OT Anybody know anything about solar time telling?

Alignments change daily

Tom Dunlap

Very cool!

I may be wrong but I think what you're seeing is once per year. There are other solar alignments that are celebrated.

The Longbarrow...Ireland

Stonehenge

Cahokia Mounds...east of St Louis has a 'woodehenge. that aligns with the step on the earthen pyramid

Chichen Itza...Yucatan---I got to see this one...read up on it..pretty cool

When I lived in Austin I had my workshop at a friends warehouse. It had a 30' ceiling. ONe day I spotted a sunspot on the floor. it was about 1/2" diameter. I looked up at the ceiling and saw that it was from an old nail/screw hole in the roof. I took a grease pencil and marked an 2 with the time on it. Then I set my time for 15 minute intervals and marked the arc of the sunspot. For the next few days I made sure I was at the shop in the afternoon, same time as the first. ZI did the same marks. It was soooo cool to see the arcs that the sun spots took.

Another sun track I followed while I was in Austin was the place on the horizon at sunrise on the solstices. I could go to the top floor of the parking ramp and take pics from the same place. As it turns out the alignment was with a hotel about a mile east of me. Then, in June I took pics in the same place...different times of course. It was simple to get bearings on the two days. Turns out there was about a 40 degree change between December and June. I did a little reading and found a webpage where you could plug your location and date and find the bearing and time of a lot of solar/lunar events.

Since the Earth rotates on a tipped axis we get seasons. And, like you'll find, the alignment will change over time.

Fun observations!

Our civilization has lost touch with these alignments. There's no need to track them anymore since we have almanacs with charts. Before we had clocks combines with calendars it wasn't as easy to track these events. ALso, a knowledge of astronomy and trigonometry

Re: OT Anybody know anything about solar time tell

Mark Nowicki

You might depending on how big the window and the room are.

Re: Alignments change daily

Barry Irby

I have seen a time lapse picture of the sun taken over a year. It plotted a sort of figure 8, nearly horizontal like an infinity sign. Very Interesting.

Time is interesting. Back in the day, before telegraph and telephone or radio there was no good way to synchronize time across great distances. And It wasn't really important. If your town thought it was 5:00 PM and the adjacent town thought it was 5:10pm, that was OK. It was the railroads that made it important to know the time more accurately. If you thought it was leaving at 5:00 and you got there at 5:10 you missed the train.

I also read about a land navigation trick. Drive a stick into the ground nearly vertical. Mark the end of the shadow. Wait a "while" and mark the end of the shadow again. A line through those two mark runs East West and the first mark is to the west. At least that's how I remember it. But then I have been lost before.

Re: OT Anybody know anything about solar time tell

roger lance

Tonto always told time by the sun.....and so can you, Kemo Sabe.

Re: OT Anybody know anything about solar time tell

Barry Irby

I went to look at it this morning and it moves past the corer at about 7:40. I say about because I got distracted and did not actually watch it. Has anybody seen my car keys?

I think I would need to check it maybe once a month because the change would be slow and predictable, but not obvious day by day.

Re: OT Anybody know anything about solar time tell

Barry Irby

I've narrowed it down to morning and afternoon. But don't hold me to it or try to pin me down too closely.

Barry: E-W shadow

Tom Dunlap

YOu;ve got it right. I learned that in Boy Scouts in mid-60's. I've never needed to use it...yet.

Re: Barry: E-W shadow

roger lance

I also learned a technique in Scouts for using the position of the sun in it's trajectory across the sky to tell time. It worked fairly well.....but, it would be difficult to explain clearly even though it's fairly simple.....

One of those things that's best demonstrated to be understood.....maybe there's a video on YouTube.

Re: Barry: E-W shadow

Barry Irby

I think it was actually and Boy Scout that figured it out.

E-W shadow PS...This is why...

Barry Irby

I carry a twelve foot pole with me, to not get within 12 feet of people I would not come within a six feet of.....Twice.

Re: OT Anybody know anything about solar time tell

Tim Caley

There was an event that used to happen at a previous residence. When I would get home from work in the evening, and open the garage door, the sun would shine on the garage door sensor and the garage door would not close. Happened for a couple of days, once a year during spring/summer timeframe.

Re: OT Anybody know anything about solar time tell

kneale brownson

Happens all afternoon on our west-facing garage door.