Alunatime at Trinity Buoy Wharf

photo by Derek Seaward

ALUNATIME AT TRINITY BUOY WHARF

51°30’27”N 0° 0’ 31”E

Baby Aluna at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London. Photo by Mark King.

Photo © Mark King

London’s First Public Moon and Tide Clock, also known as ‘Baby Aluna’, was launched on the Full Moon of October 22nd 2010 at Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London, where the River Lea meets the Thames. This first ever live ‘real time’ version of Alunatime provides vital ongoing research and development for the 38m diameter Aluna Moon Clock planned for Point Wharf on the Greenwich Peninsula.

Baby Aluna displays Alunatime on two, 1m diameter clock faces designed and made by Aluna’s artist Laura Williams and electronic design engineer Simon Jones.

Circuit board design for Alunatime Clockface

Each face has 5,000 low energy LEDs programmed by Simon using lunar and tidal data calculated specifically for Trinity Buoy Wharf’s geographic location by the National Oceanography Centre. Global leaders in tidal prediction, NOC used the harmonic analyses of river geography, local tide gauges and astronomical computations – including the world’s most accurate lunar phase algorithm – to determine Alunatime.

a language of time in moving light

‘Alunatime’ is a graphical notation of time in light designed by Laura Williams.
It shows the lunar phase (wax & wane), the lunar day (rise & set) and tide cycles (ebb & flow).

Alunatime: A Language of Time In Moving Light

WAX & WANE

A ring of light slowly ‘waxes on’ and ‘wanes off’ in time with the Moon’s phase, taking around 29.5 calendar days to complete a full cycle. At New Moon the unlit ring begins to gradually ‘wax’ on. By Full Moon, the whole ring is illuminated, the circle of light complete. The ring then ‘wanes’ back to its unlit state by the next New Moon and the cycle begins again.

RISE & SET

The ‘large hand’ of the clock follows the Moon’s 24 hour 50 minute journey around the Earth. It always points directly to the Moon’s position in the sky; at the top when the Moon is directly above, and at the bottom when the Moon is below our feet, on the other side of the Earth. The lunar day hand on the riverside face has been reversed so that it will track the Moon’s trajectory anti-clockwise as river users look north to read the clock.

EBB & FLOW

The ‘small hand’ follows the progress of the tides. High at high tide and low at low tide, this cycle takes 12 hours 25 minutes. Synchronised at a ratio of 2:1, the lunar day and tide cycles are the ‘heartbeat’ of our planet Earth.

Installing AlunaTime

Alunatime Clock housing detail

Baby Aluna’s steel housing was designed by Laura Williams, made by metal artist Andrew Baldwin and weather-proofed by sponsors Sika and Saint Gobain Performance Plastics.

The housing was mounted on an antique cast iron pillar reclaimed from Folkestone Harbour Station. The housing and pillar were left to the elements for 6 months to develop a patina of rust, before being oiled with a rust inhibitor.

The clock is fixed to a 4.2 tonne concrete base designed and made by Laura, fellow TBW artist Ian Robert Felton and volunteers.

Hanson came to fill the former with freshly mixed concrete from their local Canary Wharf plant.

Base(d) on Science

An engraved stainless steel ring set into the base locates the clock in relation to the compass points and the rising and setting of the Moon and Sun at the solstices and equinoxes.

The clock’s concrete base shows scientific information about lunar cycles, scale and distance, sandblasted onto the surface by craft:pegg.

Graphics for etched steel compass ring and sandblasted clock base

A Community Made it Happen

Enormous thanks to everyone who made Baby Aluna happen – Simon, Ian, Andrew, the Urban Space team and all the funders and supporters. The Clock was funded by the Royal Astronomical Society, Trinity Buoy Wharf Trust ,

The Aluna Foundation, the Wharf tenants, individual donors and in kind support from the design and installation team, and material sponsors Hanson, Comast, BASF, Smiths Metal Centres and craft:pegg.

Launch event at Trinity Buoy Wharf

Photos © Mark King, lantern © Peter Hilary

Curocity: In Pursuit of London

Baby Aluna was raised on the Full Moon of the 22nd October 2010, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Trinity Buoy Wharf Trust. Fires, hot soup, local ales, a lantern procession in collaboration with artist Peter Hilary and live music by Strawberry Strings, The Loose Salute/Mancub Babywoman and DJs Longjon and Thee Hausfly made for a hearty and memorable Full Moon celebration.

In 2016, ‘Baby Aluna’ made it into Curocity: In Pursuit of London by Henry Eliot and Matt Lloyd-Rose, reviewed by Londonist as ‘the greatest book about London published in modern times … an illuminated manuscript for the 21st century city’.

The next clock to raise is the big 40m diameter Aluna – why not get involved and help make it happen.

Get Involved

Design and Fabrication

Laura Williams
Simon Jones
National Oceanography Centre
Ian Robert Felton
Andrew Baldwin
Craft:pegg

Installation

Urban Space Management
Jon Theodosiou
Toby Asker-Browne
Zoe Dale
Tim Robinson

Advice

Comast Construction
JK Components
Nigel Parkinson
Seventeen Events
Freshlook Engineering
Peter Watkinson
The Cumbria Clock Company
Peter Curran
Mo Gibson
Ian Myers