Seattle: Sundial Capital of the United States?  The 2011 North American Sundial Society had perfect blue-sky weather for its annual conference held in August 2011.  Professor Woodruff “Woody” Sullivan, conference host at University of Washington started the fest by showing off the large vertical sundial built in 1994 on the side of the Physics and Astronomy Building.

The conference covered a wide range of topics including two presentations on stained glass sundials, the 17th work of La Hire and his successful "La Gnomonique ou L'art de tracer Des Cadrans" ("Gnomonicks or The Art of Shadows of Sundials") and dialist-surveyor and one of the founding members of the Acadamie Royale,  Jean Picard. The methods of taking photos of the sun over months of time, called Solargraphy, was presented by Art Paque, and then there were talks on the operation of cylindrical sundials, sundials that can show standard time, an update on the Mars sundial, and discussions on solar alignments, heliodons and stair shadows.

Helmut Sonderegger, this year’s recipient of the Sawyer Dialing Prize discussed the Rheticus Memorial sundial designed for Georg Joachim Rheticus, the first Copernican. 

Download the PDF and read about the conference in detail, including the bus tour of Seattle dials visiting the Pillar Dial of University Prep Academy, Epiphany School Vertical Dial, and Rebecca Cummins analemma and colored skylights in the ceiling of the Montrose Public Library.

The Portland tour of sundials included Colby Lamb’s Sundial and workshop, a patio sundial of Rob and Julie Brown that also served as a water sprinkler, a vertical mosaic dial at Stephenson Elementary School, the analemmatic sundial at Marylhurst University designed by John Schilke of NASS and Jan Dabrowski, and across the Willamette River to Reed College and a 1912 vertical sundial designed by Dr. F. L. Griffin.  Then more sundials at the National History Site, Fort Vancouver, and ending with the Clark College Equatorial Sundial with a new analemmic gnomon.  Roger Bailey outlined how he helped Soap Lake’s monumental sculpture become a summertime sundial.  Bill Gottesman showed a realization of Fred Sawyer’s Horizontal Equant Dial that adjusts by simple rotation for the Equation of Time.  And most interesting was Silvio Magnani’s presentation on an interactive reflecting heliochronometer in Milan, Italy.  Read about this and much, much more by downloading the PDF.

Don Snyder was a superb host for the St. Louis conference.  He organized an interesting tour that included the Jefferson Barracks 1817 sundial (now part of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency), the angel holding a vertical sundial on the wall of the St. Louis University Hospital, and the several dials at the Jewel Box in Forest Park.  At the Missouri History Museum, conferees saw the “Forgotten Sundial” designed by Thomas Jefferson.  At Danforth Campus of Washington University  was the 1908 Cupples Dial, and finally at the Missouri Botanical Gardens two dials were dedicated: Ron Rhinehart’s cross-gnomon equatorial and Roger Bailey’s “Ottoman Garden”  sundial, based on Ibn Al-Shatir’s dial carved at the Great Mosque in Damascus in 1371.  At the conference, the major talk was on the Cahokia Woodhenge, presented by Michael Friedlander, professor of physics and astronomy at Washington University.”  And of course there were NASS speakers in abundance talking of dials, dialing scales, and new approaches to the Equation of Time.

In McLean, Virginia close to Washington, D.C. NASS held its 13^th annual conference.  At the Analemma Society’s site in Observatory Park, Tony Moss’ dial, the “Jamestown Commemorative Dial,” was dedicated in front of over 50 school children and twice as many adults. This is the first sundial installation in what is planned to be an International Sundial Garden.  Other highlights of the sundial tour included the Lyman Briggs Memorial Dial at the National Institute of Science and Technology, the Latitude Observatory (once used to study the daily variation in the earth’s wobble and rotation rate), the Vernon Walker Education Center dial, and the vertical dial on the wall of Jack and Kate Aubert.  The conference talks included Roger Bailey on “God’s Longitude and the Lost Colony,” Woody Sullivan’s “Ten Tons of Basalt and Tenths of Degrees,”  Fred Sawyer’s discussion on the 17^th century battle over the priority of inventing the stereographic quadrant dial, Kevin Karney’s “Variability in the Equation of Time” over geological epoch periods (well, for at least 500 years), and much more.  Most impressive was Julian Chen’s “Omnidirectional Lens in Sundials and Solar Compasses” using spheres filled with solution of copper sulfate to focus the sunlight onto a dial.

Art meets science: John Carmichael held a workshop on DeltaCAD, a flexible computer aided design program for designing sundials and later in the conference with “Some New Sundials I” showed the result of such designs in beautiful stain glass sundials. From the history domain, Fred Sawyer told the story of Captain Sturmy, a 17^th century mariner and author of “Gnomonical Scales,” now part of the Shadow Catchers series.  Len Berggren discussed the sundials of Geminos of Rhodes in his text “Introduction to the Phenomena,” written about the first century BCE.  Chuck Nafziger showed his light concentration sundial with Braille markings to show time-telling to the vision impaired, and Professor Woody Sullivan displayed a prototype of the One-World-Two-Suns Mars sundial. On the pavement of the parking lot, Brian Albinson drew out the split-analemma analemmatic sundial.  See these sundials and more … download the PDF.