Accession No
5173
Brief Description
Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder, by R. Fuess, German, 1920-1960
Origin
Germany; Berlin-Steglitz
Maker
Fuess, R.
Class
meteorology
Earliest Date
1920
Latest Date
1960
Inscription Date
Material
metal (cast iron, aluminium); glass
Dimensions
height 180mm; length 55mm; width 40mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Purchased from Tesseract, Box 151, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York 10706, USA from 16/07/1997.
Inscription
on a plaque
‘R’
‘FUESS’
‘BERLIN-STEGLITZ’
Description Notes
Made of blackened cast iron and aluminium. Cast iron base on top of which is attached a pedestal, this holds the removable solid glass ball (95mm diameter) in place. Behind the pedestal a vertical stand is attached (85mm in height). Attached to this by a screw is the support arm which extends upwards and then curves to finally screw a suction pad down on to the glass ball fixing it via downward pressure to the pedestal. The stand also fixes the recording apparatus in place, this is a 3/4 circular metal attachment which has three slots for sliding in paper, a different one is used depending on the time of year and therefore the solar declination.
With the recorder orientated south, the earth’s rotation causes the sun’s image focussed by the glass ball lens to track along an inserted paper slip, charring the paper to a degree dependent on cloud cover, leaving a permanent record of the day’s sunshine.
Condition good; complete.
References
Allison Ksiazkiewicz; 'Weather Forecasting'; Explore Whipple Collections online article; Whipple Museum of the History of Science; University of Cambridge: https://www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-whipple-collections/meteorology/weather-forecasting
Events
Description
This instrument can record the number of hours and the intensity of sunshine on a given day. Turned towards the south, the glass sphere focusses the sun’s light onto a strip of card marked with the hours, which sits behind the sphere in the surrounding holder. When the sun shines, the point of light burns the card to a degree dependent on the brightness, thus indicating when the sun was out and when it was partly obscured behind cloud cover. The burn marks track along the card as the sun moves across the sky, meaning that at the end of the day the card can be removed and examined to determine when the sun was shining. Such records contribute to the long-term understanding of our climate.
The first practical sunshine recorder of this type was devised by J.F. Campbell in 1853. It was modified by Sir George Stokes and adopted for Met Office use in 1880. The card holder in this example has grooves to hold the card at different positions in order to catch the image at each season. This is because the summer sun moves across the sky at a higher angle than in the winter. It was made by the famous German firm of R. Fuess in Berlin.
26/03/2008
Created by: Dr. Anita McConnell on 26/03/2008
FM:41637
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