Dear All,
I have had a request to construct a moon dial for a vertical east-facing
wall.
This is new territory for me.
Can anyone point me in the direction of sources/computer programmes that
would give me guidance?
David Brown
Somerton, Somerset, UK
Hello David:
My suggestion would be to make an typical vertical east sundial and add a
simple moonlight time conversion chart with simple instructions.
I often make horizontal dials with these charts carved into the dial face.
Perhaps the most famous of these sundials with moonlight time
Hi David,
The starting point for making moondials must be Michael Lowne's classic article
Moondials and the moon in BSS Bulletin 17(i) pp3-12. In it, amongst other
things, he shows that the value of 48 minutes for the daily offset is in fact
not the best number to choose.
If you want
This is a graphical representation of the tabular data given by John.
I apologize for the appearance. It was included in one of my old drawings
and I blew it up so you could see it at all. I have no idea where I came
across it.
The horizontal scale is days before and after the full moon; the
Hello,
I have seen interesting graphical conversion diagram in Genk (Belgium).
Some photos here -
http://www.saulespulkstenis.lv/genk-bifilar/
If you look closer at the last photo, you can see that with a little
practice reading the time from moonlight shadow could be really easy - just
select
Hello David,
Girolamo Fantoni published Moondials in the BSS Bulletin 92-1. He describes a
new design based on ideas by Ozanam (1699) using 15 lines for the lunar phases
each day of the month. Rafael Soler has incorporated moondials using this 15
line technique as well as correction charts
