Shadow Catcher

For those fans that voted in my poll "What is a Shadow Catcher?", about half of you got it right!  That's right, a Shadow Catcher is a sundial.  I have enjoyed tinkering with the design and the math behind the design of of sundials for a couple of years.  There are many types of vertical, and horizontal sundials.  Some are based on tilted disks, flat plates, bowls, and some that use multiple complicated parts.   While they are all fun to work with and many of them are interesting to figure out, the traditional horizontal plate with a gnomon (the vertical pointer) is the easiest to read and understand.  I have enjoyed making prototypes of many styles of universal and ring dials, but my favorite one so far is the large sundial that I built in my back yard.  It is always accurate.  If the sun is shining is tells the exact local time.  If it is cloudy and there is no shadow, it is still accurate, it is nap time.  If it is dark outside then it is night time.  That's good enough for me.  Thanks for voting.