Essential elements
- The Sun appears to go clockwise around the Earth�s northern hemisphere
- The Sun lights the number of the hour in the local time zone (e.g. Eastern Time, as shown)
- The Earth stays stationary with the local time zone at the bottom, highlighted (green)
- The Sun (Sun hand) always lights the moving standard noon time zone
- The side of the Earth facing the sun is bright, the side away is darker
- The smaller (yellow) hand is a standard minute hand, turning once an hour.
- If you were looking down on this clock, facing north, the clock Sun would always be in the same direction as the real Sun.
- At the equinox (as shown), the sunlight first strikes the local zone at 6 am, and leaves the local zone at 6 pm .
- The shadow on the Earth changes with the seasons, with curving shadow (not shown), the Arctic Circle is always in light in June, and always dark in December .
- The clock would be adjustable for daylight savings time, and for setting to different time zones.
Layers
Stationary: Earth, hour numbers and marks, clock background
Sun layer: Sun, sun rays, sunlight and shadow on Earth (and possibly in space)
Minute hand
Options not shown
- The sun hand could be three hours wide instead of one hour (1/8 or 1/24 of circle)
- It could be a 24-hour clock, but show two 1-12 sequences on left and right sides
- The shadow of the Earth could project into space on the night side
- It could have a Moon hand, moving almost 1 hour slower than the Sun per day
- It would fall behind the Sun around once every 28 days
- It could show a different Earth, with lights, or borders, or names
- It could have a second hand
- It could have a dark zone showing the moving Midnight time zone
- The sun could appear in the winter to go partly under the Earth (to the southern hemisphere, which would require different layering), and go partly over the Earth in the summer.
A future presentation of this design should show a time-lapse 24-hour day at equinox, but also variations for daylight savings, summer/winter, and location change (America, Europe, Asia) .
For more information contact [email protected].
Links: ClosestStars.com Solasys.com