Lyttelton Timeball Station
The Lyttelton Timeball Station is a heritage-registered time ball station and prominent local landmark in Lyttelton, New Zealand. The original station was significantly damaged by a series of earthquakes and aftershocks in 2010 and 2011, and finally collapsed on 13 June 2011 after a magnitude 6.4 aftershock.
The tower was subsequently reconstructed, reopening in November 2018.
Lyttelton Timeball Station in November 2009
The rebuilt Lyttelton Timeball Station in November 2018
A time ball or timeball is a time-signalling device. It consists of a large, painted wooden or metal ball that is dropped at a predetermined time, principally to enable navigators aboard ships offshore to verify the setting of their marine chronometers. Accurate timekeeping is essential to the determination of longitude at sea.
Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London. Installed in 1833, a time ball sits atop the Octagon Room
The Boston Time Ball (1881)
Sydney Observatory with time ball
The time ball at Port Lyttelton, New Zealand, started signalling Greenwich Mean Time to ships in the harbour beginning in 1876. The Lyttelton Timeball Station was destroyed by an earthquake in 2011 but was rebuilt and reopened in 2018.
