The Sunshine Recorder
I went into this video not knowing anything about how a mid-19th century sunshine recorder might work and was genuinely delighted by the reveal. If you’d like to be similarly surprised, stop reading now and just watch the video.
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The sunshine recorder was invented in 1853 for measuring the duration of bright sunshine over a day. The contraption consists of a solid glass ball that acts as a lens, which focuses the light of the Sun onto a paper recording card, burning marks into it. As the Sun moves across the sky, the focus point moves across the recording card, burning a line into it. If it’s super sunny out, the focused beam burns right through the card. So simple! So clever! And so straightforwardly physical — here’s what a daily sunshine record looks like:
(via robert stephens)
Comments 3
This post seems related to the BoC release rumors :) https://youtu.be/GNb-ODwSA40
Beat me to it
"A sundial cannon, sundial gun, noon cannon or meridian cannon, also noonday gun is a device consisting of a sundial incorporating a cannon with a fuse that is lit by an overhanging lens, concentrating the rays of the sun, and causing the cannon to fire at noon, when properly oriented along a north–south axis." (via @nightscotsman.bsky.social)
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