Dear Jim,

I am grateful to you, and to Willy and Geoff,
for various points of clarification.  The key
point in your comment is:

  A hand with a Sun figure rotates once in
  a mean solar day...

This at once distances the clock from an
astrolabe where, properly set, you look at
true solar time and not mean solar time.

By not tracking true local solar time, the
clock necessarily compromises the indications
of any observable that depends on sunrise or
sunset.  So indications of the Italian hour
or the Unequal hour could be a quarter of
a common hour wrong even if the authorities
had ignored Central European Time.

Or have I missed something crucial?

[It is still a splendid clock, but I want to
be clear about its design limitations!]

Frank

---------------------------------------------------
https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial

Reply via email to