Hi, Frans, et al.! Oh, yes, the day did start at noon, for astronomers. That makes good sense, when you stop to think about it for a moment. Beginning with 1925 January 1, however, the convention was dropped in favor of the civil usage of beginning the day at midnight, but the older usage persists in the system of Julian dates (original form). That system, used for timing events over long periods of time, began with noon of BC 4713 January 1, and continues to the present, today (Dec. 15th) being JD 2451879. (There is also a "modified Julian date" that begins with midnight, and the term has been misappropriated by those who use it to mean the running date of the current year, today being thus 350. Please avoid that!)
It is interesting that your example is on an observatory grounds. I hope to have helped. Regards, John 122.6 W; 45.4 N ----- Original Message ----- From: Frans W. MAES <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <sundial@rrz.uni-koeln.de> Sent: Friday, December 15, 2000 12:38 PM Subject: Zero hour at noon? > Is there a time system that has the zero hour point at local noon? > > At the Observatory of Besancon (read c-cedilla) in France is a > (heavily deteriorated) analemmatic sundial, which has a full ring of > hour points, numbered from 0 to 23. Oddly enough, the 0-hour point > is at the northern tip of the ellipse. Standing on the date line, that > is where one's shadow falls at local noon. > Is this just an amateur quirk, or does it have to do with the > astronomical atmosphere around here? > > PS. This numbering is different from the one that evoked the > "Nought at noon" thread last July, where hour numbers ran VI, > VII...XI, 0, I, II...VI.
