MADE FOR PIONEERS

The First Time I Used a Sextant (and Why You Should Try It Too) I remember my first successful “sight.” I was standing on the deck of the Hawthorne, a sturdy cutter used by a navigation school off the coast of Maine. The sun was just dipping toward the sea. My hands were clumsy, the brass arc cold. Captain Ellis, the instructor, looked over my shoulder and muttered, “You’re about to find yourself.” That was the moment I realized a sextant isn’t just a tool. It’s a bridge between mathematics and the horizon? a way to know your position on Earth using nothing but light, angles, and time. In an era where GPS does it all silently, learning how to use a sextant connects you with centuries of seafarers, explorers, and aviators who relied on this elegant instrument to navigate vast oceans and uncharted skies. If you've ever been curious about celestial navigation, this guide is for you. I’ll walk you through how to use a sextant, in plain English, no jargon. We'll keep it simple and hands-on, with a summary tutorial at the end. But first, a bit of context. What Is a Sextant, Really? A sextant is a precision instrument used to measure the angle between a celestial object (like the sun, moon, or a star) and the horizon. This angle, known as the altitude, allows you to determine your latitude, and with additional information and a bit more calculation, even your longitude. It works using two mirrors. When you align the reflected image of a celestial body with the visible horizon, you can read the angle off a graduated scale. That angle is your key to knowing your position on the planet. The beauty of the sextant is its independence: no batteries, no electronics, just physics and optics. Tools You’ll Need Before You Begin To take a sight with a sextant, you’ll need: A sextant (obviously)? preferably one with a micrometer drum and adjustable index mirror. A marine chronometer or accurate watch? to note the exact time of your sight. A nautical almanac? which gives celestial positions for specific times and dates. Sight reduction tables or a navigation calculator? to turn your angle and time into a position. A clear view of the horizon? sea or artificial horizon if on land or in flight. Now let’s walk through the basics of how to use a sextant. Step-by-Step: How to Use a Sextant I spoke with marine navigator Elena Rivas, who trains cadets in traditional celestial navigation. Here’s the method she teaches: 1. Set the Sextant to Zero “First thing, always check your index error,” Elena told me. To do this, align the horizon using the horizon mirror and reflected view. If the line isn’t level, note the difference? this is your index error, which you’ll need to subtract or add from your final angle. 2. Point at the Horizon Hold the sextant vertically with the telescope aimed toward the horizon. Keep your eye on the horizon line. 3. Bring the Celestial Object Down Using the index arm, move the mirror so that the image of the sun, star, or moon drops down to the horizon line. You should see both the horizon and the reflected celestial object in the same field of view? lined up perfectly. 4. Rock the Sextant Rock the instrument slightly side to side. The lowest point of the arc (the dip) is the correct reading. This ensures you’re measuring the true altitude. 5. Read the Angle Once aligned, lock the arm. Read the angle on the arc and micrometer drum. This is your observed altitude. 6. Record the Time Note the exact UTC time of the sight using your watch. Accuracy is crucial, especially for longitude. 7. Correct and Calculate Apply corrections: Index error Dip (based on height of your eye above sea level) Refraction (from standard tables) Sun's semi-diameter (if measuring the sun’s lower limb) Now you have the corrected altitude. Use the nautical almanac and sight reduction tables to plot your line of position. A Simple Summary Tutorial: “Sun Sight at Sea” in 60 Seconds If you're short on time, here’s the ultra-simplified version of how to use a sextant to find latitude with the sun at local noon: At noon, take a sight of the sun at its highest point (when it stops rising). Record the angle and exact time. Look up the sun’s declination for that date in the almanac. Latitude = 90° – observed altitude + or – declination Add if the sun is in the same hemisphere Subtract if it's in the opposite hemisphere That’s it? you’ve got your latitude. It won’t be perfect, but it will be close enough to get you home. Final Thoughts: Why Learn This Now? I asked Captain Ellis recently why he still teaches sextant use when every phone has GPS. He said, “Because knowing how to use a sextant means you’ll never be lost, even when everything else fails. And maybe more importantly, it teaches you how to see.” He’s right. Learning how to use a sextant isn’t just about survival. It’s about learning to observe, measure, and understand your place in the world through your own hands and eyes. So go ahead? try it. Aim for the sun, line up the horizon, and find yourself the old-fashioned way.  

A Sky Without Stars: Why the Compass Mattered It was off the coast of Genoa where I first felt what it meant to lose the sky. A thick curtain of fog had settled over the Mediterranean, swallowing every landmark, every familiar cue. “You’d have no business sailing in this,” muttered Captain Lorenzo, a veteran mariner whose gnarled hands seemed older than his ship. “Except for this little miracle.” He tapped the brass lid of the binnacle, and the compass needle beneath trembled, then steadied, pointing north as if it knew the world’s secrets. This wasn’t just a sailor’s superstition. The compass, as I would soon learn in the months that followed, had changed everything: how we explored, traded, worshipped, and even thought about the Earth. This is the story of that needle. The Ancient Pull: China's Lodestone Legacy You could say the history of the compass begins with a rock. But not just any rock. In the quiet reading room of the Nanjing Museum, I met Dr. Mei Liu, a historian of early Chinese science. She showed me a replica of the sīnán, the “south-pointing spoon,” carved from lodestone and resting on a polished bronze plate. “This would have been used around the Han Dynasty,” she said. “Not for travel, but for divination.” She explained that early Chinese scholars noticed how lodestone, naturally magnetized iron ore, would align itself consistently in a north-south direction. By the 1st century AD, these observations turned into instruments. “But navigation came later,” Dr. Liu said. “First, it was all about aligning cities, tombs, even palaces with cosmic forces.” Only by the 11th century did Chinese mariners begin suspending magnetized needles in water, as described by the polymath Shen Kuo. That shift, from the metaphysical to the practical, marked the birth of the navigational compass. From the East to the Desert: The Islamic World’s Compass Innovation At a wind-swept rooftop in Cairo, I stood with Ahmed al-Siddiq, a specialist in medieval Islamic instruments. He held up a bowl containing a floating magnetic needle. “This design,” he told me, “was already in use by Arab navigators in the Red Sea by the 13th century.” The Islamic world didn’t just adopt the compass, it expanded its purpose. Ahmed showed me copies of 13th-century treatises that used the compass to calculate qibla, the direction of Mecca. Scholars like al-Ashraf and Ibn Simʿūn incorporated magnetic tools into astronomy and religious practice. “Navigation of both Earth and spirit,” he said with a smile. What struck me was how organically the compass was absorbed into a different cultural context, not as a foreign import but as a multi-use instrument, bridging science, religion, and exploration. European Seas and Scientific Sparks Back in Europe, my compass trail led me to the British Library’s medieval collection, where I met Dr. Claire Redmond, who handed me a translation of De naturis rerum by Alexander Neckam. “It’s the first European mention of the compass,” she said. “England, late 12th century.” She traced how, within a few generations, the compass went from curiosity to necessity. By the time of Petrus Peregrinus in 1269, European scholars were describing pivoting dry compasses in treatises. Maritime use expanded rapidly, and by the Age of Discovery, every ship carried one. “It’s not romanticism,” Dr. Redmond said. “Without the compass, Columbus may never have dared cross the Atlantic.” And it wasn’t just seafaring. European miners used compasses for underground surveying by the 15th century, and navigators refined the technology with innovations like the 32-point compass rose and gimbal suspension. From Pivot to Precision: The Evolution of Compass Technology If you open a modern smartphone today, somewhere inside is a magnetometer, a direct descendant of that floating needle. I traced that lineage with engineer Sophie Brandt at a lab in Boston, where she laid out a timeline on her workbench: 1813: Francis Crow’s practical liquid-filled compass dampened the needle’s wobble. 1860: Edward Ritchie’s version was adopted by the U.S. Navy. 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe built the first gyrocompass, no magnetism required. 1932: Sweden’s Silva Company launched the modern handheld compass. Today: Solid-state compasses in phones and GPS systems. “From wood and water to silicon,” Sophie mused, turning over a Suunto compass in her hand. “The compass is now everywhere, embedded, invisible, indispensable.”   A Symbol as Well as a Tool Standing in a Kyoto shrine last spring, I watched a feng shui practitioner slowly rotate a luopan, the ancient Chinese geomantic compass. Each ring inscribed with cosmic information, it felt closer to ritual than navigation. The compass has always meant more than direction. In Freemasonry, it symbolizes moral restraint. In literature, it became a metaphor for unwavering guidance. As tattoo art, it's an emblem for finding one's path. As Dr. Liu told me in Nanjing, “The compass always pointed, but people decided where to go.” Why the History of the Compass Still Matters We often think of GPS as the modern miracle, but that chip in your phone owes its existence to millennia of careful refinement, from Han dynasty lodestones to 20th-century gyroscopes. It’s how we crossed oceans, connected continents, and learned to trust something we couldn’t see. A device that began in mysticism now guides us through satellite maps and airplane cockpits. As Captain Lorenzo told me that foggy morning off Genoa, “She doesn’t talk. But she knows where we are.”  

Equal Hours from Unequal Days I remember the first time I stood in front of the equator. Not metaphorically, the equator. It was in Ecuador, just outside Quito, where a small monument marks the line. I had a compass in hand and an oddly shaped sundial nearby. A local guide, Maria, noticed my fascination and said, “That sundial works perfectly only twice a year, during the equinox.” That stuck with me. How could a place that receives roughly equal daylight year-round be connected to two specific moments in time? Later, through years of reading, wandering, and conversing with horologists and astronomers, I discovered the term “equinoxial time.” At first, I thought it was just a poetic way of saying "equal hours." But it's a precise concept: time measured by Earth's steady rotation, with each hour divided evenly across the full 24-hour day, as happens naturally during the equinoxes. It’s the kind of time that turns shadows into instruments and sundials into truth-tellers. The Celestial Geometry Behind Equinoxial Time To understand equinoxial time, you need to picture the Earth rotating against the backdrop of the sky. Specifically, imagine the celestial equator, an imaginary line projected from Earth’s equator into the heavens. On two days each year, the equinoxes, the Sun crosses this line, and day and night balance perfectly: 12 hours of light, 12 of dark, no matter where you stand on the globe. Dr. Léon Marchand, an astronomer I met at the Paris Observatory, explained it to me like this: “If you had a sundial aligned with the celestial equator, the Sun’s shadow would move across it at a uniform speed only when the Sun lies on that equator, during the equinox. That’s your perfect model of equinoxial time.” The beauty of this idea is its simplicity. Earth rotates 360 degrees every 24 hours, 15 degrees per hour. If we measure time by this rotation, we get hours of equal length. That’s equinoxial time. And while early civilizations like the Egyptians or Romans used hours that changed with the seasons, longer summer hours, shorter winter ones, the shift to equal hours started with thinkers like Hipparchus in the 2nd century BC. By the 14th century, mechanical clocks forced the issue: they ticked uniformly, so society gradually standardized on equal 60-minute hours, even if the Sun and the shadows didn’t always agree. When Clocks Disagreed with the Sky Yet, time wasn’t done being complicated. In the Renaissance, scientists began noticing discrepancies between well-built sundials and precisely regulated clocks. The culprit? Earth’s elliptical orbit and axial tilt. These caused the Equation of Time, a difference between true solar time (as shown by the Sun or a sundial) and mean time (as kept by clocks). Clockmakers responded with elegance. Joseph Williamson's 1720 equation clock used a differential gear to display both times. Later, horologists like Abraham-Louis Breguet included solar complications in pocket watches, miniature mechanisms that adjusted automatically to show solar time. It was a time when watches didn’t just tick; they taught. A Timepiece That Recalls 4.6 Billion Years That idea of a watch as a philosophical instrument is not lost. I encountered it again with a watchmaker named Augé, whose creation, “Since 4.6 Billion Years,”  left a lasting impression on me. The name refers, quite deliberately, to the age of Earth, and it suggests that this timepiece isn’t just keeping minutes, but offering a perspective shift on time itself. The Augé watch is more than a mechanical movement. It’s a modern equinoctial sundial, integrated with a compass to align the wearer to the Earth’s axis. In doing so, it channels the ancient practice of telling time from the Sun, not as an approximation, but as a real-time astronomical reading. Why Equinoxial Time Still Matters In a world of atomic clocks and digital pings, equinoxial time feels analog, even primal. But it's not outdated. It’s foundational. It is how the Earth tells time, with or without us. For horologists, astronomers, or anyone with a curiosity about where the day goes, equinoxial time is a reminder that even our most advanced instruments owe their rhythm to a planet spinning under sunlight. And in that quiet understanding, whether held in a sundial’s shadow or worn on the wrist, lies something I can only call perspective. So, the next time someone asks, “What is equinoxial time?”, I’ll say: It’s how the universe tells you that the hour is always now, and has been for 4.6 billion years.  

The First Pocket Universe It was in the stone courtyard of the University of Coimbra, under the long afternoon shadows, that I first held a classical astrolabe in my hands. Polished brass, hand-engraved, not much larger than a soup plate, and heavier than expected. I was joined by Professor Elisa Marquez, an archaeoastronomer whose specialty is the instrumentation of medieval Iberian scholars. She held up the instrument and smiled: "This," she said, "is the cosmos you can carry." An astrolabe is not just a tool. It’s a model of the sky flattened into a palm-sized analog computer. For centuries, it told time, tracked stars, found the Sun’s position, guided prayers, and taught astronomy, all before smartphones, sextants, or even reliable mechanical clocks. But here’s the best part: You can still use one today. Inside the Astrolabe: Understanding Its Layers Before we dive into how to use it, let’s take a quick tour of what an astrolabe is. A classical astrolabe has several key components: The Mater ("Mother"): The base disk that holds everything. Its raised rim carries hour and degree scales. The Climate Plate (Tympanum): Sits inside the mater. It’s etched with a coordinate grid for a specific latitude, like a map of the local sky. The Rete: A beautiful star map in cutout form, rotating above the plate. It includes star pointers and a zodiac band showing the Sun’s yearly path. The Rule: A straight pointer on top, used to read the time once the rete is aligned. The Alidade: Located on the back. It’s a sighting bar with peep holes or notches, used to measure the altitude (angle above the horizon) of a star or the Sun. Each part pivots around a central pin. As Professor Marquez put it: "The genius of the astrolabe is that it translates three-dimensional sky motion into a two-dimensional clock." How to Use an Astrolabe to Tell Time: Step-by-Step Let’s walk through the process using a real celestial object, step by step. The goal: determine local time using nothing but the sky. 1. Set the Date On the back, find the calendar scale. Use the alidade to point to today’s date. Just beside it, you’ll see the corresponding zodiac degree, this tells you where the Sun is on the zodiac circle today. Example: March 1 places the Sun around 10° Pisces. 2. Choose a Celestial Object At night, pick a bright star marked on the rete, say, Procyon. During the day, use the Sun (carefully). This step hinges on your knowledge of the sky. Historically, this was common knowledge. As Marquez noted: "Medieval scholars memorized the sky the way we memorize subway maps today." 3. Measure Its Altitude Hold the astrolabe vertically by its ring. Swing the alidade (on the back) until it lines up with your chosen object. Read the angle on the degree scale: this is its altitude. Example: Procyon might be 30° above the horizon. For the Sun, align the alidade with its shadow (never look directly). 4. Align the Rete Flip to the front. Rotate the rete so your star’s pointer lies on the corresponding altitude circle (on the plate beneath). These altitude lines are typically spaced every 5 or 10 degrees. For the Sun: move the point on the zodiac band that corresponds to today’s solar position (e.g., 10° Pisces) onto the altitude line matching its observed height. At this point, the astrolabe's sky matches the real sky. 5. Read the Time Now rotate the rule so it points to the same object you aligned in step 4. The rule will cross the hour scale at the edge. That’s the local solar time. Example: If the rule hits 20:30, it’s 8:30 PM. Be aware: the astrolabe doesn’t distinguish AM/PM on its own. You interpret that based on whether the object is rising or setting. Also, the time it shows is apparent solar time. If you want civil time, adjust for Daylight Saving and check the "equation of time" offset, usually within 15 minutes. Using the Astrolabe to Find the Date The process can also run in reverse. Suppose it’s noon and you measure the Sun’s maximum altitude. Set the Sun’s ecliptic point (on the rete) to that height at the meridian line (usually vertical on the plate). Then flip to the back: the zodiac position will indicate the calendar date. A similar process works at night if you know the time and measure a star’s altitude. Astrolabes were used for calendrical tasks like predicting equinoxes, prayer times, and seasonal changes. Their geometry let users flip time and date as variables. Why Learn the Astrolabe Today? In a world of apps and satellites, why learn this? Because using an astrolabe teaches you how time, sky, and geography connect. You don’t just read a time. You see it, physically modeled in front of you. You learn to think like a medieval astronomer, rotating the cosmos on a pin. Modern tools may be faster, but the astrolabe is unforgettable. As Marquez concluded while we packed up under the evening sky: "It’s not about precision. It’s about participation. The astrolabe puts your hand back into the heavens." Summary: What Is an Astrolabe and How to Use It If you're here for the takeaways: What is an Astrolabe? A classical astrolabe is a medieval analog computer that models the sky. It consists of a layered, rotating system of plates and pointers to simulate celestial motion. How to Use an Astrolabe: Set the current date using the back calendar scale. Choose a visible celestial object (star or Sun). Measure its altitude using the alidade. Rotate the rete to place that object’s marker on the corresponding altitude ring. Use the rule to read the time from the hour scale. It sounds like a lot, but with practice, it's intuitive. Final Thoughts The astrolabe may seem complex, but that’s part of its charm. It doesn't just give you answers, it shows you why the answers are what they are. Every rotation of the rete is a step into how our ancestors read the sky, marked the hours, and understood their place in the cosmos. Whether you're a historian, an educator, or simply someone who finds the night sky humbling, learning how to use an astrolabe is like rediscovering the sky with ancient eyes.  

How to Tell the Time with the Sun: A Complete Guide to Solar Timekeeping Before clocks ticked or smartphones buzzed, people knew how to tell the time with the sun. From farmers sowing crops to sailors navigating open seas, humanity has long relied on the sun’s journey across the sky to track the passing hours. Today, in an age of artificial time, learning how to read the sun is not only a timeless survival skill, it’s a profound way to reconnect with the Earth’s natural rhythm. In this guide, we’ll explore several reliable methods for telling time using only the sun, your surroundings, and simple tools. Each technique includes step-by-step instructions, so you can start practicing right away, whether you're hiking off-grid, teaching children outdoors, or simply curious about the ancient craft of solar timekeeping. 1. The Shadow Stick Method (A Natural Sundial) The simplest and most accessible way to learn how to tell the time with the sun is through observing shadows. What You Need: A straight stick or pole (about 2–3 feet long) A flat, level surface A few small stones or markers A sunny day How to Do It: Place the stick upright in the ground on a flat area. At every hour, mark the tip of the shadow with a stone or a scratch in the dirt. Continue marking for several hours to create a natural hour scale. Once you’ve created this scale, you can return at any time, observe where the current shadow falls, and read the approximate time. Tip: Do this first on a known time day (using a watch) so your scale is accurate. The pattern will differ slightly throughout the year due to the Earth’s tilt, but it provides a remarkably close approximation. 2. The Hand Method (Using Your Fingers as a Solar Clock) This method works even without any tools, just your outstretched hand and a horizon. What You Need: Your hand A clear view of the horizon The sun visible in the sky How to Do It: Extend your hand at arm’s length. Stack your fingers horizontally between the sun and the horizon. Each finger-width represents roughly 15 minutes before sunset (or since sunrise). So, four fingers between the sun and the horizon equals about one hour. This helps estimate remaining daylight and is especially useful in survival situations. Note: Accuracy improves with practice and works best near sunrise or sunset when the sun is low. 3. Building a Permanent Sundial For those wanting a more accurate and lasting way to tell the time with the sun, building a sundial is both educational and beautiful. What You Need: A flat base (wood, stone, or even paper) A gnomon (a stick or triangular object that casts a shadow) A compass (to find true north) A watch (only for initial calibration) How to Do It: Place the sundial on a level surface outdoors. Align the gnomon so it points true north and tilts at an angle equal to your local latitude. At each hour of the day, mark where the gnomon’s shadow falls. Label these marks from sunrise to sunset. Now you’ve built a personal solar clock. With some refinements, such as adjusting for the equation of time, you can get surprisingly precise readings. 4. Using an Analog Watch as a Solar Compass This clever technique combines modern tools with ancient observation. How to Do It (Northern Hemisphere): Hold your analog watch flat and point the hour hand toward the sun. Find the midpoint between the hour hand and 12 o’clock, this line points south. Once south is known, you can orient your surroundings and make an educated guess about the time based on the sun’s angle in the sky. In the Southern Hemisphere, point 12 o’clock toward the sun, and the midpoint between 12 and the hour hand indicates north. While not precise to the minute, it’s a quick and clever way to learn how to tell the time with the sun using your wristwatch. 5. Using an Augé Watch Among the most poetic and precise ways to tell the time with the sun is by wearing time itself on your wrist. The Augé Watch, bearing the inscription "Since 4.6 Billion Years," pays homage to the age of our solar companion, and allows the sun to become your living clock once more. How It Works: When the watch is flat, point the Augé logo toward the sun. Once aligned, the compass arrow will rotate until it stabilises. The compass arrow indicates solar time on the bezel. The bezel, crafted from Grade 5 titanium, rotates in both directions and features 120 precision clicks, allowing for fine calibration to your timezone. When to Use It: This method works when the sun is visible in the sky, anchoring your sense of time to the planet’s real position in space rather than to human convention. If you're seeking a way to tell the time with the sun that is both elegant and elemental, the Augé Watch offers a modern heirloom, one that synchronizes your personal tempo with the pulse of the cosmos. 6. Estimating Noon with the Sun’s Zenith High noon occurs when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, directly south in the Northern Hemisphere, or directly north in the Southern Hemisphere. How to Recognize It: Shadows are shortest and fall directly beneath objects. The sun stops rising and begins its descent. It occurs halfway between sunrise and sunset. By observing the shortest shadow of the day, you can estimate when solar noon occurs, useful for calibrating your sundials or understanding the sun’s path. Why It Matters: Reconnecting with Natural Time Knowing how to tell the time with the sun is more than a novelty, it’s a practice of awareness. In learning to read the sky, we step into the long continuum of human experience: shepherds, astronomers, monks, sailors, and poets have all done the same. It roots us in place and time. And in a world that often moves too fast, it reminds us that time is not only counted, it is lived. Final Thoughts Whether you're building a sundial in your backyard, teaching children how to track shadows, or simply using your hands during a sunset hike, these methods offer accessible, meaningful ways to tell the time with the sun. No batteries required. Just light, patience, and the vast sky above.  

Telling Time with the Sun: A Practical Guide to Sundials and Ancient Timepieces By A. Fost I remember the first time I truly grasped what it meant to read time from the sky. It was a spring afternoon in southern France, and I was standing beside a weatherworn sundial carved into a limestone wall, the shadow of its gnomon creeping steadily across the hours. No ticking. No screens. Just the turning Earth and a quiet line of light. It was humbling. Ever since, I’ve been collecting conversations with those who still know how to tell time with the sun, horologists, astronomers, historians of science. What follows is my attempt to gather their insights into the most accurate and accessible guide to understanding solar time and reading the oldest of all timepieces: the sundial.     What Is Solar Time? To begin with, solar time is simply the time kept by the Sun itself. Unlike our modern clocks, which slice the day into 24 equal hours, solar time is based on the actual position of the Sun in the sky. Dr. Clara Menard, an astronomical historian I met in Geneva, put it like this: “Solar time is true time, the time your body instinctively knows. It’s noon when the sun is at its highest. Everything else is a compromise.” Sundials are the original instruments of telling time with the sun, and understanding how to read one reconnects us to a rhythm far older than any digital display.     How a Sundial Works: The Elegance of Shadow At its essence, a sundial consists of two parts: The gnomon, the piece that casts a shadow, often angled like a blade The dial plate, which holds the hour markings The gnomon must point toward the Earth’s rotational axis, that is, true north in the Northern Hemisphere or true south in the Southern. Its angle must match your latitude; in Paris, for example, the gnomon would be tilted about 48° above horizontal. “The mistake most people make,” said Étienne Laroque, a garden sundial restorer in Provence, “is to treat sundials like ornaments. But a sundial is a precision instrument, if you give it the respect of proper alignment, it will tell you real solar time, to the minute.”     Setting Up a Sundial Correctly To make your sundial more than a decorative curiosity, follow these steps: Find true north. Use an app or compass or an Augé watch. Align the gnomon. Tilt it at an angle equal to your local latitude. Level the dial plate. Even a small tilt can introduce significant errors. Once set, your sundial will begin its slow conversation with the sky, casting the shadow that tells you solar time.     Reading Time on a Sundial: A Daily Ritual To read the sundial: Note where the shadow of the gnomon crosses the hour lines. That’s your apparent solar time, the Sun’s actual time at your location. But here's the twist: solar time and clock time rarely agree. Because of Earth’s elliptical orbit and axial tilt, there can be up to a 16-minute difference between them. That brings us to…   A Contemporary Expression of Solar Time Working within Augé, I’ve often found myself returning to the sundial, not as a relic, but as a reference. Its simplicity, its reliance on elemental truths, continues to inform how we think about time. The “Since 4.6 Billion Years” timepiece was born from that same reverence. It’s not a reinterpretation of the sundial, but a parallel gesture, a modern instrument that reads the hour using the sun’s position and the Earth’s magnetic field. There is no battery, no circuitry. Just orientation, light, and time. It’s a different kind of timekeeping, slower, participatory, more attuned. For those who appreciate the ritual of reading a sundial, this offers a way to carry that same intimacy with solar time, wherever you go.   Converting Solar Time to Clock Time There are three simple corrections to translate sundial readings into your local time: 1. Longitude Correction Standard time zones assume a central meridian (e.g., 0° for GMT, 15° for CET). If you live east or west of that, adjust by 4 minutes per degree. 2. Equation of Time A seasonal correction based on Earth’s orbit. You can find this value for any date from websites like NOAA's Solar Calculator. For example, March 26 typically requires a +5 minute adjustment. 3. Daylight Saving Time (DST) Add 1 hour if DST is in effect. Example Your sundial reads 1:20 PM on March 26. You're 2° west of your time zone's meridian → –8 min Equation of Time: +5 min DST in effect: +1 hour Corrected clock time = 2:17 PM “The sundial doesn’t lie,” says Dr. Menard. “But you have to understand its dialect.”     Why Telling Time with the Sun Still Matters You might ask, in the age of atomic clocks and smartphones, why bother? Because telling time with the sun is not just practical, it’s deeply human. It reminds us that timepieces were once crafted to reflect the turning of the Earth, not to enslave our schedules. It slows you down. It grounds you. And in a world obsessed with precision, there’s wisdom in returning to the source.     Final Thoughts: Relearning the Language of Light There’s a quiet dignity in standing beside a sundial, watching the world spin beneath the sun. When you read solar time, you aren’t just marking hours, you’re participating in a dialogue older than history. So if you have a sundial, dust it off. Align it. Observe it. If you don’t, make one. Even a stick in the ground and a few well-measured lines will do. Because to tell time with the sun is to return, however briefly, to a time when we listened more carefully to the world around us.     Resources for Solar Time Enthusiasts NOAA Solar Calculator, for solar noon and Equation of Time Magnetic Declination Maps Sundials: Their Theory and Construction by Albert E. Waugh Want to learn more about the Augé “Since 4.6 Billion Years” timepiece? Explore the full collection → Here

A watch that tells the time of leaf-out There is a particular kind of anticipation that lingers in the forest of Sologne in France come early April. Each step upon the damp humus seems to awaken something beneath the bark. This is budburst season, when oaks begin to unfurl their leaves, and the entire forest hums with quiet urgency. I walk alone through the oak stands (Quercus petraea), a spectator of this unfolding concert, where every green tip and birdsong feels precisely cued, like a symphony’s first rising note. I was alone until I crossed paths with Émile R., a forest ranger who has walked these woods for twenty-seven years. A man with slow words and rooted presence, like the very trees he watches over. I asked him, almost playfully, “Can one predict the exact moment of oak budburst?” He smiled, and pointing to a just-unfurling leaf, replied: “You just need to know when the green oak leafroller hatches… That caterpillar is like a living timepiece. Never early, never late. She’s born exactly when the buds open. It’s nearly mathematical.” And so I learned of Tortrix viridana, a small moth whose caterpillar emerges only to feed on the tender young oak leaves. The eggs, laid in June, fall into winter diapause, a stillness suspended in time. It waits, untouched by fleeting thaws, until a precise accumulation of warmth, a sum of degree-days, signals the time to hatch. Photoperiod ,  the length of daylight ,  also plays its part, marking the true end of winter. Diapause prevents premature emergence during deceptive midwinter mildness. Thus, it is the interplay of environmental cues ,  winter’s cold followed by sufficient spring warmth ,  and the insect’s internal clock that enables such exact synchronization. The caterpillar breaks through its shell at the very moment when the young leaf appears: tender, unarmoured by tannins, perfectly timed for its arrival. “If she hatches too early,” Émile told me, “she starves, the bud scales are still hard, she can’t chew through. Too late, and the leaves are already tough and rich in tannins. She can’t digest them. Either way, she dies.” The margin of survival? Just a few days. And that, I realized, is where the forest hides its clockwork. The oak is the dial, the caterpillar its hand. Together they form a timepiece finer than any made by man. What’s more, Émile added, not all caterpillars are alike. “Some populations down south hatch later, in sync with holm oaks or cork oaks. Others here, with early-bursting pedunculate oaks. They’ve evolved to match their host. It’s a sort of loyalty.” Different genetic strains of T. viridana have thus adapted to local oaks, fine-tuning their internal clocks across generations. Natural selection at its most elegant: those that hatch with the budburst survive, and perpetuate the rhythm. Suddenly, I imagined a different kind of watch, one not driven by quartz or atoms, but by thermal pulses in wood. A “watch of the oaks,” that ticks only once a year, when the leaf tips appear, when the caterpillar stirs, when the forest exhales its first breath of spring. And above, in the canopy, great tits (Parus major) time their own nesting. They lay eggs to ensure their chicks hatch just as the caterpillars are at their peak. Meanwhile, the oak is far from defenseless.   “As soon as the caterpillar takes its first bite,” said Émile, “the tree responds. Chemically. Rapidly.”   Tannins accumulate, rendering the leaves unpalatable and toxic. But more than that, the oak warns its neighbors. I looked at him, surprised. “Yes,” he said, “they release volatile compounds. Signals in the air. Nearby trees pick them up. They start building defenses even before being attacked.” A forest that listens and responds. A caterpillar that races against chemistry. An ecosystem where every heartbeat, every opening leaf, is a signal. I thought of all this as we stood beneath a young oak. One bud had split, revealing a tiny green ripple, the caterpillar already feeding. Somewhere in the canopy, a bird called out. Another timekeeper, no doubt. As I left the forest that day, I dreamed of a different kind of chronometer, a timepiece not measuring seconds, but seasons. A watch guided by degree-days, by scent, by the trembling of a caterpillar’s egg. A diapause watch that does not count time, but waits for it. And in place of a ticking hand, a tiny green larva, telling me the hour of the oak. Our world is filled with wonders. I hope this story inspires you. Until the next one… A. Fost Consultant, Field Reporter, Observer of Time. Welcome to MADE FOR PIONEERS, where I explore the signs, clues, and effects of time on our natural world, the cosmos, and everything in between. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, I occasionally venture into unexpected topics that spark my interest. Through my notes, I aim to inspire creativity at Maison Augé, a creator of timekeepers and measuring tools rooted in natural mechanisms.  

The History of Sundials: Humanity’s Ancient Clock I recently learned that there is a sundial on the surface of Mars. Yet long before it landed there, in the deserts of Egypt, sundials had already shaped how we understand time. Before the ticking of mechanical clocks or the glow of digital screens, our ancestors relied on shifting shadows to structure their days. Their ingenuity, passed through generations, created devices that were not only functional but reflections of the way civilizations saw themselves in the vast order of the cosmos. Ancient Sundials: Time in the Shadows I remember standing in the Valley of the Kings, feeling the heat of the sun radiate from the limestone. "This," said Dr. Elias Karam, an Egyptologist specializing in early timekeeping, "is where the oldest known sundials were found. A simple L-shaped device, placed in the sand, dividing the day into twelve sections." The Egyptians, around 1500 BCE, had already begun measuring time with stone and shadow, structuring their days with the sun’s arc. Farther east, the Babylonians and Chinese were tracking time with gnomons—upright pillars that cast shadows in predictable patterns. By 800 BCE, the Chinese had refined the technique, using calibrated shadow lengths to estimate the hour. The Greeks took these ideas and applied geometry, creating the first sundials with hemispherical bowls, an innovation Anaximander introduced to Greece around 560 BCE. "What the Greeks did," explained Dr. Livia Petrova, a historian of ancient mathematics, "was transform sundials from mere tools into instruments of precise astronomical observation." In Rome, sundials arrived as trophies of conquest. General Marcus Valerius Messalla took one from Sicily in 263 BCE and set it up in the Forum. It told inaccurate time for nearly a century, calibrated for the wrong latitude. "Imagine the daily frustration," laughed Marco Bellini, a Roman historian. "A city running on an imported sundial, always slightly off!" But Rome adapted, mass-producing sundials for public squares, villas, even portable versions for travelers. Archaeologists have found bronze pocket sundials engraved with latitudes of different provinces, allowing an officer stationed in Gaul or Syria to know the hour back home. Medieval and Islamic Innovations: Time and Faith Sundials didn’t disappear after Rome fell; they simply found new purpose. In medieval monasteries, monks carved "mass dials" into church walls, using them to time prayers. Some of these, like the one at St. Gregory’s Minster in Yorkshire, carried cryptic Old English inscriptions. I ran my fingers over the grooves of that very dial once, tracing the same markings a Saxon monk had centuries before. Meanwhile, in the Islamic world, timekeeping reached new levels of precision. Ibn al-Shatir, a 14th-century scholar in Damascus, built a sundial for the Umayyad Grand Mosque that corrected seasonal variations. "He aligned the gnomon with the Earth’s axis," said Dr. Yusuf al-Hakim, an expert on medieval Islamic science, "a breakthrough that led directly to the concept of equal-length hours." His portable sundials even included a built-in compass, ensuring travelers could find both the time and the direction of Mecca in one glance. The Renaissance: A Golden Age for Sundials By the Renaissance, sundials had evolved into statements of scientific achievement. The era’s astronomers, including Johannes Kepler, refined our understanding of Earth’s orbit and the sun’s movement, explaining why sundials sometimes ran ahead or behind clocks. "Kepler gave us the Equation of Time," noted Dr. Sabine Laurent, a scholar of Renaissance astronomy. "His insights allowed sundials to become more accurate than ever before." It wasn’t just science; sundials became exquisite objects. In Poland, Johannes Hevelius crafted a grand sundial for Wilanów Palace, turning timekeeping into a work of art. Town squares featured monumental sundials, their Latin inscriptions urging passersby to reflect on life’s passage. "Horas non numero nisi serenas," read one in Florence. "I count only the sunny hours." A poetic sentiment, but an impractical philosophy for a working clockmaker. The Industrial Age and Beyond: From Obsolescence to Art By the 18th century, pendulum clocks replaced sundials as the primary means of timekeeping. "The turning point was the railway," said Thomas Abernathy, a historian of industrial technology. "Trains needed precise schedules. Sundials, bound to the movement of the sun, couldn’t compete with standardized time zones." And yet, sundials never vanished. Victorian scholars preserved historic dials, and towns still used them to reset mechanical clocks. Even in the modern world, sundials remain part of human landscapes. Maharajah Jai Singh II, dissatisfied with the inaccuracies of existing astronomical tables, constructed the Samrat Yantra in Jaipur—a 27-meter-high sundial so precise that its shadow moves visibly from minute to minute. In California, the Sundial Bridge casts a functional shadow across a dial plaza, while in Taipei, the world’s once-tallest skyscraper serves as a gnomon for an urban sundial park. I remember the moment I saw the Mars Rover’s sundial. A small, unassuming calibration device, yet inscribed with the words: "Two Worlds, One Sun." The realization struck me—this journey, from a carved stone in the Egyptian sand to an interplanetary mission, is not just about measuring time. It is about our need to mark our place within it. Sundials do not simply tell us when we are. They remind us who we are, standing under the same sun as those before us, watching the shadows move in silent testament to our passage through history.  

We all have a broad idea that Earth's magnetic field shifts over time. In fact, the magnetic poles move due to the continuous flow of molten iron and nickel in the outer core. This process, known as the geodynamo effect, generates the planet's magnetic field. Because this flow is turbulent and ever-changing, the poles are not fixed. Instead, they drift sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidlyas seen with the North Magnetic Pole, which has accelerated its movement from Canada toward Siberia in recent decades. What strikes me as particularly fascinating is that this movement can be measured not only with scientific instruments but also by observing life itself. The Loggerhead Sea Turtle In 1996, a loggerhead sea turtle named Adelita made history. Marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols fitted her with a satellite transmitter in Baja California, Mexico, and set her free into the vast Pacific. What followed was an extraordinary journey14,500 kilometers (9,000 miles) over 368 days before she reached the coastal waters of Japan, the place she was likely born. Adelita’s voyage provided the first-ever real-time tracking of a sea turtle across an entire ocean, confirming what scientists had long suspected: turtles can navigate the seas with astonishing precision, guided by nature’s invisible map. How Did She Achieve Such a Feat? Turtles are not the only creatures capable of covering vast distances with unerring accuracy; migratory birds share this ability. From my research, I found that scientists have two leading theories on how this remarkable navigation works. It all comes down to two biological mechanisms: Magnetite Crystals – Tiny iron-based minerals in the brains or beaks of some animals (like birds) act as internal compasses, aligning with Earth's magnetic field to provide directional cues. Cryptochrome Proteins – Found in the eyes of birds, turtles, and other creatures, these light-sensitive proteins undergo a reaction when exposed to light, allowing animals to “see” magnetic directions through a process influenced by quantum mechanics. When Sea Turtles Land on the Wrong Beach As precise as this system seems, I have heard from former colleagues studying sea turtle navigation that it isn’t always flawless. Some turtles return to nest only to find themselves just 200 meters away from their original hatching beach so close, yet not quite right! But in reality, the turtles are not wrong. Their navigation is perfect; it is Earth’s magnetic field that has shifted! The turtles are precisely where they were meant to be relative to the magnetic markers they imprinted at birth. It is the planet’s magnetic landscape that has moved beneath them. Take a moment to appreciate the poetry of this: we can track the movement of Earth’s magnetic field using only these beautiful marine creatures, whose journey across the seas is guided by an invisible force that is itself in motion. Our world is filled with wonders. I hope this story inspires you. Until the next one… A. Fost Consultant, Field Reporter, Observer of Time. Welcome to MADE FOR PIONEERS, where I explore the signs, clues, and effects of time on our natural world, the cosmos, and everything in between. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, I occasionally venture into unexpected topics that spark my interest. Through my notes, I aim to inspire creativity at Maison Augé, a creator of timekeepers and measuring tools rooted in natural mechanisms.