What's New Under The Sun
Getty Research Institute on the Solstice
Saturday, 22 June 2024 19:38Off Interstate 405 in the hills of Los Angeles is the Getty Research Institute, part of the campus of The Getty Center. The Center houses the free Getty Museum, the Getty Library, Getty Research Institute, Getty Foundation, and Getty Conservation Institute. The Getty Research Institute opened its doors to the public in December of 1997, where besides the thousands of books, art collections,...
Preparing for the Solar Eclipse of April 8th 2024
Sunday, 24 March 2024 18:30There 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...
Seiko Designs Equatorial Sundial Watch
Sunday, 24 March 2024 01:42When 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...
Rare Astrolabe Discovered by Chance in Verona Museum
Wednesday, 06 March 2024 00:17Dr. 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...
NASS 2024 Conference to be held in Vancouver, BC June 20-23
Friday, 23 February 2024 17:42The 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...
World Sundial Day
Friday, 23 February 2024 16:53Spanish 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...
NASS Course "Elements of Dialing" Starts Jan 6, 2024
Saturday, 18 November 2023 18:21NASS 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...
Smithsonian Photo Contest - Jaipur Sundial
Sunday, 05 November 2023 16:30Smithsonian 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...
Houston Pavilion - World's Largest Sundial
Friday, 14 July 2023 23:08A 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...
Sun Tower Update
Saturday, 01 July 2023 00:36According 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...
Point of Infinity Hyperbolic Monument in San Francisco
Sunday, 25 June 2023 22:17Julie 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...
Ice Sculpture Ephemeral in Time
Thursday, 30 March 2023 00:03In 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...
Peninsula College Sundial
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[all photos courtesy of Dennis Sanford,
3Peninsula College
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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."
Bowie Dial Dedicated
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After 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
Wienhenge Sundial
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[photo courtesy of Martin Gutoski]
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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.
Sundial Wrist Watch
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A 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.
Parasol Sundial
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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.
City of Bowie Announces Sundial Winner
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Gino and Judith Schiavone, members of the North American Sundial 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.
Carefree Dial gets a Sunburst
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The first sundial in the NASS Registry is the dial from Carefree, Arizona. This 35 foot tall dial was designed by architect Joe Wong and solar engineer John Yellott and when built in 1959 was considered the second largest sundial in the world. You can see in the accompanying photo that hanging midway along the sundial's gnomon is a garish colored ball, a "Sunburst". [It is partially hidden by a background palm tree.] This structure was part of the original design. From the on-line Carefree City SunTimes, editor-in-chief Kathryn Miller brings us the story of its origin, demise, and now its restoration. The seven-foot wide wrought iron Sunburst has not been on the gnomon for the last 20 years. From Miller's article, "As the story was told by Carefree Vice Mayor John Crane in his March CITYSunTimes column, “The Joe Wong designed Sunburst enjoyed a short life. In 2004, when the Sunburst was determined to be beyond repair it was donated to the Cave Creek Museum where it resided outside for many years."
Eventually the museum returned the rusting icon to the City of Carefree, ending up in the Town garage. Miller's article now reports it's restoration that was completed in March 2021: "...[Back in] 2019, a Carefree resident, who prefers to remain anonymous, took it upon himself to return this misplaced, but not forgotten, historic and iconic art piece to its rightful place. Now, a reincarnated Sunburst, dimensionally identical to the original, but with improved design and modern materials, holds a place of honor in the Town center, once again celebrating the desert sunshine and casting its glow beneath the Sundial."
Perhaps an indicator of the times with the urge to turn night into day, this Sunburst that hangs on the gnomon is now electrified and illuminate with LED lights, blending in with the LED lighting of surrounding cactus in ithe plaza.
Monumental Error?
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On the State Capitol grounds in Richmond Virginia the Women's Monument was unveiled on Oct 14, 2019 as part of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote. The Women's Monument, commissioned by the Virginia Department of General Services, negotiated two contracts with local artists on behalf of the Virginia Women's Monument Commission who has raised more the $3.7 million for this monument. The result is a large circular plaza with 7 life sized bronze statues of influential Virginia women during the last 400years. The monument will eventually feature 5 more life-size bronze statues. The statues are backed by a glass wall with the inscribed names of 230 infuential Virginia women on the Wall of Honor.. The monument is a work in progress and intends to not only complete the last 5 statues, but add other women's names to the Wall of Honor.
In the center of the plaza on a wide circular pedestal is a bronze sundial. In addition to the normal dial furniture of compass rose inscriptions, site latitude & longitude, and a chapter ring with the hours from 5am to 7pm there is additional information: points of locations in Virginia are shown around the dial in the outer chapter ring. Each location is listed by name, azimuth, and distance from the Capitol site.
With all the work to create this magnificent monument to women there is a monumental nit pick. At azimuth 354 deg and 108 miles away is "Loudon". Locals immediatedly spotted the typo for Loudoun County, which according to the official county history recorded: "In 1757, by act of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Fairfax County was divided. The western portion was named Loudoun for John Campbell, the fourth earl of Loudoun, a Scottish nobleman who served as commander-in-chief for all British armed forces in North America and titular governor of Virginia from 1756 to 1759."
In spite of the typo, the dial is an impressive work of art approximate one meter in diameter.
Photo Credit: Sara Hunt, Virginia Capitol and AA Communications
Sundial from the Pomeroy Class of 1927
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It is a small memorial sundial, only about a foot in diameter. The polished bronze face has aged with time as have the students who gave that dial to the Pomeroy Seniior High School. The sundial gifted by the graduating class of 1927 was placed on the front lawn of the school where it remained for more than 90 years. According to a short article by Sara Hawley [https://www.mydailysentinel.com/news/42283/phs-sundial-has-new-home ] "Alumni remember that area as being 'out of bounds' to them as students. They could never put their hands on the sundial - only viewing it from afar."
But now the school is no longer used and is being sold. The Pomeroy Alumni Association began to make plans to relocate their treasured sundial, "The sundial had previously survived several floods when it was located in front of the school. After looking at several locations, it was decided to place it on the foundation of the old bandstand in the Beech Grove Cemetery."
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