Kitt Peak dial

[Mac Oglesby]

John,

I've seen your juxtaposition of the computed and observed hour points 
at the Kitt Peak demonstration sundial. Congratulations on achieving 
such excellent results. After weeks of preparation followed by days 
spent on site, it must be extremely gratifying to you and the others 
involved to see that the dial turned out better than anyone dared 
hope. Most of us design and build a sundial, then spot check its 
accuracy, hoping for the best. You've enjoyed the unusual opportunity 
of doing all of the checking essentially during a single day.


Few of us would have had the resolve to see a project such as this 
through. You and your coworkers must be very proud of its outcome.


Best wishes,

Mac Oglesby
-

AW: Equatorial monument in Brazil

[Josef Pastor]

Hello 
Dialists,
hello 
Jim,
 
Have a 
look at http://www.macapa-ap.com.br/ and go 
to Fotos da Cidade. There you will see the Monumento do Marco Zero. Is it that, what you are speaking of 
?
 
Yours

Josef PastorE-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 


  -Ursprüngliche Nachricht-Von: 
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Im 
  Auftrag von J.TallmanGesendet am: Donnerstag, 27. Juni 2002 
  16:16An: Sundial ListBetreff: Equatorial monument in 
  Brazil
  Hello All,
   
  I recently saw a show on the Travel Channel (cable tv) which may be 
  of interest to those who have access to it.
   
  The show was called "Voyager's Adventures" with Geraldo Rivera, and this 
  particular installment chronicled an expedition up the Amazon River in 
  Brazil.  When they got to a city called Macapa they went ashore and 
  highlighted a monumental stone tower that is there, directly on the Equator, 
  that has a big East/West facing hole in the top of it which casts a disc of 
  light along a line on the ground marking the Equator.  This 
  only happens during the equinoxes, and on those two days the big spot of 
  light rides the line perfectly all day.  I estimated that this equatorial 
  monument was 50-75 feet high - maybe even higher - and found it to be 
  quite impressive.  
   
  While it is not really a sundial, I thought it may be of interest to some 
  of you.  I would, however, recommend getting up and going to the fridge 
  when the intrepid Geraldo is on a side trip in Rio 
  and begins to sing "Girl from Ipanema" to his lovely travel companion 
  :-) 
   
  Jim Tallman
  Sr. Designer
  FX Studios
  513.829.1888

Re: Equatorial monument in Brazil

[J.Tallman]

Hello Art,
 
"The rate of change of the 
declination at the equinoxes is 24 arc-minutes per day, approximately equal to 
the size of the image of the solar disk, so if the spot is perfectly centered on 
the line at dawn, by dusk it should be nearly off one side.  Actually, this 
is cool, because it means with appropriate and painstaking observations you can 
determine the moment of the equinox to within a few hours." Art 
Carlson 
 
This is a very good point.  Unfortunately they were on site in May, I 
believe, and so there was no way to see the thing in action.  It was hard 
to estimate the size of the hole in the top of the stone tower because it 
was very high up and probably shot with a wide angle TV camera lense, but 
I'll bet the aperture was at least 8' in diameter.  
 
The monument was interesting in its context as well.  On the one 
side (along the East/West axis) about 250-300 yards away was a football stadium 
with the Equator running exactly through midfield.  There were no 
bleachers on the monument side of the field.  On the opposite side of the 
tower was a very long street or walkway also following the equator.  
The pedestrian plaza around the monument included a black stone strip 
inlayed into the pavement to indicate the exact position of the Equator. 
 
 
I am sure the effect on the special days would be quite stunning, 
as long as the sun was shining in the rainforest!  I am surprised that I 
was able to find so little about it on the web!
 
Jim Tallman
Sr. Designer
FX Studios
513.829.1888 

Style Shift Movie

[Patrick Powers]

Message text written by INTERNET:sundial@rrz.uni-koeln.de

>I also want to edit out the bad parts.
I'd really like to include my little style shift movie in my PowerPoint
presentation for the NASS conference, but I'm not sure how to do it.
(Somebody told me that there are files called mpegs, like jpegs but for
movies).<

I did something similar for my daughter's wedding using edited embarrassing
highlights from her youth.   The clips had been taken on a VHS camcoder and
I used a Pinnacle MP10 external interface and software to edit the clips on
the PC and to fade them and the sound etc - Not sure if this Pinnacle
product is international or not but I am sure there will be plenty
compatible ones in the US.  I then recorded it as an MPEG file as you
suggest and it ran easily within Powerpoint..  It wouldn't be hard to
delete every other frame to speed things up by a factor of two but it might
be tedious...!

Be careful though if you intend - as I originally did - to hire a laptop so
I could more easily give the presentation in the hotel.  The problem is
that most laptops up to 1999 had video cards that cannot keep up with MPEG
video.  They do manage to process it but only in a jerky fashion.  If you
do go for hiring such a PC then make sure it is fast enough.  I was told
that if I got a laptop with a DVD interface then the video cards on those
are likely to be fast enough.  Failing this you'll just have to take your
desk top PC with you to the conference!

If you also use a digital projection device that handles the sound as well.
 It can all be very neat.

Hope this helps...

Patrick



-
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Patrick_Powers/
Lat: N  51d. 49m. 09s:  Long: W 00d. 21m. 53s

-

Re: Equatorial monument in Brazil

[DrArthurCarlson]

Hold still, I think I see a nit!

The rate of change of the declination at the equinoxes is 24 arc-minutes per day, approximately equal to the size of the image of the solar disk, so if the spot is perfectly centered on the line at dawn, by dusk it should be nearly off one side.  Actually, this is cool, because it means with appropriate and painstaking observations you can determine the moment of the equinox to within a few hours.

Art Carlson

Style Shift Movie

[John Carmichael]

Hi all:

Yesterday, I saw a VCR video tape that that a volunteer took of us marking
the Kitt Peak sundial. The best part of the movie was of the penumbra
rapidly moving along the projection screen just before, during and after the
morning style shift when the bottom style shifts to the east style that is
higher up and further away. During the shift, Bob kept moving the shadow
sharpener back and forth in one hand, and he kept measuring the penumbra's
width with a ruler he held in the other hand. Its width changed from 30cm
before to 55 cm after and it took about a minute for the shift to occur.

The movie was even better at fast forward! Except at fast forward the VCR
has those annoying horizontal moving distortions on the TV screen.  Do you
think I can eliminate this distortion by converting a VCR tape into digital
form (a DVD or something similar?)  I also want to edit out the bad parts.
I'd really like to include my little style shift movie in my PowerPoint
presentation for the NASS conference, but I'm not sure how to do it.
(Somebody told me that there are files called mpegs, like jpegs but for
movies).

Thanks

John

John L. Carmichael Jr.
Sundial Sculptures
925 E. Foothills Dr.
Tucson Arizona 85718
USA

Tel: 520-696-1709
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website: 

-

Equatorial monument in Brazil

[J.Tallman]

Hello All,
 
I recently saw a show on the Travel Channel (cable tv) which may be of 
interest to those who have access to it.
 
The show was called "Voyager's Adventures" with Geraldo Rivera, and this 
particular installment chronicled an expedition up the Amazon River in 
Brazil.  When they got to a city called Macapa they went ashore and 
highlighted a monumental stone tower that is there, directly on the Equator, 
that has a big East/West facing hole in the top of it which casts a disc of 
light along a line on the ground marking the Equator.  This only 
happens during the equinoxes, and on those two days the big spot of light 
rides the line perfectly all day.  I estimated that this equatorial 
monument was 50-75 feet high - maybe even higher - and found it to be quite 
impressive.  
 
While it is not really a sundial, I thought it may be of interest to some 
of you.  I would, however, recommend getting up and going to the fridge 
when the intrepid Geraldo is on a side trip in Rio 
and begins to sing "Girl from Ipanema" to his lovely travel companion 
:-) 
 
Jim Tallman
Sr. Designer
FX Studios
513.829.1888

Re: High Noon

[Eichholz]

Helllo Mac,
 
some answers were given to you.
My answer is "High noon" is correlated with the temporal 
hour "None" used by the monks.
But as the Benedict rules demanded to have no food 
before this time it changed  more and more foward.
The same thing happened with 
"vesper".
Best wishes
 
Klaus EichholzZum Ruhrblick 5D44797 
Bochum[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

Arbeitskreis Sonnenuhren
Germany
 
 

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Mac Oglesby 
  
  To: sundial@rrz.uni-koeln.de 
  Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 9:22 
  PM
  Subject: High Noon
  Now and then I run across the phrase "High Noon." Can 
  someone please tell me what that means? I didn't find it in John Davis' 
  excellent glossary.Best wishes,Mac 
Oglesby-