North American Sundial Society

Sundials of North America

This is a complete listing of sundials in the North American Sundial Society Registry. Click on any dial thumbnail picture or city name to display the full dial listing and images. To see sundials from a particular state or province, you may click on the list at right to see all registered sundials in that state, province or country (at bottom) displayed in city order.

You may also type into the NASS search field at upper right any search word such as "equatorial" to get a list of all articles mentioning equatorial dials and a list of all equatorial sundials in the registry. (Try other dial types: "vertical", "horizontal", etc).

	Swarthmore	Pennsylvania	USA	Vertical Dial	Dial 35
	Modern design for a vertical dial declining 20.5? east on a brick wall. The gnomon is a twisted sheet of bronze, casting shadows onto granite hour marks. The dial was designed by Marti Cowan using Waugh's formulae for vertical dials. 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 a quite 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."
	Washington	District of Columbia	USA	Horizontal Dial	Dial 34
	A cathedral landmark. 6 foot rectangular crypt with a 2 foot circular horizontal dial in bronze. Adjoining the dial is a cross noon marker that casts its shadow onto the crypt with major Christian holidays marked through the year. Gnomon has a folded shape of 2 cm width but the hour lines form only one dial center although the space at noon gap is 1 cm.
	Watertown	Connecticut	USA	Vertical Dial	Dial 32
	Norman Bliss, who reported this dial, taught astronomy at Taft School for many years. He challenged students to find this abstract dial. The dial no longer exists and was destroyed when the building was demolished.
	New Haven	Connecticut	USA	Vertical Dial	Dial 30
	Vertical dial on Sterling Library. Rectangular stone with hour lines and Arabic numbers. Gnomon is a plain rod emanating from a sunburst. Stonework shows it to be built into the wall of the library.
	Mystic	Connecticut	USA	Armillary Sphere	Dial 29
	This armillary dial with a sailing ship weather vane is on the cover photo of Albert Waugh's book "Sundials - Their Theory and Construction" (paperback edition). The dial sits atop a short stone platform outside of the Treworgy Planetarium, on the grounds of the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, CT. To correct solar time to clock time, the dial has an Equation of Time table at the base. The armillary sphere underwent a restoration in the summer of 2015, removing corrosion, repainting the dial structure and equatorial band, and re-stencilling the longitude degree markings.
	Hartford	Connecticut	USA	Equatorial Dial	Dial 28
	A bronze equatorial dial presented to the college as a gift from the class of 1889. For its age, it is in remarkably good condition. The 3 foot wide by 2 foot tall half cylinder is engraved with both hour and declination lines. At the noon-equinox point of the dial face a perpendicular pole rises to the centerline of the cylinder and supports a N-S gnomon rod. Unfortunately the southern portion of the rod is missing. The base is a square, tapered pillar.
	Hartford	Connecticut	USA	Polyhedral Dial	Dial 27
	This is an 18th century polyhedral dial (dodecahedron). The dial was originally located at The Abbey, Storrington, Sussex, England. Carved stone with ten dials on a dodecahedral, some sunken, some planar. Pillar is about 12 ft. high.
	Cincinnati	Ohio	USA	Armillary Sphere	Dial 26
	This is an unusual armillary sphere without the standard gnomon rod, allowing the dial to be adjusted easily to tell civil time. As generally expected of an armillary or equatorial sundial, there is an equatorial time ring (16 inches in diameter) with engraved hourly time marks fastened to a meridian ring. But for this dial the equatorial and meridian ring assembly rotates on a polar axis. The dial functions as a Pilkington & Gibbs Heliochronometer: A small hole with lens where the equatorial and meridian rings meet allows a focused spot of sunlight to fall upon the opposite side of the rings where there is a plaque engraved with an analemma and associated monthly and day marks along the curve. This assembly is an analemmic alidade, allowing the user to align the spot of sun to an offset along the analemma curve of date that adjusting the sundial for the equation of time and longitude off time zone meridian. Civil time is read on the equatorial ring from a marker located on a fixed meridian. Knowing the month and approximate day, the dial can be read to the nearest minute.
	Bloomfield	Connecticut	USA	Vertical Dial	Dial 25
	Vertical dial on an eight ton granite cube, 4 foot on a side. Three vertical dials on east, south and west sides. Gnomons are missing Designed by R. Newton Mayall. A similar CIGNA cube dial is in Los Angeles, Union Square. Both dials owned by CIGNA Insurance Co.
	Denver	Colorado	USA	Equatorial Dial	Dial 24
	Large Erickson equatorial monument dial. It consists of a disc of pink granite about 6 feet in diameter and 6 inches thick, tilted on edge to align with the earth's equator. The gnomon is a stainless steel rod approximately 3 inches in diameter, piercing the disc at 90 degrees. It supports the disc from below, and protrudes about 2-3 feet above the disc; far enough that it casts a shadow on the face of the disc all summer. Winter shadows fall on the back side of the dial, also engraved with hour lines.
	Tempe	Arizona	USA	Horizontal Dial	Dial 23
	A horizontal dial from Picture Rock Sandstone with 24k gold-plated inlaid brass fittings, 25 inches wide by 36 inches long, with gnomon 12.5 inches high. Gnomon is 1.5 inches thick. Total sundial weight 110 lbs. Time is marked in 10 minute intervals. Has Equation of Time and moonlight reading time correction table. Has the time and direction of sunrises and sunsets, the solstices, equinoxes, solar azimuth, and high noon.
	Arvada	Colorado	USA	Horizontal Dial	Dial 22
	A large horizontal dial of brick and stone with a formed structural steel gnomon in the form of a modern sculpture. Roman numeral hour marks doe DST are on raised brick pillars.
	Colma	California	USA	Horizontal Dial	Dial 21
	This large ground-level horizontal dial is 40 ft. diameter. Formerly a floral dial with a cypress tree as gnomon and hour lines crafted out of plants such as santilina shrubs. During the 1960's the dial was changed to concrete and aluminum. Now approaching 2020, the concrete dial has a brick surround. Time is marked by large Roman numerals and hour lines in an interior chapter ring. The gnomon is a supported beam with a graceful shaped tip. It may be aluminum, but shows signs of weathering.
	San Francisco	California	USA	Vertical Dial	Dial 20
	Known as the "Navigators' Dial", this sundial is dedicated to three early explorers of the California coast. The dial itself is a sliced bronze globe of the earth sitting on the back of a tortoise. Overall, the globe hemisphere is about 2 1/2 feet in diameter, showing the world in relief centered on California. The flat face of the hemisphere is a beautiful vertical reclining dial. The dial sits atop a stone column.
	San Diego	California	USA	Vertical Dial	Dial 19
	Above the southwest entrance of the Chemistry-Geology Building is a vertical declining dial built by Richard L. Threet in 1979. The dial uses thin aluminum tubing as a gnomon to cast shadows on a ring of hour and half hour lines approximately 9 feet in diameter. The lines were originally painted black on the white concrete wall with only the 9 am, 12 noon, 3 pm and 6 pm lines boldly numbered. Since then the dial has lost all but the 12.
	Riverside	California	USA	Equatorial Dial	Dial 18
	An equatorial dial 47 inches in diameter made of stainless steel. It sits upon four sleek pillars setting on a concrete rise. The gnomon rod has a round disk with a hole to act as a nodus. The dial equatorial band has solstice and equinox lines, as well as a line showing the declination of the sun marked with by months and zodiac signs. Hour lines are marked by raised stainless steel Roman Numerals. Dial is corrected to Pacific Standard Time.
	Berkeley	California	USA	Horizontal Dial	Dial 16
	A 16 inch diameter horizontal dial made of bronze. Gnomon is 8 in. long, 5 in. high. A classic horizontal dial on a 4 foot marble pedestal. Donated in 1915 by Class of 1877. Includes EOT table by date. The dial sits atop a marble pedestal.
	Tucson	Arizona	USA	Horizontal Dial	Dial 14
	A 25 inch circular engraved horizontal dial in a large irregular stone. Surrounding the dial on the stone are zodiacal signs and a beautiful engraved drawing of the surrounding mountains. The designer, John Carmichael, calls these dials "horizontal string heliochronometers" since the gnomon is a brass cable held very straight under tension from a heavy counterweight which is suspended from a brass hinged lever.
	Tucson	Arizona	USA	Horizontal Dial	Dial 12
	This concrete and adobe brick horizontal dial is approximately 8 1/2 feet in diameter with a triangular gnomon 25 x 32 inches. This is a large, but very plain sundial except for the shiny chrome plated gnomon. It lacks numerals, but has hour points and shows the cardinal points. The dial is corrected for longitude. The pedestal is missing some bricks and is adorned with graffiti.
	Tucson	Arizona	USA	Sun Alignment	Dial 11
	A "Stonehenge" or sun circle dial designed by Chris Tanz, Susan Holman, Paul Edwards and with the help of Will Grundy and sponsored by the Pima County Flood Control and Transportation Dept. The structure uses a broken circle of walls to create designs made of light based on the movement of the sun. The circle, 50 feet in diameter with 8 foot walls is modeled loosely on the Casa Rinconada kiva ruins in Chaco Canyon, N.M. The walls are of integrally colored concrete block, concrete, and flagstone. Lines on a bronze plaque indicate north and south and the direction of sunrise and sunset on the equinoxes and solstices. Holes in the wall do the same. Solar noon is marked when sunlight comes through a slot in the South wall and passes a line on the floor.