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Sundial
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First, determine your latitude.
Using the map for your local area, estimate what your latitude is.
This will be essential to the creation of your sundial. If you are
not sure how to do this, most road maps indicate the latitude and
longitude of a given place. Your latitude will be the number of
degrees north, that is, if you live in the northern hemisphere.
If you live in the southern hemisphere, your latitude will be the
number of degrees south.
There are also sites on the Internet that can help you determine
what your exact latitude is where you live.
· Second, construct the sundial.
You will need a pair of scissors and some tape. The more carefully
you make the folds in your sundial, the more accurate your sundial
will be when you are finished with the construction of it. There
are various stages of construction—so when you get to this
step, be sure to refer to your sundial instructions. If you did
not receive any instructional materials when you purchased your
items for the construction of your sundial, refer to the Internet
for more specific instructions.
· Third, align the sundial.
Take your sundial outside now and place it on a level surface on
the ground. Make sure you aim the style due North. You should now
have a working sundial. When you read the time on your sundial,
remember to take Daylight Savings Times into account. During Daylight
Savings Time, the sundial will be an hour behind your indoor clock.
Correcting for your position in your Time Zone
When solar time was no longer adequate for railway timekeeping,
a system of time zones was initiated. This created twenty-four time
zones, each fifteen degrees in width - within which all clocks would
tell the same time.
However, the sun moves across each artificial time zone at its
own pace.
If you would like your sundial to compensate for its position in
this fifteen-degree time zone and be closer to actual Standard Time,
you will need to make a longitude correction.
Correct the longitude by the relationship between the longitude
of your sundial and the longitude of your time zone.
If you are setting up a commercial sundial, longitude correction
is not built into the dial, but will be a constant amount you must
apply at each reading of your sundial. With a longitude west of
the central meridian, add four minutes to the time on the dial for
each degree. If you are east, subtract four minutes. This correction
can be built into your sundial if you are making one yourself.
Even after the longitude correction is applied, your sundial will
not consistently tell Standard Time due to The Equation of Time
which varies throughout the year.
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