What's New Under The Sun

Tuesday, 10 June 2025 18:51

  Prosciutto di Portici (Ham) Sundial Photo: Getty Images The Prosciutto di Portici Sundial, more often called the Portici Ham Sundial, dates from the first century somewhere between  8 BCE to 79 CE.  This small silvered bronze dial was uncovered on 11 June, 1755 in the ruins of Herculaneum (current day Portici) in the "Villa of the Papyri", buried in...

Friday, 06 June 2025 21:01

  Sundial dedication May 31, 2025.  At left is Kathleen Stuckey Fox, with the City Proclamation presented by Mayor Pat Moeller and City Council on-lookers Carla Fiehrer and Susan Vaughn offering congratulations. On May 31, 2025 at 1pm, the Hamilton, Ohio, sundial (NASS Sundial Registry #1109) was re-dedicated in Monument Park. Originally dedicated in 1941 to the...

Monday, 24 March 2025 21:33

Several years ago Frans decided to write the course on sundials that included self assessment questions to force students not only to read the text, but to internalize the concepts. And a final submittal question "not necessarily a difficult question, but: no answer, no new lesson." Thus Frans Maes began writing lessons and sending them out to students. NASS has now used his material to create...

Monday, 24 March 2025 15:37

In a 24 March 2025 article from the on-line Science Advisor (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Phie Jacobs summarizes the "great debate" of the yearly shift from standard time to daylight savings time.  In January 2025 the US Senate introduced the Sunshine Protection Act to permanently have daylight savings time year round. Certainly 54% of Americans do not like the...

Friday, 21 March 2025 19:26

Perhaps the most famous alignment circle in the United States is the Cahokia Woodhenge near St. Louis constructed between 700-1400 CE by Cahokia Indigenous native Americans. But there were an estimated 10,000 other earthen mounds that once were scatter across the mid-west.. In an article from Atlas Obscura (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/octagon-earthworks-ohio) by Olivia Young on March...

Friday, 21 March 2025 18:37

The Hamilton dial is in the restorative care of Jarrett and Celene Hawkins (Hawkins & Hawkins Custom, LLC in Cincinnati Ohio https://www.studio-hawkins.com/) in preparation for the dial's dedication on Saturday, May 31, 2025. The face of the Hamilton Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) sundial has been cleaned and bead-blasted showing the dial as it was cast 84 years ago. In the process,...

Tuesday, 11 February 2025 00:27

We will celebrate our 30th annual NASS Sundial Conference in Ottawa, Ontario 7-10 August 2025.  But you need to register by April 15th to get theFull and Partial attendee rates at a discount. We will be staying at Le Germain Hotel Ottawa, 30 Daly Avenue, Ottawa ON Canada.  We have a block of rooms at a discount daily room rate of 284 CAD (approx. 216 USD) plus HST and MAT taxes. ...

Tuesday, 17 December 2024 23:47

In November 2024, a team consisting of members from SPL, TTDG and CMD of VSSC successfully designed and installed an accurate and fully functional sundial at the Rocket Garden of VSSC Space Museum, Thumba (8.53°N, 76.86°E). Following a space theme, the vertical gnomon is a 3-stage rocket that casts its daily and seasonal shadow on a dial face 1 1/2 meters by 1 meter.  The the sundial face...

Saturday, 16 November 2024 00:07

Esteban Martínez Almirón has published a new book Historical Sundials: Forgotten Andalusian Treasures (Relojes de Sol Históricos Tesoros Andaluces Olvidados) In it he reviews over 400 sundials from the Andalucian region of southern Spain Originally to celebrate the 25th year of the website https://relojandalusi.org/ Esteban Martínez Almirón began showing his sundial drawings on the site....

Wednesday, 13 November 2024 19:36

It isn't often that a sundial face is created before the gnomon is attached.  In Shelbyville IN a large, circular art piece in the form of a sundial, was created at the Blue River Trailhead early in 2024.  If they had chosen an analemmatic sundial, a walker of the trail could have simply stood on the appropriate date and used his or her own shadow to tell the local solar time. ...

Monday, 04 November 2024 18:38

The Sun Tower's shadow marks the passing of the seasons credit Jonathan Leijonhufvud For two years News Atlas (https://newatlas.com/architecture/) has reported on the progress of the construction of the Sun Tower in Yantai, China.  The 164-foot (50m) curved conical tower was designed by OPEN Architecture symbolized the watch towers of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644 CE)...

Monday, 04 November 2024 17:30

NASS Registered Sundial #1109 at https://sundials.org/index.php/sundial-registry/onedial/1109 is one of a series of bronze sundials presented by Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, dedicated to the memory of the Grand Army of the Republic. Unfortunately the dial in Hamilton, Ohio, suffers from neglect and the gnomon has long been missing. With support, this dial has been designated...

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Thanks to Andy Robertson

Recent examination of our Sundial Registry revealed dials that no longer exist and have been replaced with something else that might resemble a sundial, but isn't.  Consider the brief entry of Dial 56 that may have once existed in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 9 Mimosa Road:

"5.5' stile, hour lines marked by 1/2' wire rope on grade. Total area is about 1000 square feet.  Analemmatic Dial" The description comes from a typed letter explaining that the dial was "built for research and marketing purposes".

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While using Google Maps, some artists living in the UK became unusual dialists when it occurred to them that the shadow cast by a skyscraper could be used as the gnomon of a really tall sundial.

The forty-seven story Beetham Tower in Manchester is 554 feet tall and dominates the city's skyline.  So it occurred to Annie Harrison, Jude Macpherson and Jacqueline Wylie to use the shadow cast by this structure to chart the progress of the sun as part of an art project.

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nass_news_2011_may_orovalley_3Its not often a sundial is also a monumental piece of sculpture weighing tons, but that is what developer Fred Steiniger installed this May at the Innovation Corporate Center in Oro Valley, Arizona.  Long-time NASS member and professional dialist John Carmichael was intimately involved with the 3-year long project, which is still ongoing.  Carmichael still has to install a noon-line sundial.  Project completion is sometime this year before the planned dedication slated for noon at Autumnal Equinox.

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[all photos courtesy of Dennis Sanford,
3Peninsula College

Located in Port Angeles, Washington, Peninsula College recently dedicated a sundial measuring eight feet in height.  The dial is notable for its unusual design:  the basic construction is one of a polar dial, but also includes the sun's analemma so dial viewers can correct for the equation of time.

The dial was designed by the late Ben Davis and donated to the school in his honor by Honey Davis, his mother.   Installed on campus near the Science and Technology Building, Dr. Tom Keegan perhaps expressed sentiments the best when he said, “Honey Davis’ very generous gift to Peninsula College is deeply appreciated.  It’s fitting that it be placed by our Science and Technology Building so that Ben’s amazing engineering skills serve as an inspiration to our students and encourage them to stop and look and study his sundial."  

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bowiecityhalldial-viewAfter more than a year of construction, the new Bowie City Hall and the Bowie Portal Dial off Evergreen Parkway and Emerald Avenue in Bowie, Maryland, will be dedicated on the 7th of May, 2011.  The City Hall, Police Station along with two works of public art, an interior mobile and the 15-foot steel and bronze sundial will grace the City of Bowie

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[photo courtesy of Martin Gutoski]

A nearly twenty year project to build a sundial near the Arctic Circle in Fairbanks, Alaska was finished this year by Martin Gutoski, a professional surveyor.  Gutoski conceived the idea in 1992 when he reviewed a survey for the local library in Fairbanks’ North Star Borough.  Originally out of concern for safe-guarding survey corners, he got in contact with a local club whose members saw to the landscaping of the library and other public buildings.  One thing lead to another and so began the odyssey that ended just recently. 

One interesting aspect that will appeal to anyone who has ever built or contemplated building a sundial is that the dial location is only about one and one-half degrees south of the Arctic Circle.   This is an aspect which Gutoski fully explored with models, first a small one and later a full-scale wooden one, before committing the design to its final form, which uses an airplane propeller for the gnomon.

Click on "Read More" below to see more photos of this sundial.

 

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nass_news_2011_april_dial_watchA novel wrist watch is being proposed which uses LED's instead of the sun to cast shadows.  Proposed by an individual named Anders who lives in Sweden, the watch, which is still just a concept, is read much like a conventional analog watch.  But instead of an hour hand and a minute hand, it uses LEDs which rotate around the outer ring of the dial and shine on a small gnomon at the center of the watch.  One LED casts a shadow for telling hours and another for telling minutes.  It is too soon to tell whether this concept watch will prove popular enough to manufacture.

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A parasol that tells time.Primarily an industrial designer, Kota Nezu has designed a parasol for people who use their umbrellas for shade as well as staying dry.

With just a little bit of effort, Nezu's dial can be used to tell the approximate time of day and season of the year. The parasol comes equipped with a small compass to aid in lining things up.  And even though a true sundial aficionado might point out that a proper dial has to be designed for a specific latitude, this handly umbrella is sure to be a conversation starter come rain or shine.

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 nass_news_2010_july_GinoSchiavoneGino and Judith Schiavone, members of the North American Sundialnass_news_2010_july_CityofBowieLogo Society, are winners of the City of Bowie sundial contest to build and install a dial in front of the New City Hall under now construction. The value of the project is $90,000. Completion is expected in Oct 2010.

 

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  2. Monumental Error?
  3. Sundial from the Pomeroy Class of 1927
  4. Remembering 9/11 at Tampa Memorial
  5. Forest Park Memorial Dial
  6. Arc of Memory
  7. Rochester Bicentennial Sundial
  8. Washington Monument Sundial