Rene Vinck of Antwerp, Belgium has written about using an Astro Compass for finding wall declination in the current Volume 10 of the NASS Compendium.
The dialist's Companion would be so very useful to all those folk using these accurate instruments if it showed the sun's azimuth in 360 degrees from north, thereby avoiding errors that could creep in by converting from 180 degrees E or W of south to 360 degrees.
Perhaps both could be shown to extend this very useful program, well done to those who created it !
Does anybody else agree with me ?
Regards and best wishes to all those that contribute to the sundial list.
David. Newbury UK.
Message date : Sep 26 2003, 08:35 AM
From : Thibaud Taudin-Chabot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To : sundial@rrz.uni-koeln.de
Copy to :
Subject : Re: Dialist's Companion
A navigator is not a dialist.
A navigator always wants to know where the North is, that is why North is
upon your maps.
A dialist looks always to the South and is turning left or right from
that direction.
Thibaud
At 07:39 26-09-2003, you wrote:
Why is the sun's azimuth shown as
180 degrees east or west of south, when my Astro Compass and I daresay
navigators work in 360 degrees from north ?
Can the Dialist Compansion show both.
- Message date : Sep 25 2003, 08:15 PM
- From : Fred Sawyer
- To : Sundial List
- Copy to :
- Subject : Dialist's Companion
- In a recent response to John Carmichael, I
- referred to some capabilities of the Dialist's Companion
program. It seems
- that a number of people where unaware of these features. After
checking
- the Help page, I discovered that we evidently did not document them -
so no
- wonder that they are still a bit mysterious. This will give a
little more
- detail:
- If you are at the
- main page of the Dialist's Companion, you can toggle the clock on and
off by
- hitting the End key (part of the home, end, PgUp, PgDn, and arrow
keys
- arrangement). Notice the small box just to the left of the
Julian Date on
- the screen; once you have hit the End key, the rotating line in this
box changes
- to a V - for virtual mode. When in this mode, the clock is off.
You can
- set the date, latitude, etc. as usual, using the D, T, O keys - or
you can
- change the date and time by using the PgUp, PgDn, Ins, Del and arrow
keys
- to step your way through the hours and days. Note that with
each change in
- time or date, all the values are recalculated and remain on the
screen until you
- change the time again. This makes working with calculations
much
- easier.
- size=2>
- To start the clock
- up again, hit End. Note that the clock progresses again as
before - but it
- picks up where you left off in the calculator mode. So you can
mimic the
- clock's functioning at any time of the day or year. The box to
the left of
- the Julian Date will still show V, meaning you are still in virtual -
not real,
- current mode. To change back to current mode, press Home - this
brings you
- back home to the real world and synchronizes the software with your
computer's
- clock/calendar. Note that the box now changes from V to the
rotating
- line/arrow you are familiar with. Be sure to have the clock
going when you
- hit Home - otherwise the program synchronizes with the clock for only
a split
- second - the clock continues but if you have the program still in
calculator
- mode, it will not change.
- size=2>
- I hope this helps -
- and perhaps uncovers capabilities that you didn't know the program
- had.
- size=2>
- Fred
- Sawyer
