Happy Equnox 2010

Happy Equinox a little bit early. This year the Equinox is Wednesday evening, September 22 2010 at 08:09 PM PDT.

This photo was taken at the coast a while back. Stone circles with driftwood gnomons are the kinds of beach sculptures I like to create. Since this stick really isn't straight up and down and the ground isn't level, this sculpture really doesn't tell time per se -- although it could be used to guestimate how long we'd been at the beach (15 degrees is one hour). If we had stayed long enough, I would have continued the path shown by the three stones into a much longer eliptical path.

For me personally, the autumnal equinox is the time of ending projects and distribution. Hmm. I think I have a few loose ends that need ending.

Suffern Sundial

The Suffern Free Library has a sundial outside its main entrance. It is aluminum. The dial is reading about 10:30 on the upper dail face.






There are two gnomons on this dial. One is the very large triangle making up the body of the dail. The other is the hemisphere mounted on the triangular base. The shadow of the triangle falls on the dias the dial sits on. A thin strip over the circular part casts a shadow on curved dail.







There's a disk on secondary gnomon which can be used to track the height of the sun (which doesn't show up in these photos).