Frank Evans wrote: > > Fer de Vries furnished Chuck O'Connell (and the rest of us) with what > looked like a gratifyingly comprehensive list of dial furniture lines. > He included an item called astrological houses. By this I wonder if he > intended the Domifying Circles, or Circles of Position. These rather > boring lines do appear on dials and indicate the first point of entry of > the sun into the respective signs of the zodiac. A comprehensive > account of one such dial in Devon, England, and a description of dom > lines, as they are also known, was given by Chris Daniel in the Bulletin > of the British Sundial Society for October 1992. > > But caution; dial furniture can so easily be overdone. Take the famous > dial in Queens' College, Cambridge as an example. Gazed on in awe by so > many, it's really a mess, complete with moon dial table, lines illegible > and lines that mean nothing, at least nobody, even Cambridge's finest, > can understand them. And all mixed up. > -- > Frank Evans
Dear Frank, Indeed, the astrological houses are the same as the Domifying Circles. These houses however aren't equal to the zodiacal signs so I don't agree with your sentence : 'indicate the first point of entry of the sun into the respective signs of the zodiac' To indicate in what zodiacal sign the sun is you have to use declination lines or date lines. There are more than one definition for the astrological houses but the most common seems to be the system of Regiomontanus by which the equatorial plane is devided in 30 degrees. North-south directed planes intersecting these points are the borders of the 12 houses. At latiude 0 degrees these planes lie 15 degrees apart but at other latitudes the angles between the planes aren't equal. I agree with your remark 'dial furniture can so easily be overdone'. I more like to make a number of dials with less furniture than to put to many in one dial. Happy dialling. Fer.
