What's New Under The Sun

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...

Thursday, 10 October 2024 17:56

Photo of the Canadian $20 Silver Coin with the reverse as a Sundial.  Photo courtesy of the Royal Canadian Mint.  Sundial design by Anna Bucciarelli. The Canadian Royal Mint will release a fully functioning sundial coin expected to ship on 12 December, 2024.  The obverse is a profile of His Majesty, Charles III (designed by Steve Rosati) and the reverse is a...

Monday, 07 October 2024 03:03

Once again NASS presents Elements of Dialing, a twelve week course covering the basics of sundials, led by Steve Lelievre. The course covers basic principles of how sundials work, calculations involved in designing sundials, types of time (systems of time measurement), and some of the history of sundials.The course is intended for people who are new to sundialing and who wish to learn some of...

Tuesday, 24 September 2024 16:47

Dario Radley reports in Archaelogical News Online Magazine (Aug 24, 2024) that an ancient observatory from the 6th century BCE was found by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities at Tell El-Fara'in archaeological site. “It highlights the advanced astronomical knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, including their ability to determine the solar calendar and  significant religious and...

Saturday, 22 June 2024 19:38

Off 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,...

Sunday, 24 March 2024 18:30

There 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...

Sunday, 24 March 2024 01:42

When 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...

Wednesday, 06 March 2024 00:17

  Dr. 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...

Friday, 23 February 2024 16:53

Spanish 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...

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News Item from the Wet Mountain Tribune on June 30th, 2016: Custer County courthouse is getting a new sundial.  Using a true north line surveyed by county commissioner Kit Shy, Charlie French is cementing a rod anchored in obsidian rock, whose shadow will align with that of the courhouse flagpole. "Taking advantage of the summer solstice on June 20, he literally nailed down the farthest reach of the flagpole shadow."

While French happily proclaims, “thanks to Harrison [whose clock allowed longitude determination in 1761], and knowing where the time zone meridian is, and how distant we are from it, we are accurate to one minute and 51 seconds of Mountain Time here in the visible solar time at the courthouse.”  Well, that's almost correct.  French's gnomon rod and courthouse flagpole shadows align at local solar time.  Mountain Time like other clock times do not match solar time due to the tilt of the earth's axis and eccentric orbit around the sun, shifting solar and clock time by +/- 15 minutes throughout the year.  Read more at:  http://www.wetmountaintribune.com/home.asp?i=945&p=6

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Japan Sundial House

As reported in Design Bloom architect Kikuma Watanabe has designed a beautiful modern house integrating asundial and solar design principles: "The internal spaces support a comfortable environment where in summer it is naturally cool and in the winter it is warm. This ecological technology aids this passive system using the sun and the wind for an effective air conditioner."

The interior of the house has two-story rooms and lots of natural wood.  But unlike other houses except perhaps for the Cosmic Room in Corregadora, Mexico, it has a built in equatorial sundial. Central stairs lead up to the equatorial dial projection area with the gnomon itself a glass slit window in the roof. But the most important aspects for solar comfort are the angles of the eve overhangs, preventing hot summer sun from entering the windows yet allowing warming sunlight to enter during the winter . Brighter areas such as the kitchen are situated in rooms with southern exposure while the living room faces east looking out upon ponds and hills. Upstairs surrounding the equatorial dial projection ring are two rooms: the Room of Sunrise and the Room of Sunset, and on the main floor facing north is the Room of Shadow.

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Andrewes Longitude Sundial

Example of an Andrewes Longitude Sundial

Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth Texas will unveil a new longitude sundial on May 5th, 2015. As William Andrewes, creator of the longitude dial explains, "The Longitude Dial is based on an idea proposed in 1607 by Franz Ritter of Nuremburg...Ritter devised and published a world map projected from Nuremburg, with its lines of longitude arrayed to serve also as hour lines. However, the difficulties of creating a new project for each location and the expense of producing it in durable materials were considerable. Ritter's gnomonic projection map does not appear to have been developed for use in sundials - until now."   See Andrewes website at: http://www.longitudedial.com/index.html

One of Andrewes sundials will be unveiled in front of Walsh Performing Arts Center, situated in the middle of a circular stone plaza. Andrewes monumental sundial prices start at $50,000.  Read more at TCU-360 news

As an interesting side note, the gnomonic project map upon which Andrewes creates his sundials was extensively used during World War II and into the 1950's by high frequency (HF) direction finding (DF) sites.  On the gnomonic map not only are lines of longitude straight, but any great circle line of bearing is straight as well.  Using a pin on the DF site, the lines of bearing could be drawn with an extended piece of string.  Computer calculations eventually replaced the manual direction finding and geolocation method.

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Of the 101 things that play in Peoria, the Pekin Illinois Sundial in Mineral Springs Park is rated #59, and billed as the World's greatest sundial in Pekin, Illinois.  Even Google Maps marks the Pekin Sundial.  The Pekin Park District says: "picturesquely located in the Sunken Gardens in Mineral Springs Park, this unique sundial tells the hours before or after noon and the highest point of the sun on a given day. More interesting information is available on the earth, sun, planets and latitude and longitude at the site."

The Peroria Journal Star interviewed Hentry Cakora, now 79, who built the dial using his family business, Tazewell Machine Parts and convinced the Pekin Park District to provide land for its construction in the Sunken Gardens of Mineral Springs Park.  It's easy to spot on Google Maps just south of Court Street near the park's Lagoon that from spring through fall offers a pedalboat rides.

Cakora who knew about the sun's motion and was good at mathematics created a complex set of sundials.  The main sundial is a horizontal dial about 6 feet tall of burnished steel, surrounded by hour marks on the ground.  But if you're there near noontime there are extra treats.  At the base of the sundial is a thin upright triangle split down the middle allowing it to cast a narrow beam of light toward the noon mark.  Then there is a pole just north of the dial with two flat nodi about 12 inches in diameter, each having a hole in the center.  The lower nodus casts a shadow that each hour falls on an analemma that allows correction for the sun's irregular "Equation of Time".  Charts explain this to the observer as well.  The upper nodus casts its shadow on a noon mark analemma, with small stakes to indicate the soltices and equinox.

Nearby is a planet.  Is it part of a planet trail that starts from the Park's nearby fountain?  Or is there another astronomical explanation? In any event, if the Pekin dial isn't one of the World's greatest, Cakora declares “I’m sure, by far, it’s the most accurate."

Read about it in the Peoria Journal Star:  http://101.pjstar.com/59-worlds-greatest-sundial/    and see at:   http://www.pekinparkdistrict.org/sundial.html

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A Letter to NASS regarding the IYL-2015 and the Literary Competition "Words and Light"
 
I have read the article about the International Year of Light in the website of the North American Sundial Society, and I would like to thank the NASS very much for your interest and for highlighting the International Year of Light 2015 Literary Competition "Words and Light".

I would like to send you the direct link to more details on this competition, as I believe it may be of interest for some members of the NASS (I saw the Art and Literature section in the "Teachers Corner"). The deadline for submitting entries is coming soon - 31 March:

“Words and Light” is a tribute to all the writers who were inspired by Light, writers who were interested in the Science of Light, and scientists who were also poets. The Competition is dedicated to Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, celebrating the publication of the grammar book by Lomonosov written in 1755 which reformed the Russian literary language by combining Old Church Slavonic with the vernacular (160th anniversary in 2015), and to the book "Theory of Colours" (Zur Farbenlehre) by Goethe, published in 1810, which contains detailed descriptions of phenomena such as coloured shadows, refraction, and chromatic aberration (205th anniversary in 2015).
 
Thank you very much for your attention and I send you my best wishes.

Yours sincerely,
Ana Luisa
--
Dr. Ana Luisa Simoes Gamboa
Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Ecology
ITMO University (Saint Petersburg National Research
University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics)
Saint Petersburg, Russia
+7 911 716 37 22
Attachments:
Download this file (UN_Resolution_IYL_2015.pdf)UN_Resolution_IYL_2015.pdf[ ]180 kB

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SOLART2 sundial sculpture by artist MA2F

SOLART2 by artist MA2F

UNESCO has declared 2015 the International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies (IYL-2015). For sundialists, the inauguration of SOLART2 on the June 2015 solstice may be the highlight. SOLART2 is the largest IYL-2015 artistic sundial project in Europe. It is located in Rivesaltes at the northern entrance of Perpignan, France.  It was initiated in 2013 as a strong symbol of sustainable development. Artist MA2F (Marc-Andre 2 Figuères) is constructing the sundial with an incredibly large gnomon created from a double metal bar with numbers silouhettes cut into the structure.   The dial is meant to illustrate the flow of matter and energy, projecting a continually changing shadow of numbers onto the dial face during the progression of solar time.    The edges of the gnomon are painted red "as a visual value and mastery of light".  You can see a video of the dial at: http://ma2f.com/pages/solart2.php

Attachments:
Download this file (UN_Resolution_IYL_2015.pdf)UN_Resolution_IYL_2015.pdf[ ]180 kB

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Amelia Peabody Sundial - Dover Town Library
photo: Maureen Sullivan (Wicked Local Dover)

Although Amelia Peabody died in 1984, her legacy and interest in sundials continues. In 1920 she moved to Dover, Delaware, and began raising thoroughbred horses. Ultimately she purchased more than 800 acres in Dover, becoming its largest land owner. She built three houses on her Powisset Farm, three other houses on other properties, and another called the Sun House at 145 Powisset St. in Dover.

As Eleanor Tedesco reports in the Wicked Local Dover on-line news, “The Sun House reflected her interest in heat generated by the power of the sun and was the first of its kind in New England. But the house failed to reach its goal of heating the building with the sun’s heat.” But true to its name, a graceful sundial in the shape of a Nautilus shell decorated her yard.

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Westminster Dial with Analemma Casting Mirror on Top
Photo Credit: Robert Clark

How do you get the people of your town interested in astronomy?  Robert (Bob) L. Clark a retired professor of mathematics and computer science and member of the Westminster Astronomical Society had the obvious answer: Build a unique sundial.

In the grassy field next to Hoffman’s Ice Cream in Westminster, the Westminster Astronomical Society dedicated a simple horizontal dial attached to a pole with a unique “ornament” … a vertical south facing mirror.

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Telling Time with Precision
(By Permission - Bill Gottesman)

The Andalusia Star News reports that the Lurleen B. Wallace (LBW) Community College in Andalusia, Alabama, has a new timepiece that President Herb Riedel says, “… is a device used for practical purposes to keep time, but they also take on a symbolic meeting. For a college campus, I thought it would be very appropriate because it combines science and art.”

Indeed, the sundial is a large helical sundial, a modern “Renaissance” sundial designed by Bill Gottesman of Precision Sundials in Vermont.

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