Greetings fellow dialists, I recall reading somewhere that dialists in centuries gone by commonly used the pole star to align wall dials and that their equipment consisted of lengths of string and a candle. Can anyone throw any light on this? Obviously when setting up a dial on the south wall of a church, for instance, the dialist would have to be well away from the church to see the pole star. But why the candle?
Nowadays it is beyond me why anyone would bother with the pole star at all, especially for a wall dial since unless it is north facing the pole star is on the wrong side of the wall while the sun is on the right side. And the sun throws a shadow, fuzzy but accurate enough for a sundial, which throws the same shadow, and its azimuth can be calculated for any time of day. Frank 55N 1W -- Frank Evans -
