The Sunquest Sundial is a

sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat ...

gnomon A gnomon (; ) is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. The term is used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields. History A painted stick dating from 2300 BC that was excavated at the astronomical site of Taosi is the ol ...

automatically corrects for the

equation of time In mathematics, an equation is a formula that expresses the equality of two expressions, by connecting them with the equals sign . The word ''equation'' and its cognates in other languages may have subtly different meanings; for example, in ...

allowing it to tell clock time. The Sunquest sundial utilizes a cast aluminum gnomon, the shape of which is related to the

analemma In astronomy, an analemma (; ) is a diagram showing the position of the Sun in the sky as seen from a fixed location on Earth at the same mean solar time, as that position varies over the course of a year. The diagram will resemble a figure ei ...

. When turned to face the sun, the gnomon casts a curved ribbon of sunlight onto the time-scale arc, correcting for mean time. The Sunquest sundial won

Sky & Telescope ''Sky & Telescope'' (''S&T'') is a monthly American magazine covering all aspects of amateur astronomy, including the following: *current events in astronomy and space exploration; *events in the amateur astronomy community; *reviews of astronomic ...

magazine's "Sundial of the Year 2000" competition in 1966. The Sunquest Sundial has been featured in several other publications, including ''Sundials: The Art and Science of Gnomonics'', ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

'' and ''Sundials: Their Theory and Construction''.

References

External links

*{{official, http://sunquestsundial.org/ Sundials