Sundial FESTIVAL

Bring a protractor, a pencil, and a manilia cardboard file folder to make a sundial.  Detials on a simple equatorial sundial Microsoft PowerPoint

Learn about a polarization sundial that will work when the sun is covered by a cloud and there is no shadow for a sundial gnome or an hour before the sun has risen or an hour after the sun has set  as long as there is a patch of  blue sky in the north.  White clouds depolarize sunlight and hide the information about where the sun is that is encoded in the polarization pattern of the blue sky!  Sundials of the polarization type were first made by Charles Wheatstone (1848).  Improvement in technology has made polarization sundials much easier and cheaper to make now than in Wheatstone's time.  From a single pair of polorid sun glasses with some card boad and an xacto knife you could make several polorization sundials.

Here is the Polarization_sundial.ppt used in the talk on October 27, 2007.  Please notice the notes part on each slide, it sometimes contains important information or reference on the source of the image used.  Detials on a simple equatorial sundial Microsoft PowerPoint.

Polarization in the Wikipedia.
Austine Studio Polage (tm), beautiful polarization artwork by Austine Wood Comarow.
Polarization.com

Montgomery College's Planetarium home page

Web page by Dr. Harold Alden Williams.
Last changed  5:45PM October 29, 2007.