Build your own Moondial
October 29th 2008 04:10
Sundial construction
No, Im not going insane well at least not yet, but I do enjoy being a little eccentric.
The olde sundial has been around for a while and are still very popular and dare I say it even decretive.
Why not have a Moon dial? I know there is not much call for a moon dial these days and it’s not all that practical but I thought it would be fun to go back few centuries and tell the time the old fashioned way in days of yore. After all Sundials were one of the primary methods of calculating time before the clock was invented, mechanical clocks were invented around 1200 AD. An ordinary Sundial can be adapted to function as a Moondial with a few differences.
If you reside in city areas where there are a lot of street lights, the period of the month during which you can use the moondial will be limited. In remote rural areas, it may be possible to use a moondial for up to half of the month.
Keeping in mind that the moons shadow will lose 48 minutes for every day after full moon and will be equivalently fast before full moon. Some sundials have a table of corrections to allow them to be used as moondials.
The corrections are as follows
Days from full moon: 0.....1..... 2.....3.....4.....5.....6.... .7
(hours and minutes. 0:0 0:48 1:36 2:24 3:12 4:0 4:48 5:36
You can make your own Sundial/Moondial out of cardboard or wood metal such as copper, I prefer wood. I made this sundial using cardboard and it only takes a few minutes using following dimensions obtained from Daniel Viles. You can get the complete instructions to build this excellent Sundial from the website: Download instructions
To construct this sun dial you will need:
Sun/moondial
A piece of thin cardboard 31.4 cm long and a bit wider than your protractor a wooden skewer protractor pencil ruler a compass a black marker. Access to scientific calculator is also handy all instruction on how to build this inexpensive working Sundial can be seen on the website.
The angle between each hour is drawn at 15 degrees. To get an accurate time reading from your Sun/Moon dial you will need to determine your latitude. Latitude is a measure of your location, in degrees, north or south of the Equator. Who said that science wasn’t fun. I enjoyed building this Sundial as it reminded me of the grass roots approach to learning, this project was fun.
| 67 |
| Vote |
Shared on
Add To: 
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
I think your grandson will enjoy building one.
Hands on science, the best way to learn.
Comment by Wilson Pon
Health 2 Know
Techno Stuffs
I had built my very own sundial before, but I haven't tried the moondial, as I thought it might be using different methods to develop it!
Thanks for the instruction, and I will build a moondial ASAP!
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
It was a bit unconventional but still fun to build.
Its not reliable I guess, although it makes an interesting science project.