How many different types of sundials are there

Construction started in January The column is tilted away from the cables, so the dial face is inclined about 5 degrees toward the south. The original gnomon -- two steel angles welded together -- was melted and twisted and the painted face of the dial severely damaged by a large wildfire in , which destroyed most of the park. The tram has now been replaced with a gondola ride which doesn't use this anchor. As of , the sundial has been partially restored, but not back to its original condition.

There are future restoration plans. The equatorial band is 2 inches wide with Arabic Hour marks on the inside of the band and zodiac symbols on the outside. The gnomon rod is a traditional arrow 31 inches long. The armillary sits atop a graceful round column The base is 16x16x2. This in turn sits on a two-tier dais 10 inches high with the top tier inscribed "RIDGE" for the family plot. Noon is marked by a thin trapezoid. Outside the dial is a surround of another ring with semi-circular words around the dial: "We live by deeds, not years".

A classic hour glass with wings decorates the dial face. The gnomon is in good condition, but slightly bent. The dial sits atop a white marble pedestal 45 inches tall. The pedestal sits on a base two-foot square approximately 13 inches in height. Above the base the pedestal tapers upward, narrowing to an 11 inch square that holds the dial and the surround.

However, the hour and minute lines that extend inward run in quarter hours from 4am to 8pm. The central elliptical gnomon plate, which swivels to face the sun, has an analemma cutout that casts an accurate civil-time shadow onto the equatorial ring below.

The gnomon plate is laser-etched with the analemma, months and days of the year, and marks for the equinoxes and solstices, and instructions. The equatorial timeline is laser-etched with hour and minute marks from AM to PM. The sundial body rotates and locks in position for either Daylight Saving or Standard Time. The sundial is highly accurate compensating for longitude the equatorial ring is rotated 5min 24 sec early to measure solar time on the pacific meridian and equation of time by reading the east or west edge of the analemma plate gnomon shadow.

The sundial often indicates clock time to within seconds and the date to within a portion of the day. A stainless steel base cover encloses the mounting hardware beneath. The hour lines are thick lines radiating from the foot of the gnomon from 5am to 5pm. The maiden's hand lays over the bronze gnomon. In the center of the dial is a compass rose. This may be an 18th century statuary, a cast copy of a dial and statue in London. The limestone dial is embedded in the stone block wall.

The declining dial has hour lines every half hour from 5am to 6pm, but the gnomon is missing, leaving only a bronze stain on the light stone face. Most disturbing is a magnolia tree planted by the class of that now totally blocks sunlight from reaching the dial. The hour lines and Roman markers go from 5am to 7pm. The tip of the gnomon shadow shows the date among declination lines from solstice to solstice.

It is inscribed as an analemmatic dial, but only because at the noon hour is the trace of the analemma. Considering the motto on the dial, this was probably erected as a memorial to those lost in The Great War. The declining dial has hour lines every half hour from 5am to pm. Armillary sundials require more involvement in their positioning, however they provide a striking focal point and conversation piece for any garden, yard or public space. In order for sundials to specify the time of day, the sun must be able to hit the gnomon and cast a shadow on the dial plate.

Sundials need to point in the direction of true north with the tip of the gnomon aligned with the Earth's rotational axis. Because sun time and clock time are not the same, the sun will appear at times to be faster or slower than our watches read. A compass is able to locate magnetic north not true north and can be used when positioning a garden sundial, though it is important to note that this method is not entirely accurate.

One of the simplest ways to find an accurate measure of true north is with a compass application on your smartphone or through the use of a GPS. If you have either of these, you can change your settings to "true north" and the device will take care of finding the position of true north for you!

For complete directions on setting up your sundial, visit our How to Position a Sundial page. Home Blog Sundials Thank you for signing up! Parts Of a Sundial. Horizontal Sundial. Armillary Sundial. The armillary sphere is a development of this idea, and consists of a series of rings in the planes of the equator and the meridian, and a rod parallel to the earth's axis and passing through the center of the rings.

The pictures show top left the Savoy sundial in Embankment Gardens, Westminster, London, top right the equatorial sundial designed by Wendy Hiller outside the Tower Hotel in London, bottom left the very laarge equatorial sundial in Raglan Street, Waterloo, Sydney, Australia, and bottom right the equatorial dial in Richmond, South Island, New Zealand.

The gnomon is parallel to the dial plate, typically the edge of a rectangular plate fixed to the dial plate. The hour lines are parallel to the gnomon and thus to each other. They are unusual because the gnomon is vertical, and the hours are marked not by lines but by points falling on the circumference of an ellipse. The gnomon has to be moved depending on the time of year, so that the shadow falls on the correct point. Analemmatic dials are particularly suitable for sundials laid out on lawns, where a person can act as a gnomon; the position where the person should stand at any given month of the year is marked out along the north-south axis which crosses the mid-point between the foci of the ellipse.