The North American Sundial Society will meet in St. Louis for their annual meeting and to observe the Great American Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017.  Cities and towns across the US are planning events and raising awareness of both the beauty and hazards of the solar eclipse. For the last two years St. Louis groups have delivered more than 100 programs to area schools, libraries, cities, parks and businesses to raise awareness of this historic event which has not happened in St. Louis since the year 1442. 

Remember, except for the minute or two of totality, looking directly at the sun will do serious eye damage.  Use sun-safe eyeglasses (certified safe for solar viewing) available from many source (see links below or Amazon, etc.). Read about the Great American Eclipse coming near you:

St. Louis, IL: http://stlouiseclipse2017.org/

Other Cities: http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/in_the_path.htm

NASS Eclipse Watchers at Fort Jefferson Barracks - St. Louis, MO

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Last Updated: 09 June 2017

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The 2017 August 21st solar eclipse will be commemorated by the US Postal Service with a unique thermochromic ink Forever Stamps: the stamp shows the total Eclipse of the Sun with its corona blocked by a black disk of the moon.  However, using the body heat of your thumb or fingers the eclipse image will reveal an underlying image of the moon. The image reverts back to the eclipse once it cools. Fred Espenak, "Mr. Eclipse" a retired NASA astrophysicist, took the photograph of both the eclipse (from Jalu, Libya on March 29, 2006) and the full moon.

The USPS  states that June 20, 1:30 p.m. MT will be theFirst-Day-of-Issue ceremony, taking place at the Art Museum of the University of Wyoming (UW) in Laramie. The University is celebrating the summer solstice on June 20. Prior to the stamp issuance, visitors are encouraged to arrive at UW's Art Museum's Rotunda at 11:30 a.m. to witness a unique architectural feature at noon when a single beam of sunlight shines from down on a silver dollar embedded in the floor, marking noon on the summer solstice,

The Total Eclipse of the Sun Forever Stamps may be pre-ordered at usps.com/shop in early June for delivery following the June 20 nationwide issuance.  The back of the stamp pane provides a map of the eclipse path and times it appears at cities across the US.

Read more at: NASA Eclipse and for observing tips  http://www.mreclipse.com/SEphoto/SEphoto.html

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Last Updated: 28 May 2017

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1624 La pratique et demonstration des horloges solairesAt the Grolier Club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan is a massive exhibit  On Time: The Quest for Precision curated by Bruce Bradley.  The exhibit presents the progress of timekeeping over six centuries through 86 rare books from the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology.

Journalist Allison Meier of Hyperallergic.com describes a number of books on display such as "German cartographer Sebastian Münster’s 1533 Horologiographia, the first book devoted to sundials, with woodcuts attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger."  As shown in her photo, "French engineer Salomon de Caus’s 1624  La pratique et demonstration des horloges solaires has embedded pop-ups to make the workings of its sundials easier to replicate."

The scope of "On Time" stretches from sundials, to water clocks, mechanical clocks and even a Pilkington & Gibbs Heliochronometer, ending with our latest atomic clocks.  The display flirts with the possible.  While Benjamin Franklin may have suggested using hourly time-telling canon in the 18th century, Athanasius Kircher proposed a fanciful firing sundial a century earlier in his 1646 Ars magna lucis et umbrae in decem libros digesta. His bowl-shaped sundial holds gunpowder at the hours that is ignited by the rays of the sun from a lens.  In turn the firing gunpowder triggers hammers to toll hourly bells. If one thinks about this for a moment, Kircher's proposal is as unrealistic as Franklin's.  The change in solar declination creates problems for proper placement of the gunpowder, let alone directing the ignition to trigger hammers.

Allison observes that "These manuscripts affirm the centuries of shared ideas that give our modern timekeeping devices their precision."  On Time: The Quest for Precision" continues through November 19, 2016.

Read more at: http://hyperallergic.com/327958/on-time-grolier-club-manhattan/

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Last Updated: 25 February 2017

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What do Omega Psi Phi fraternity of Howard University Washington DC, Merton College in Oxford, Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin, and Lewis Carroll's poem Jabberwocky all have in common?  Dancing and ceremonies around a sundial!  In Carroll's poem of 1885 "the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe" and as Alice explains to Humpty Dumpty, “Toves are curious creatures that are something like badgers, something like lizards, and something like corkscrews. They make their nests under sun-dials and live on cheese." and “Wabe is the grass-plot round a sun-dial. It is called like that because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it. And a long way beyond it on each side."

At Howard University in the center of the main campus quadrangle is a bronze sundial on a 3-foot fluted limestone pedestal, gifted in 1929 to the university in honor of Benjamin Banneker, surveyor of the city of Washington DC, clockmaker, and sundialist. 

The dial has been a symbolic cornerstone for the Brothers of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity for over 87 years. Although the gnomon went missing during the late 1970's that has not stopped the Brothers, especially on Fridays during the Spring and Fall, from converging at the dial at noon to celebrate through step and song lead by their the Grand Basileus to honor the traditions of the fraternity. You can see a photo of their latest performance on the front page of the Washington Post, Oct.22, 2016.

As the world spins and we accommodate both daylight savings time and standard time in a yearly cycle, honoring this event has become tradition. On the eve of the time change back to standard time on Saturday Nov 5, 2016 the Nashotah Theological Seminary in Wisconsin begins a tradition originated in 1971 at Merton College, Oxford.  The Mertonians hold an hour long ceremony from 2am to 2am acknowledging the end of daylight savings time and the return of standard time.  At Merton, the Time Ceremony is held by "walking backwards dressed in sub fusc [full academic dress] and drinking port...saving the universe by stabilizing the time-space continuum."  The Wisconsin seminarians will surround their sundial in full regalia, and as we understand, with a good supply of port in hand.

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Last Updated: 25 February 2017

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