What's New Under The Sun
Frans Maes Received a Royal Decoration
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...
Pros and Cons of Daylight Savings Time
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...
Native American Moon Alignment Ring
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...
Hamilton Dial under Restoration
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,...
Register for the 2025 NASS Conference
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. ...
VSSC Space Museum gets Polar Sundial
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...
Historic Sundials of Andalusia
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....
Shelbyville Sundial
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. ...
Sun Tower Competed
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)...
Hamilton Dial Restoration
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...
Canadian Sundial Coin
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...
NASS Sundial Class
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...
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
Frans Maes Received a Royal Decoration
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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 a similar course centered on North America, but still following the style of assessment questions and a final submitted question to proceed to the next lesson. Frans spark of educating people about sundials has gone international
In 2022 Frans was awarded the Sawyer Dialing Prize for his dedication to educating people about sundials. Frans received an award of 250 USD a custom made Spectra Sundial by Jim Tallman of Artisan Industrials.
NASS recently received an email from Hans Stikkelbroeck, former chairman Zonnewijzerkring (the Dutch Sundial Society): "Last Saturday (22 March 2025) Frans Maes received a Royal Decoration (Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau) from the mayor of the municipality of West-Betuwe during the [Annual General Meeting] in Tricht. Partially due to your dedication and support, the king has awarded this distinction to Frans. For this, I would like to thank you, also on behalf of the members! Kind regards, Hans Stikkelbroeck"
Photo: Mrs. Maes, Mr. Frans Maes, Mayor of West-Betuwe, Netherlands