In a message dated 6/17/2003 10:45:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Hi Bill > > I think you have convinced me that solar noon is the best time to set a > dial, but what is the best date? My off-the-cuff answer is any date is fine if you are using the solar noon method. In my opinion, this is the best method in almost all situations. The "three time measurements" method is really just for special circumstances, and all other things being equal, is inferior to the noon method. As an aside, on the equinoxes any time error from misalignment remains nearly constant over the course of the day (this is not so near the solsticies). This means that if your dial varies in its error over the course of the day on the equinox, there must be an error in the dial's construction! Using this method, I discovered that one of my large equatorial dials was out of round. Bill -
