The North American Sundial Society convened in Denver, CO from June 20th - 23rd.  Atendees tour the city for sundials including the Kent Denver School's astrometric tower that shows a pinhole image of the sunthroughout the year. And of course there was a stop at Cranmer Park to see the new plaza and restored Equatorial sundial. Does it matter that we toured this dial in the pouring rain? At the Hyatt Hotel safely indoors from the weather NASS speakers presented a wide range of topics including "Is there room for Sundials in Modern Pop Culture by Shelby and Will Grant. Take a look at your next favorite British TV show and see if you can find a sundial. Bill Gottesman talked about a sculpture concept based on shadow cones and was kind enough to present to each of the attendees with their own "Shadowstice" 3D printed sculpture.

The theme of conference talks seemed to center around the shape of sundial gnomons. Frank King, chairman of the BSS, discussed a range of consequences of using gnomons with various cross sections, while Steve Lelievre presented his latest version of a Foster Lambert dial witha self-supporting gnomon of elliptical cross section, showing an example that he 3D printed. Then Fred Sawyer described a new polar envelope dial that casts a very wide shadow, showing that for a range of latitudes you can create a gnomon where both shadow edges can be used to tell the time. Both the Foster Lambert and Polar Envelope dials have simple rotational adjustment allowing easy and precise correction for the Equation of Time.

This year's Sawyer Dialing Prize went to Denis Savoie for his long career in education, research and publications related to in gnomonics and  his outstanding portfolio of public sundial designs and restorations.

Attendees of the June 2019 NASS Conference in Denver

Attachments:

2019_NASS_Conference_Denver.pdf

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