What's New Under The Sun
NASS Course "Elements of Dialing" Starts Jan 6, 2024
Saturday, 18 November 2023 18:21
NASS 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 16:30
Smithsonian 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 Pavillion - World's Largest Sundial
Friday, 14 July 2023 23:08
A 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 00:36
According 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 22:17
Julie 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 00:03
In 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...
New Sundial for Kika Silva Pla Planetarium
Sunday, 18 December 2022 23:00
Sklar Bixby and Jeremy Meel, students at Santa Fe College in Florida took on a project to design and 3D-print a new sundial for the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium in Gainesville Florida (located on Santa Fe's Northwest Campus). Under the guidance of Dr. Philip Pinon, Sklar and Jeremy took on a semester long project as part of the Exploring Honors Mathematics class. They designed a horizontal sundial...
NASS Dialist Don Snyder Passes
Saturday, 10 December 2022 17:41
Don Snyder, long time NASS member, sundial designer and conference organizer, died Nov. 21, 2022 at the age of 87. He organized two St. Louis conferences for NASS in 2008 and 2017. For the first St. Louis conference, Don worked closely with Michael Olsen of the Missouri Botanical Garden to have five sundials available for viewing, including the dedication of a dial donated by Ron Rinehard, the...
Today - Chicagohenge
Thursday, 22 September 2022 20:41
The date is Sep. 22, 2022, the date of the fall equinox. Although this is supposed to be the day of equal day and night, we know it's not exactly correct. We measure daytime from sunrise to sunset, measured as the first and last light from the sun peaking over the horizon. When we include sunrise and sunset plus atmospheric refration, at mid latitudes daylight wins by about 10...
Indiana French Dial Found
Saturday, 27 August 2022 19:06
Smithsonian Collection - Pocket sundial by Bourgaud of Nantes, 1660–1675. (MA.325565)
From the National Museum of American History is an article about "How did a French pocket sundial end up buried in a field in Indiana?" published 20 July 2022 by Kidwell & Schechner.
It started in 1860 when Dr. Elisha Cannon, while plowing a field in Indiana, came...
Interview with Sasch Stephens
Tuesday, 09 August 2022 21:32
What makes a sundial? Practically anything. Sasch Stephens discusses how he became interested in dialing. Since then he has turned many objects into solar time devices. It takes some creative thinking to invision how a common object can become a working sundial. One of the most recent projects turned a 54 x 28 foot south side of a building it into a giant sundial...
World's Smallest Sundial Gets a Lot Smaller
Sunday, 12 June 2022 22:00
Dr. Jeremy Robinson, (Naval Research Laboratory, Electronics Science and Technology Division) combined efforts with his father-in-law, Prof. Woodruff Sullivan (Univ. of Washington Dept. of Astronomy) to construct the World's Smallest Sundial. The competition was sponsored by Cadrans Solaires pour Tous and their record is being entered into the Guiness Book of World...
Brief History of Sundials and How to Make & Use Them
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Dr. Jessica Warren, lecturer of physics and astronomy at Indiana University Northwest, is active in science outreach and education. She is also passionate about sundials. For Indiana University outreach shecreated a video "The Garden Sundial - Much More than an Ornament" that presents a brief history of the sundial, how they work, and where to get one or make one.
You can watch the video on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K10nPV69Q1A. It is also part of the North American Sundial Society library of videos, found on this website at https://sundials.org/videos/making-and-using-sundials.html where NASS has a collection of videos on sundials, timekeeping, and interviews with sundialists on how they make sundials.
At the end of her presentation, Dr. Warren provides a list of reference material about sundials. Her entire video including references is available as a PDF and is available for download at the bottom of this article. Additional references and sundial topics are available on the NASS sundial links page: https://sundials.org/dial-links/general-sundial-links.html. Read more about the fascinating world of sundials.
Solargraphy - Takes a while - But it's worth it
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In the NASA Photograph of the Day for 27 June 2019 is a beautiful photograph by Gianluca Belgrado using a pinhole camera. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190627.html As explained by NASA, "This persistent six month long exposure compresses the time from solstice to solstice (December 21, 2018 to June 16, 2019) into a single point of view....Fixed to a single spot at Casarano, Italy for the entire exposure, the simple [pinhole] camera continuously records the Sun's daily path as a glowing trail burned into the photosensitive paper. Breaks and gaps in the trails are caused by cloud cover. At the end of the exposure, the paper was scanned to create the digital image...."
In 2011 Art Paque explained the art of solargraphy to members of the North American Sundial Society at their annual conference in Seattle. The construction steps involve creating a pinhole in thin foil, then taping the foil onto a tin can that has photographic paper inside and opposite the pinhole. The lid on the can is sealed and most important, pointed at the sky with firm support to prevent moving. The rest is up to nature as the sun crosses the sky each day. Beautiful solargaphs such as from Gianluca can be obtained with patience tracking the sun for three to six months. In the end your solargarph will be a day by day time capsule of solar observation.
Type "solagraphy" into your web search engine and you will discover a host of sites showing the details of making your pinhole camera. For example: http://www2.uiah.fi/%7ettrygg/camera.html and http://www.pinholephotography.org/Solargraph%20instructions%202.htm
Waterloo 3D Sundial Arches
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Students at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in Cambridge, Ontario are experimenting with the benefits of 3D design and printing. In particular Joanne Yau created a set of hexagonal hollow bricks called sundial arches that lets in sunlight from different portions of the arch as the sun travels across the sky. We expect that the length to width ratio of the bricks can tailor sunlight for specific times of the year (summer, spring/fall, or winter).
Joanne Yau was one of three teams challenged to learn how to operate a new industrial 3D printer capable of squirting out clay. Professor Correa, interviewed by 3Dprint.com said “There is no other way to make these kinds of façades without enormous cost and time,” said Correa, who has been involved in 3D printed research on an even more advanced level, studying how such objects respond when exposed to varying degrees of moisture and temperature. “They are completely unique.” “The printer allows us to make much more complex geometry,” said Joanne Yau, part of the team that 3D printed bricks for the ambitious arch/sundial. “To make this by hand or to extrude it would be virtually impossible.”
See a video of how the 3D clay bricks are created in an article by Bridget O'Neal June 5, 2019: https://3dprint.com/245698/whistling-walls-sundial-arches-ontario-architecture-students-3d-print-clay/
Teachers & Architects Draw Sundials
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Grimm & Parker Architects sponsored a "Green Apple Day" on October 15, 2016 to help two Baltimore City Schools - Graceland Park ES/MS and Holabird Academy ES/MS - receive analemmatic sundials on their front sidewalks. The weather was perfect as teachers and volunteers from G&P chalked out and then painted simple 16 x 5 foot analemmatic sundials.
The sidwalks were aligned true North-South, making dial lay-out easy. With tape measures in hand, they marked out the focal points and north point of the analemmatic ellipse. Then, using the time-honored principle of constant distance they used a chalk line between those 3 points to maneuver a piece of chalk following the shape of an ellipse. For the sundial, the ellipse stretched from 5am to 7pm. The hour marks were made using two tape measure to check positions that were quickly followed by drawing of the hour circles with a plastic lid. While volunteers painted the hour circles others chalked out the walkway whose monthly lines and solstices were quickly painted as well. The final touch was the inclusion of the East and West Bailey points that determine the direction of the rising and setting sun. With a lot of support and good organization, both dials were finished in 3 hours!
Museo Galileo
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Want to travel? Want to see sundials? Well, you can do both by taking a virtual tour of the Galileo Museum (Museo Galileo) in Florence, Italy. Beside showing you detailed sundials, astrolabes, and quadrants in their collection, they host a series of short 2 minute videos on sundials and many other topics.
This is a fun virtual site to explore: https://catalogue.museogalileo.it/ Here you can read about the biography of Galileo or many other famous scientists or you may want to browse many of 1000 astronomical instruments in their collection, or watch a video on Galileo's astronomy or see how the the heavens can be seen in the armillary sphere sundial, or consider the history of the lightning rod with a demostration of gunpowder blowing apart a small wooden house (called a "Thunder House") that doesn't have one.
There are many short videos about sundials and astrolabes. And of course there is the Monumental Sundial at the entrance to Museo Galileo. Click here to watch a short animation of how this gnomonic sundial works. The Museum has many of these instructional videos. Be sure to visit their video catalogue: https://catalogue.museogalileo.it/index/VideoIndexByThematicArea.html
Sunlight and the 1918 Spanish Flu
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We feel the menance of the Corona Virus (Covid-19) and the imposed social isolation. Although worse than the typical annual flu, the Corona Virus pales to the worldwide pandemic of the Spanish Flu (isolated as the H1N1 virus). What does this have to do with sunlight? I am indebted to Richard Hobday's well researched article:
Here is his paragraph on "Sunlight and Influenza Infection"
"Putting infected patients out in the sun may have helped because it inactivates the influenza virus.[7] It also kills bacteria that cause lung and other infections in hospitals.[8] During the First World War, military surgeons routinely used sunlight to heal infected wounds.[9] They knew it was a disinfectant. What they didn’t know is that one advantage of placing patients outside in the sun is they can synthesise vitamin D in their skin if sunlight is strong enough. This was not discovered until the 1920s. Low vitamin D levels are now linked to respiratory infections and may increase susceptibility to influenza.[10] Also, our body’s biological rhythms appear to influence how we resist infections.[11] New research suggests they can alter our inflammatory response to the flu virus.[12] As with vitamin D, at the time of the 1918 pandemic, the important part played by sunlight in synchronizing these rhythms was not known."
Stitch in Time
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Sundials are often created at the instersection of science and art. Quilting has made its mark as well. For example in Burnsville North Carolina is the Quilt Block Sundial, painted in bright quilt blocks on a 8x8 foot board above the entrance to the Yancy Common Times Journal Building.
Now comes Altazimuth Arts, an enterprise established by Sara Schechner, well-know historian of science who is curator of Harvard's Collection of Historic Scientific Instruments. But Schechner is also active in the Studio Art Quilt Associates, Quilters' Connection of Watertown MA, and member of Quinobeguin Quilters guild. As she explains, "Recent quilts are inspired by history and the night sky, the built environment wet within nature, and by the many-faceted meanings of tangible things."
Illustrated is the US Naval Observatory 26-inch refractor made by Alvan Clark & Sons in 1873. "The inspiration for my quilt was an engraving from a newspaper story celebrating the work of the telescope. The print shows astronomer Simon Newcomb (at the eyepiece) and Superintendent Rear Admiral Benjamin F. Sands (standing) in the dome with the brand new telescope in late fall 1873. The engraving was based on a photograph of the same scene." Visit Schechner site at www.altazimutharts.com
Sundial as Functional Art
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This weekend on October 6th a new sundial was dedicated in Atlanta, Georgia. Ayokunle Odeleye, nationally renowned artist, has created a modernistic bronze and stainless steel sundial called “Chi Wara Sundial Lantern.” The 8-foot tall sundial is accessible at ground level, sitting in a 20-foot circular plaza with hour marks at the circumference.
Interestingly, it functions as a sundial by day, but shines as a lantern by night. The public artwork honors twelve community leaders from Cascade Heights located in southwest Atlanta for their spiritual and cultural contributions to their community and Atlanta.
Odeleye’s sundial took inspiration from Mali folklore of West Africa and the headdress of Chi Wara, a mythical creature that is half-man and half-antelope. As noted by the city of Atlanta, the sundial represents “a headdress in special ceremonial harvest dance designed to pass on knowledge from the elders to young people in the viliage. Odeleye’s ‘Chi Wara Sundial Lantern’ interprets this mythological image and conceptually uses it to suggest the ceremonial passing of scholarship from Cascade elders to the youth of this community."
Reference: Saporta Report - David Pendered - Oct 3, 2012
NASS Dialist Don Snyder Passes
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Don Snyder, long time NASS member, sundial designer and conference organizer, died Nov. 21, 2022 at the age of 87. He organized two St. Louis conferences for NASS in 2008 and 2017. For the first St. Louis conference, Don worked closely with Michael Olsen of the Missouri Botanical Garden to have five sundials available for viewing, including the dedication of a dial donated by Ron Rinehard, the Schmoyer sundial made by NASS member Bill Gottesman and donated to the Garden by Don and Bill, and in the Ottoman Garden, the Ottoman Sundial designed by NASS member Roger Bailey based on the 1845 dial at Topkapi Palace, Istanbul.
At the 2017 NASS conference in St. Louis, Don organized a ring-side seat at Jefferson Barracks to watch the total solar eclipse. Don worked with Perry County and Perryville, a town on the eclipse path, to create a new sundial for the courthouse gardens in honor of the eclipsing sun. Local craftspeople then created the dial following Don's design.
Don was always available to help other sundialists, offering advice and technical assistance. He helped restore a sundial at Concordia Seminary, established a Sundial Trail of dials around St. Louis, and for a decade checked the links on the NASS website for accuracy and relevance. With his hobby of woodworking, Don made a dial for the 25th anniversary of NASS (1993-2018) that projected solar time in colors on the dial face.
Don was a senior professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He was the Samuel C. Sachs Professor of Electrical Engineering and chair of the department from 1976 to 1986 as well as a professor of radiology at the School of Medicine. As the founding director of the Electronic Systems and Signals Research Laboratory from 1986 to 1998 he tackled imagery problems in biomedicine, astronomy and remote sensing. In the Washington University Newsletter, they noted that when the Hubble space telescope was launched and had a blurry focal plane, Don proposed a novel image reconstruction approach. A version of this sharpening algorithm has been used on all subsequent images.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/donald-snyder-obituary?id=38326477
https://engineering.wustl.edu/news/2022/Donald-Snyder-87-senior-professor-of-electrical-systems-engineering.html