Dear Fabio,
An interesting message...
> In Italy some sundials show the
> written 'costante locale'...
I find Italian gnomonic vocabulary great
fun. There are technical terms which
sound very good in Italian but sound very
odd when directly translated into English.
I especially enjoy 'Foro gnomonico' and
'Meridiana a camera oscura'.
I share your dislike of 'costante locale'.
This could be interpreted in many ways.
Is it the height above sea level or the
local latitude or something else?
In English I often use the word 'offset'
and this can be 'an angular offset' or
'a time offset' or 'a displacement offset'
and for 'costante locale' I would usually
write:
the local longitude offset
It helps that in England, the local
reference meridian is Greenwich but
to be more precise I would write:
the longitude offset from the
reference meridian for the local
time zone
>From where I am sitting:
My longitude offset (from the
Greenwich meridian) is one-eighth
of a degree east or 30 seconds of
time.
'Offset' is used for angles, time
or distance.
Frank
Frank King
Cambridge, U.K.
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