Please enter the values appropriate for your position. The Default values are for Kirkwood Observatory on the Indiana University campus. Please see below for notes pertaining to the parameters entered in the table. Most questions I get are easily answered by these notes.

Notes:

1. Default values are for the Kirkwood Observatory located on the campus of Indiana University, Bloomington.
2. Latitude: is entered in degree/minute/seconds above or below the equator. Positive values represent angles north of the equator, and negative values are angles south of the equator. Thus 40/00/00 degrees north latitude is +40/00/00 degrees latitude, and 40/00/00 degrees south latitude is -40/00/00 degrees latitude.
3. Longitude: is entered in hours:minutes:seconds (default) east or west of the Greenwich meridian. If the degree radio button is selected, then the format is degree:minutes:seconds. Positive values represent longitude values east of the Greenwich meridian. Negative values represent longitude values west of the Greenwich meridian. If you don't know the Latitude and Longitude of your location, you can find it through either the Census Bureau Gazetteer, or the maping facility provided by Mapblast.
4. Zone: values represent the time zone (in hours) of the location represented by the given latitude and longitude. Positive values represent longitude values east of the Greenwich meridian. Negative values represent longitude values west of the Greenwich meridian.
5. Height of gnomon: allows the user to alter the height of the gnomon used to calculate the sundial. If you are near the equator, you might try a larger gnomon than the default. For mid to large latitudes a value of 0.5 inches is highly recommended. The value entered is in inches. The sundial generated must fit on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper unless you possess the ability to print to a larger sheet of paper. Even then the plot will be no larger than about 7" x 10" unless you scale it.
6. Hour Line Labels: turn on or off the labels above the the hour lines. These labels indicate the time that each line represents.
7. Hour Lines: turn on or off the lines that represent the postion of the shadow when the obliquity of the ecliptic and the ellipticity of the Earth's orbit is not accounted for.
8. File Format: There appears to be some confusion on the format of the sundial template. The format is postscript as indicated by the .ps ending. Postscript is a language used by many printers to print documents. Unfortunately few image viewers understand postscript, and as a consequence will not display the template. If you want to view the template, my recommendation is to send the template to a printer that understands postscript, or get a "postscript to GIF" converter. Perhaps some time in the future, I will offer a choice between the GIF or postscript format. For the meantime I can only direct you to a ghostscript viewer.

I make no claims on the accuracy of the sundial, or that the code is free of errors. However, I have used the sundial generated by this program many times, and can reliably tell what time it is to within about 5 minutes. Unfortunately, I have only tested the sundial for the Kirkwood Observatory. If you would like a more indepth explanation on how to use this sundial, I have written a more complete explanation. In fact, if you do find any errors, please e-mail me your findings so that I may correct the error.

I have created a raytraced image using the Persistence of Vision raytracing package of a sundial using the template generated by this page. The template is for Kirkwood Observatory, and will give you a good idea on what the template should look like. The image is a 109659 byte jpeg with dimensions of 1024x768.

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since February 28, 1996.