Greetings fellow dialists, Many thanks for the numerous communications on moon dials. It seems that Isaac Morris's 1803 dial was one of several of this type although differing importantly from others in its layout. Fer de Vries referred me to an article by Girolamo Fantoni of Italy in BSS Bulletin 92.1 of February 1992, with slightly different curves from Morris's but working in the same way. The 1710 Blenheim dial, Woodstock, Oxfordshire seems to be related, according to the description in the BSS register.
It was suggested that a moon dial would be less effective than a nocturnal. Possibly true if you had a nocturnal with you. The point about ordinary dials was that they served the same function as clocks. The equivalent of a nocturnal would be a pocket dial or a watch. I should say that I am not in the process of making a moon dial (I'm in fact lazily contemplating a vertical analemmatic dial for my wall) but just found Morris's dial very interesting. Thanks again for all your correspondence. Frank 55N 1W -- Frank Evans
