ZhangHua BaGuaShan horizontal sundial

中文讀者請至http://blog.xuite.net/nycl.chiu/blog/22542859

Last winter solstice my wife and I went to ZhangHua BaGuaShan scenery park to see a new horizontal sundial, but failed because the service persons gave us a direction which led us to an analemmatic dial in another park service center in NanTou. After we went home, we realized that the horizontal dial should be in the natural park which is at the entrance to the scenery park, the big Budha statue is just across the street.

The position of the dial is at 120.55ºE, 24.08ºN. The dial was made around the year of 2000, probably designed by 陳乃升and 彭維冠. It is a beautiful one. See Fig. 1. The finger point of the child up high on the seesaw is the nodus. Only three calendar lines were drawn. See Fig. 2. I checked the time it showed and it was accurate. The only thing I can suggest is that if there is an EoT table around it will be much better .

A compound dial: horizontal plus horizontal azimuth

中文讀者請至http://blog.xuite.net/nycl.chiu/blog/22371023
以及 http://blog.xuite.net/nycl.chiu/blog/22374662

In the previous paper, a horizontal azimuth dial was designed without using long vertical needle as shadow casting subject but a slit. In order to read the standard time directly from the dial, EoT analemmas with sharp ends were applied. However, to most people, this is another baffle. There I decided to make another one whose calendar lines go from Jan. 1st to Dec. 31st. See Fig.1.

Then I did the same thing to a horizontal dial and put it with the azimuth dial in a CD box so that no compass is needed. Fig. 2 shows the compound dial is in using.