H.M. Kala Pocket Sundial - the weirdest time telling device in my collection 

Thanks for the information! I didn't know that this ancient device could do so much.

@@tamaraisrael875 , you are welcome. If you need to do more precise long distance navigation (sea or land navigation) without batteries, a sextant and a good long term astronomical almanac (or 4 years in a row of yearly nautical almanacs) is the best. You will also need a old fashioned artificial horizon if you will be working out of sight of a natural sea horizon. The planets and moon won't be good except for the exact year of a 1 year almanac and sun and stars only good for 1 out of every 4 years for about a decade or so. With 4 years of annual alamancs in a row it lets you use them for the sun and stars every year as long as you know what year in the 4 year order was the last in the 4 to be leap year. A long term almanac for sun and stars needs more math applied for preparation of taking a sighting but usually lasts about 50 years or so before going out of alignment slightly more every year after. Stars move, due to procession, about 1° out of alignment every 70 years until it comes back round again in 360° cycle but, none of us will be around that long to see it happen, lol. If you just want to make home (same fixed location observations to withing about 60 nautical miles or so of home) observations of stars and sun locations on certain past, present or future dates and times (like in astrology/horoscopes) or find date and time like a sundial or height of trees/mountains or depths of valleys/wells or measure distances to objects like a ship to shoreline or distance across a river then I would suggest finding a working (not cheap ornamental wall hanger) astronomical Astrolabe made for your local lattidude or with interchangeable lattitude plates of every 5 degrees for good enough approximate times of things like sun or star rise/set when traveling. They are hard to find made for current epoch and exact lattitude without spending a ton of money, which is why I designed and made my own out of wood with a some cad software and a laser cutter. Happy history hunting.

@@grinninggoat5369 Thanks so much for the information. I will look into it, it's very interesting.

Yes, and in fact, that's the most remarkable thing about this clever device: it's self-aligning. When I first saw a description of this dial on eBay, I thought it was mistaken about just swinging it around and reading the time: It looks similar to an "equatorial ring" sundial, and I knew all such sundials need to be aligned to true north. I knew how to find north by making several observations of a shadow over a period of 20 to 30 minutes, but it just didn't seem possible that a device could find both the solar time and true north with a single reading. The secret is, an alternate way to tell solar time is by the altitude of the sun, provided that you know the date and your latitude. There were dials that used that principle for centuries, but the amazing genius of this device is that, by essentially modeling the Earth, if the latitude and date are set correctly, the spot of light will only hit the ring when the ring is parallel to the equator, which also means that its axis is parallel to the Earth's axis. With that alignment, it becomes a simple equatorial sundial, measuring the hour angles in 15-degree increments, and simultaneously a solar compass.

Underground has no sun😉

@@eyeshowyou look ! This man gets no sun in the underground !

At night! 😂😂😂

Congrats, they are very cool

also ordered one :)

Yeah, I decided that I'll get one as well!

These two things are easily accounted for by memory alone. The more difficult thing to account for is the equation of time, which CAN make it be up to 16 minutes more off, in addition to longitude and DST, depending on the time of year.

Good point. When not moving east or west but a few miles, you can find out what adjustment needs to be made every time you read the timepiece. Same for a regular sundial.

Sadly this one was not pre-recorded and yes, I got sick the very first day of vacation!! As if my body waits for all the work to be done 😂

Thanks 😊 I appreciate the subscription 👍

Hopefully before Christmas I'll reach 130.000 subs so a giveaway will be done, make sure to follow for your chance to win! Who knows, maybe you get one of those two off your list 😄

Thanks for watching 😁

Thanks for watching 😁

Well to be honest, it takes only a couple of seconds to read the time once you have the clock setup 😊

AND TOUGHER 😀😀

The night one is cool! But as they say, you have to be in the northern hemisphere.

This is gangster af I didn’t know this was possible

A sunclock

Haha yes

Isn't that exactly what your phone already does?

@@American-Plague My phone isnt a sundial.

@leesweets4110 Your phone has circuits and GPS, etc. and automatically adjusts for the most accurate time readout. The purpose of a sundial is you don't need a battery.

@@American-Plague You miss the point. Quit trying to correct someone on the internet. Its narcissistic. You dont think I know phones and modern watches are more accurate? Get your heat out of your assss. Let me write this for you in simple baby terms. It would be a fun exercise to create a pointless machine that gave accurate time readouts based on the sun casting a shadow. Thanks for taking the fun out of this conversation. Youre that guy at the comedy club that needs every joke and punchline explained to him. English a second language?

@@leesweets4110 Yes. That was a hilarious joke, seeing as how there are plenty of people who would suggest something so ridiculous. Get f*****d.

Lol why

I don't know anyone who's actually been pulled over for that. So many people drive with stuff on their mirrors.

English is my third language

Thats rude. How he speaks IS his accent, whatever that may be, regardless how familiar you are with it. What matters anyway is his words and grammar, not his accent.