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Introducing the Acrylic WNSDN Horary Quadrant

BERLIN, 2022-10-31 - WNDSN Messtechnik is pleased to announce the release of the newest addition to the WNDSN Telemeter suite of navigational tools with the Horary Quadrant now available in black sandwich acrylic. By recreating the Horary Quadrant in the tried and true WNDSN form, the tool becomes both bigger and lighter, making it easier to hold and read, as well as significantly decreasing cost, thereby increasing accessibility to the public.

Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. --William Faulkner

A Horary Quadrant is an ancient device used to calculate the time of day in unequal hours by measuring the altitude of the Sun. The double-sided WNDSN Horary Quadrant provides even more; it is a tool for education, makeshift navigation, and rangefinding, enabling the user to do more than merely guessing distances or calculate time. It lets the explorer measure angular size and compute distance, height or depth of object, altitude, or elevation, it allows computation of sine, cosine, and tangent for a given angle and utilize the baked-in trigonometry to find the desired value by aligning the provided string across the various scales.

The WNDSN Horary Quadrant offers features derived from ancient astrolabes; a degree and slope quadrant, as well as a shadow square. The horary lines not only enable the user to measure the Sun's altitude on a given date but in addition, to also take the time and visualize daylight hours over the course of a year.

Using a WNDSN Horary Quadrant Telemeter to determine latitude (at night with Polaris), calculate declination of the day with the respective arc, and a measurement of the Sun altitude (via backsighting), one can derive at least 18 data points and in fact calculate all of them directly on the device. The Quadrant can even be used as a star compass.

By using the string as a plumb line, the tool enables multiple ways of sighting, plus allows the user to perform various trigonometric operations with the shadow square and sexagesimal scale, increasing the usefulness of the instrument with the list of applications topping 75 currently.

Ritual Use:

The universal WNDSN Horary Quadrant is also a tool to support religious and ritual contexts when certain acts are to be executed at a specific, unequal hour. Unequal hours, also called relative hours, are a measurement of time that divides any given day's daylight by 12. Unequal hours depart from the standard 60 minutes per hour and become different lengths over the course of the year, based on location. In Jewish ritual practice for example, this conception of time is called "Zmanim," or Halachic times. Applicable to Jewish and Christian ritual applications, the WNDSN Horary Quadrant can be used anywhere on earth in order to determine these times for oneself, for one's specific location by both taking the altitude of the Sun with the Quadrant and subsequently reading the current unequal hour or calculating a different one. WNDSN has created a tutorial for religious adherents to use the Horary Quadrant in order to determine the correct time for the most precious of rituals.

Timetaking Tutorial:

For users located within about 30 degrees of the equator, the unequal hours are accurate enough to tell the time of day as we know it, for those located beyond 30 degrees of the equator, WNDSN Custom Latitude Quadrants are available geared to a specific latitude.

Included on the double-sided instrument is a WNDSN Telemeter, a tool for makeshift navigation, exploration, and rangefinding, that enables the user to do more than merely guessing distances. Finding an object of known size, or distance, or angle and measuring it with the appropriate scales returns the desired value by aligning the provided string across the various scales.

WNDSN Quadrant Telemeters are wallet-size distance and altitude nomographs developed in their applied science lab. WNDSN Telemeters combine a thousand years of civil engineering, surveying, navigation, and astronomy in one durable, low tech, high utility instrument that can be brought anywhere, is self-containing, and independent of external, modern technologies. WNDSN Quadrant Telemeters are naked-eye tools that offer various means of measuring angular size, as well as graphical computers providing functions to process or convert the measured values. Their purpose is to help the explorer navigate using known landmarks or astronomical features, to get a "second opinion" to cross-check values obtained with different means, or in emergency situations when other methods fail or are unavailable.

Specifications:

  • Dimensions: 3.4" x 3.4" (8.5 x 8.5 cm)
  • Thickness: 1/8" (3.2 mm)
  • Material: Acrylic stock, matte black surfaces, white core with white scales, laser engraved
  • Included: WNDSN Horary Quadrant Telemeter, double-sided; Dyneema string, 0.35 mm turquoise, pre-configured in the required length (has to be self-installed to the Quadrant); plumb line weight, tungsten carbide; printed 32 page Telemeter & Quadrant pocketbook (in English and German); official Quadrant Telemeter manual (5th ed., English or German) as a digital download
  • Developed and Made in Germany

The Acrylic WNSDN Horary Quadrant is available at:

Photos:

About WNDSN

Based in Berlin, WNDSN's Applied Science Lab develops and manufactures low-tech, high-utility tools and instruments with the objective of providing or enhancing "that, which can’t be improvised" in low-probability, high-impact scenarios where it is most needed, yet usually unavailable or non-permissive. The resulting products are measurement, calculation, and exploration instruments informed by the motto "Ex Mensura, Scientia" -- knowledge from measurement.

Mission

WNDSN [ˈwɪndsən] provides knowledge and tools for educating and training professionals and enthusiasts in the mastery of time and space.

WNDSN is devising instruments to measure values in the real world, calculate meaningful results from the acquired data, and process the insights as input for various problem solving tasks.

Products

WNDSN produces archival quality products that are designed with intent by combining techniques proven over centuries, bringing together the early history of science with cutting-edge, contemporary methods, resulting in iconic, timeless, high-utility designs in the spirit of the Renaissance.

WNDSN creates custom-built instruments and multi-purpose tools, metrology and illumination solutions with applications in urban reconnaissance, hostile theaters, disaster areas, and outdoor exploration.