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...

 Our current NASS Officers are:

President

Vice President

Society Matters
Frederick W. Sawyer III
27 Ninas Way - Hampton Run
Manchester CT 06040-6388
email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Membership concerns, Committees
Robert L. Kellogg
10629 Rock Run Drive
Potomac, MD 20854-1701
email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 

Secretary

Treasurer

General contacts
Steve Lelievre
307-2211 Shelbourne Street
Victoria, BC V8R 4K9 Canada
email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Financial matters, Currency
Mark Montgomery
311 Water Tower Drive
Chesterton, IN 46304-2654
email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Each year two of the four NASS officers are up for election and NASS members may propose candidates by writing to the Nominating Committee by July 1st.  If the slate of candidates is uncontested, the Nominating Committee announces the result, traditionally done at the Annual General meeting held during the NASS Sundial Conference in the late summer of each year.  If there are multiple candidates for a given office,  then the election is done by mail to all members.

NASS Committee Chairman

Compendium Editor

NASS Dial Registrar

Webmaster

Steve Lelievre
4-7059 Ash Crescent
Vancouver, BC V6P 3K6 Canada
email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Robert L. Kellogg
10629 Rock Run Drive
Potomac, MD 20854-1701
email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Robert L. Kellogg
10629 Rock Run Drive
Potomac, MD 20854-1701
email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

At the 2004 General Meeting it was resolved that the Society should seek to expand membership participation in the Society's leadership for the present and to prepare for the future. Therefore we are looking for volunteers to participate in the following committees:

Standing Committees identified in the Bylaws that invite participation are:

Membership Committee: [chaired by the Vice President, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ].The Membership Committee works on ways to obtain new members and seeks to support the existing membership in a variety of ways. This committee promotes the society and its goals through various means.

Sundial Documentation Committee: This committee is responsible for recording sundials of historic or other interest in North America, and obtaining or preparing a file on each. NASS enters and maintains a record of these dials in a publicly available database called the NASS Sundial Registry. As such, the chairman of the Sundial Documentation Committee is the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. responsible for all forms of the Sundial Registry, including on-line versions at the NASS website. Both the Sundial Documentation Committee and the NASS website committee encourage all NASS members and the public at large to submit sundial sightings of interesting dials, public and private. Most registered sundials are publicly owned and are publicly accessible; NASS does register appropriate sundials located on private property in the Registry but requires dial-owner permission to show these private sundials on the web.

Editorial Committee: [chaired by Editor, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]. This committee supports Steve Lelievre, Compendium editor, in soliciting, writing and editing material for our quarterly journal and in preparing the journal for publication and distribution. All NASS members are encouraged to submit articles on their experiences with sundials and sundial projects, articles on local sundials, sundial history, or sundial theory. The chairman is responsible for editing The Compendium, quarterly journal of the NASS.  The committee under chairman direction, solicits, identifies, or otherwise obtains articles or materials for publication. The committee is called upon to assist in editing material for NASS Compendium and other publications.

Nominating Committee: [chair appointed by NASS President]. A committee of no fewer than three members is convened annually. This Committee solicits nominations for officers and directors, and considers volunteers willing to fill vacancies on the Board of Directors.  Current nominating committee chairman is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The President of the society from time to time forms additional committees and appoints chairpersons. The following committees need your support:

Internet Web Site Committee: [chaired by Webmaster, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]. The NASS Website is where our society meets the world through the Internet. Popular resources are our unique Register of North American sundials and our links page. The website has recently upgraded to a Content Management System (CMS) for article management and display of our Sundial Registry. Volunteers to maintain the site are always welcome.

Education Committee: [chair is open]. The Education Committee works to develop NASS dialing presentation material and media, supports sundial training and workshops, and provides educational material for teachers and students consistent with school curricula.

Conference Planning Committee: [chaired by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]. This committee, whose membership may well vary from year to year, works on site selection, planning and hosting of the NASS annual conference.

If you are interested in contributing to the present and future of NASS by volunteering to work on one of these committees, please contact the Membership Committee Chairman, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  Bob will inform the committee chairperson of your interest and you will be contacted to discuss how you can help NASS further grow as a vibrant organization.

NASS is your Society. Participate!