Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2022

MARCH-APRIL 2022 decoration, woodworking, metal- working and so on in the process, but they give up in the face of the technical difficulty of calculating hourly lines. Not infre- quently, people think that a sundial should be level and south-oriented. Instead, it is possible to make one with any in- clination or orientation, and on any type of sup- port too. This, however, requires specific calcula- tions and knowledge. Fortunately, software comes to our rescue − in particular, the free soft- ware Shadows, a digital reference point for many years. Shadows is a pro- gram for Windows that takes care of all of the calculations and tracing drawings in 1:1 scale, al- analemmatic, bifilar, and cylindrical, all valid for any place on Earth. The software also pro- vides a database of over 5000 predefined locations with their latitude, longi- tude, and time zone. Of course, it is possible to add new locations, as a sun- dial must be designed for a precise latitude. Such a personalized sundial, de- signed for its location and placement, is much more interesting than an indus- trial one bought from somewhere. The process of creating a sundial in Shadows is very simple. Once the lo- cation has been chosen from the list, A sundial drawn with Shadows software for the city of Marseille. Above is the flat drawing; on the right, the ani- mated 3D view. The options are guided by icons and menus. lowing the user to concentrate on their skills as a creator starting from printed projects. Shadows offers many types of sundials: classic, ASTRO PUBLISHING