From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Moondial

Timepiece based on the light of the moon

Moondials are time pieces similar to sundials, using the moon to cast shadows on a marked dial. The most basic moondial is accurate only on the night of the full moon. Every night after that, it loses on average 48 minutes, while every night preceding the full moon it gains 48 minutes. Thus, one week to either side of the full moon, the moondial will read 5 hours and 36 minutes before or after the correct time.

More advanced moondials include charts showing the exact calculations to find the correct time, as well as dials designed with latitude and longitude.

Moondials are very closely associated with lunar gardening (night-blooming plants), and some comprehensive gardening books mention them.

Notes

References

Ralf Kern: Wissenschaftliche Instrumente in ihrer Zeit. Vom 15. – 19. Jahrhundert. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König 2010,

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

clocks timekeeping sundials

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Moondial — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report