What's New Under The Sun

Thursday, 28 May 2026 22:31

A wonderful trio of solar eclipses on the Iberian Peninsula will occur.  The first will occur on 12 August 2026 with viewing time of more than 2 minutes. lThe second, almost exactly a year later on 2 August 2027, will be even more spectacular, with an eclipse duration of 4 minutes.  On 26 January 2028 Spain will encounter an annular solar eclipse, creating a view of the rim of the sun...

Thursday, 07 May 2026 20:28

In August, 2009 the NASS Conference was held in Portland, Oregon and visited the sundial at Clark College in Vancouver, WA.  The equatorial sundial, built in 1984, had just received a new gnomon: an analemmatic or "bowling pin" gnomon that corrects for the Equation of Time. On May 4th, 2026 the local newspaper of Clark County, the Columbian, reported that more than 40 years after its...

Tuesday, 21 April 2026 16:47

Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas, is auctioning a brass dial signed by "Patrick Hepburn, Marlborough, Maryland, 1720"..  The dial face has a rich green patina with rough but accurate engraving of Roman numeral hours, delineated with half, quarter and eighth hour marks. The dial has an eight point compass rose with lettered points.  Latitude is engraved as "LATT 39".The wide, but...

Sunday, 12 April 2026 21:30

Do you wonder what a Bifilar Sundial is? Or a Campbell-Stokes Recorder? Maybe you are studying facts about astrolabes and come across the word almucantar.  Are they rings in the sky? Our perhaps you want to make a vertical dial and need the trigonometric formula to draw the hour lines and have forgotten where to look.  All of these questions can be answered plus internet and NASS...

Monday, 06 April 2026 01:08

The Times Colonist in an article of March 28, 2026 by Hannah Link, reports that as of November 2026, British Columbia will change to permanent daylight time.  "That means sundials in B.C. will always be one hour behind, no matter the time of year, said Victoria-based sundial enthusiast Steve Lelievre." Photo: Times Colonist - The sun shines on the Sundial Garden in Beacon Hill...

Monday, 09 March 2026 15:10

Building on the success of the 2025 inaugural event celebrating world sundial day on March 20th, 2026. This global online gathering celebrates sundials, timekeeping, astronomy, history, art, mathematics, craftsmanship, and cultural heritage across the world. World Sundial Day was originally created by Esteban Martínez Almirón on his website Reloj Andalusí. World Sundial Day is celebrated...

Thursday, 22 January 2026 18:30

UPDATE:  We will have a special tour of the Kentucky Viet Nam Memorial Sundial.  See the attachment about the construction of this wonderful memorial. Get ready to travel. This year the 31th NASS annual conference will be held in Louisville, KY at the Hyatt Regency Hotel June 25th - June 28th. The conference starts Thursday June 25th at 4:30pm with an opening reception, introductions,...

Monday, 13 October 2025 22:49

On October 4, 2025 Madison Historical Society of Ohio was able to have their sundial returned after 32 years, when in 1993 it was moved to the lawn of Lake County Courthouse to reduce the chance of vandalism. The sundial was originally placed at Madison Home 100 years ago on Saturday, October 24, 1925 during a conference of the Women's Relief Society.  From 1904 to 1962 the state ran this...

Monday, 15 September 2025 19:42

NASS is pleased to announce the upcoming fifth instance of Elements of Dialing, our introductory course about sundials, their history, and the science that makes them work. The free 12-lesson course, intended for those are new to sundialing, runs from 27 October 2025 until 26 April 2026. The course instructor is Robert Kellogg, NASS Vice President and Sundial Registrar.  Bob will be...

Thursday, 11 September 2025 23:11

A Hungarian born American scientist, Mária Telkes (1900-1995), was called "The Sun Queen" and among other honors, was postmousthly inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. She lived to 95 and for most of her life developed solar power in a variety of forms. Trained as a biophysicist, she worked for Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, PA, where she...

Thursday, 28 August 2025 23:25

The annual NASS Conference was held 7-10 August, 2025 in Ottawa.  As usual, the conference began late Thursday afternoon with an introduction social and a "grab bag give away", taking your chances with tickets to win the bag's prize.  Will Grant was the final winner of the Walton Double Planar Polar Sundial, but Paul Ulbrich beat the statistic odds and won this prize three times,...

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...

 ShakespeareFrank Cousins in the appendix of his book Sundials includes a list of references to sundials in Shakespeare. Mechanical timepieces were extremely rare in Shakespeare's day. Cousins credits the list to Professor Delius, The Leopold Shakespeare, Cassel. London, 1887. Here are the full citations taken from the online Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

As You Like It
Act II. Scene VII. line 21.

Jaques:
'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.

____________


All's Well That Ends Well
Act II. Scene V. line 7.

Lafeau:
But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.

Bertram:
Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.

Lafeau:
You have it from his own deliverance.

Bertram:
And by other warranted testimony.

Lafeau:
Then my dial goes not true: I took this lark for a bunting.

Bertram:
I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge,
and accordingly valiant.

____________


The Comedy of Errors
Act V. Scene I. line 125.

Adriana:
Come, go: I will fall prostrate at his feet,
And never rise until my tears and prayers
Have won his Grace to come in person hither,
And take perforce my husband from the abbess.

Second Merchant:
By this, I think, the dial points at five:
Anon, I’m sure, the duke himself in person
Comes this way to the melancholy vale,
The place of death and sorry execution,
Behind the ditches of the abbey here.

____________


The Tragedy of King Richard the Second
Act V. Scene V. line 51.

King Richard:
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock:
My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.

____________


The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
Act I. Scene II. line 4.

Falstaff:
Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

Prince Hal:
Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and
unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon,
that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly
know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? unless
hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of
bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun
himself a fair hot wench in flame-colour'd taffeta, I see no reason why
thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

Act V. Scene II. line 87.

Hotspur:
O gentlemen! the time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial's point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
An if we live, we live to tread on kings;
If die, brave death, when princes die with us!
Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair,
When the intent of bearing them is just.

____________


The Life of King Henry the Fifth
Act I. Scene II. line 210.

The Archbishop of Canterbury:
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
That many things, having full reference
To one consent, may work contrariously;
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Fly to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
As many lines close in the dial's centre;
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.

____________


The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
Act II. Scene V. line 21.

King Henry:
Would I were dead! if God's good will were so;
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day;
How many days will finish up the year;
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah! what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!

____________


Romeo and Juliet
Act II. Scene IV. line 61.

Nurse:
God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

Mercutio:
God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.

Nurse:
Is it good den?

Mercutio:
'Tis no less, I tell you; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now
upon the prick of noon.

Nurse:
Out upon you! what a man are you!

Romeo:
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.

____________


Othello, the Moor of Venice
Act III. Scene IV. line 187.

Bianca:
And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
What! keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
O weary reckoning!

____________


Macbeth
Act V. Scene V. Line 17.

Macbeth:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.--
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

____________


The Sonnets

LXXVII.

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book this learning mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.
Look, what thy memory can not contain
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book

____________


CIV.

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred;
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead