Somewhere Else

What do you think this person is doing? Exercises in the park, maybe? No, he is telling the time with a very unusual sundial. Technically known as an analemmic sundial, this “Sundial of Human Involvement” is located at Mount Annan Botanic Garden southwest of Sydney.

Most sundials have a fixed marker which casts a shadow on the clock face. But with this one, you use your own shadow to tell the time. That has one big advantage over conventional sundials – you don’t have to make all those tricky little corrections to adjust the time for different dates. Instead, you stand on a spot on the ground corresponding to the current date. The dates form a figure eight, known as an analemma.

And in case you want a second opinion on the time, there is a smaller normal sundial nearby.