. (copyright BSS/John Davis)

Cyclopædic Diallist - The comprehensive treatise on dialing by Henry Meikle which appeared in the Eighth Edition (1852-1860) of the Encyclopædia Britannica. The work is augmented by excerpts from the work of Hugh Godfray in the Ninth Edition (1875-1879), and further augmented by extracts from a lecture (1770) by James Ferguson. This compilation is presented here for the first time with annotation, modern mathematical formulation and additional material by Fred Sawyer.

Sciatheric Notes - I - A collection of Fred Sawyer's articles that appeared in the Bulletin of The British Sundial Society in the years 1991 to 1997. The book contains a brief introduction and review of the articles by Fred and a foreword by Charles K. Aked. Charles observes: "These articles are of real importance in the published work on dialing and essential reading for all who wish a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of dialing.... It is an honor to prepare a Foreword to this jewel of a collection of articles."

Dialling Universal by George Serle - A NASS edition of this 1657 book - the first to introduce a comprehensive set of dialing scales on a ruler. The booklet was edited and annotated by Fred Sawyer, and it introduces what James Ferguson called "the easiest of all mechanical methods, and by much the best." The book itself serves both as an instruction manual and as a discussion on the theory of dialing scales.

Dialing Software - The digital bonuses that NASS has distributed with The Compendium, as well as some new material. Some of the more significant programs include Zonwvlak (with a manual, full discussion of equations, and a beta copy of the new Windows Zonwvlak 2000), The Dialist's Companion (DOS-based), Ferrari's Sund98p, Blateyron's freeware program Shadows, the latst version of Sonderegger's Sonne, and Casalegno’s Orologi Solari.

Selected Patents - The full text and images of over 100 sundial-related patents issued in the U.S. since 1952.

Search Facility - There are several ways to navigate around the DVD, including hyperlinks, bookmarks, and a search facility that finds every occurrence of any word or phrase anywhere on the DVD.

And Much More!

Don't miss out on this unique and useful collection of dialing information on DVD for only $30 USD, including shipping.

Make checks payable to NASS and send to Fred Sawyer, 27 Ninas Way, Manchester CT 06040, USA. All payments must be in US funds (checks drawn on a US bank). Alternatively, you can send credit card payment via PayPal to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. – just be sure to include a note explaining that the payment is for the Repository DVD.

Whether by check or PayPal, please provide name, address, city, state/province, country, postal code, and email.