Penn Wood Analemmatic Sundial

What is analemmatic sundial?

An analemmatic sundial can be built in many ways.  At Penn Wood, our sundial is 4 meters across when measured between the 7:00am hour and 7:00 pm hour marker. When finished the visitor to the sundial will stand on a date block and cast his/her shadow on to the ellipse, or flatten arc in front. The gnomon, or vertical rod on a sundial is in this case the visitor. In the testing done to date, the sundial is remarkably accurate.   The hours will be set to Daylight Savings Time. This site, which includes wooden benches, would make a terrific night sky observation site with is orientation to Polaris, our north star.  

Third grade students work on the  initial stages of construction.

 Two tons of crushed stone was used to create a solid base for the concrete to be used. The hour markers will be set along the ellipse.

Third grade students helped with the initial stages of the project by digging out the ellipse. This location was picked due to its orientation to true north and south. Click on the  Sundial Mathematics to view the tables used for our calculations.  The site was carefully surveyed using a compass and surveyor's level.

The frame is in place for pouring of the concrete.

Adding reinforcement rods will strengthen the poured ellipse.

The ellipse takes final shape as the poured concrete is finished  this fall.

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