Rocking. That's very precisely what the wave does on this picture - it reaches and hits the rocks (not that they are very much affected by it though). And the lens was Rokinon. Beautiful weather.

Exif: ISO 100 ; f/5.6 ; 1/4 ; @14mm

Handheld

This wonderful grassy Wood-rush indeed gleams and sparkles purplish in the Sunlight. And there's probably some truth to the derivation of Luzula from a form of the Latin Lux, light. But nobody can narrow down the reason for its name more precisely. David Gledhill in his great The Names of Plants is quite right to say: Luzula is 'an ancient name of obscure meaning'.

There are at least four theories. The first is that this Wood-rush gleams in the moonlight like a glow worm, a Lucciola in Italian; another idea is that the flowers and their sheaths (ca. a mere 4-5 mm) dew-wet sparkle in the morning sunlight; third advocates claim the anthers and pistil look like lamp wicks, and hence the connection to light; and finally some have said that the pith of Wood-rush has been used to fashion exactly those candle or lamp wicks. I haven't been able to find any confirmation that Wood-rush pith was indeed used that way except for people claiming it. I'm also sceptical about the 'look-like-candle-wick' assertion. That leaves two explanations. It seems to me a bit far-fetched - having often seen glow worms myself - to put them into the equation; their light is far brighter than the gleam of Wood-rush in the moonlight. Which leaves as most likely the idea that our Plant in flower sparkles in the sunlight, as I myself could see this morning.

precisely 12 o´clock in London

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tumblr or facebook or portfolio

5/28/16 - Late Breaking News from Texas' Hutto Lake: At precisely 6:04 PM.....nothing happened, and it was wonderful!

Giandomenico Tiepolo (Venice, August 30, 1727 - Venice, March 3, 1804) - rooms of Pulcinella di Zianigo - Museum of the Venetian Eighteenth Century Ca 'Rezzonico, Venice

In queste sale si possono ammirare gli affreschi eseguiti da Giandomenico Tiepolo nella villa di famiglia a Zianigo. Strappati nel 1906 per essere venduti all’estero, furono acquistati dalla città di Venezia e trasferiti nel 1935 a Ca’ Rezzonico dove sono stati posti in piccoli ambienti che ripropongono la collocazione originaria.

Compiuti in un periodo di tempo assai lungo, fra il 1759 e il 1797, costituiscono senza dubbio uno dei momenti più affascinanti e singolari di tutta la pittura veneziana.

Non si tratta di opere eseguite per uno specifico mecenate ma per il piacere dell’artista stesso e dei suoi congiunti nella dimensione privata della propria dimora. Proprio questa circostanza rende il pittore libero da convenzioni tematiche e figurative e gli consente di assecondare la propria intima natura che lo porta a descrivere con sarcasmo il mondo che lo circonda.

In these rooms you can admire the frescoes painted by Giandomenico Tiepolo in the family villa in Zianigo. Torn off in 1906 to be sold abroad, they were purchased by the city of Venice and transferred in 1935 to Ca' Rezzonico where they have been placed in small rooms that reproduce their original location.

Completed in a very long period of time, between 1759 and 1797, they are undoubtedly one of the most fascinating and singular moments of all Venetian painting.

They are not works executed for a specific patron but for the pleasure of the artist himself and his relatives in the private dimension of his own home. It is precisely this circumstance that makes the painter free from thematic and figurative conventions and allows him to indulge his intimate nature that leads him to describe with sarcasm the world around him.

The clock is a technical masterpiece which belongs to a group of similar European clocks such as in Danzig, Strasbourg or Lund. But the clock in Rostock is the only one that still has its original mediaeval clockwork from 1472 which still precisely functions. It indicates the phases of the moon and the solar year St. Mary's Church. Each hour the glockenspiel plays a tune that the cantor chooses on a roller depending on the church season The data on the current calendar disc comprise the years from 1885 to 2017, Rostock, Germany

La statue est une réplique d'une statue antique : "L'Amour se taillant un arc dans la massue d'Hercule".

ENGLISH :

We will now take Calle Moneda to see the Moneda, precisely ....

... or more precisely what it displays. GOD-DAMN, WHAT A HOT CHICK!!!!

“And what do ye mean with ‘were takin over yer convoy’?” the elderly dwarf yelled. “Precisely that, miss Stonearm.” Sergeant Haelga Ulrissen replied. “Well, tell that capt’n of yers he can put that request of his RIGHT HERE!” the dwarf pointed at her arse. The folkir sighed, she wasn’t paid enough to enter in a discussion with a dwarf. Then she silently chuckled, the captain would have to deal with this now.

Martin could already tell what was going on from the loud shouts from the distance, hell, he would be surprised if anyone hadn’t. “Let me guess,” he said when the folkir made her approach “the commander has some reservations about our cooperation?” the large, blue skinned woman nodded “Not quite her precise wording sir, but close enough.” Martin silently cursed “Let me guess.” Roger said, “You were hoping that the sight of a seven-foot-tall overgrown blueberry – no offense sergeant – would be enough persuasion?” the human male nodded “Aye, it usually is anyway.” Martin returned to sergeant Haelga “Who is leading them anyway? A minotaur or something?” the folkir chuckled “You’re going to love this sir: it’s an old dwarven lady.” Martin uttered a loud groan and looked at the heavens for a moment “Cemea, why do you hate me?” Unsurprisingly, the goddess of luck remained silent. “alright then chaps, let talk to the lady in question.” Roger said, “We’ll figure something out, we’ll always do.” and began casually walking towards the blockade formed by Martins’ men. The others shrugged and followed.

“Nay can’t do bonny lad.” The dwarf responded to Martins’ request, this time in person, clearly having not a lot of respect for the man to request her to quit her assigned job, something dwarves take great offense to. “I couldn’t care less who ye are. By Murdins’ beard, I’ve got me pride!” The human cursed under his breath. Why couldn’t this caravan have been led by a friendly halfling? He wondered. He had carefully taken over ninety men and women through the dim light of the early morning and through small forest paths that the rangers and mountaineers had found in the previous weeks. He had then carefully hidden them along a rarely used piece of road. It was almost never used, save for experienced cart drivers, who knew it to be a significant shortcut. It was there they intercepted the wagons heading southward. All this trouble and effort, executed without flaw, now stopped by one of the toughest obstacles known by any race or species: a dwarf. Martin looked desperately over his shoulder to what the men had jokingly begun calling “the royal council”. The dwarf Thirn was just shrugging. The sylvaeri druid Elahna Galariel had conveniently shape-shifted into a weasel, hopped onto the shoulders of the other wood elf Celdric and now lay relaxed around her partners neck. The gnomish wizard and other long-time companion, Roger had tried something similar. Unfortunately, he was not a druid, but a mage. So, shape-shifting came far less natural and could only manage one form: that of a massive owl, which had parked its big fat behind on Thirn’s hat. Strangely enough, the dwarf didn’t seem overly pleased by this. The other gnome, Sarah Brightspark was busy loading a small crossbow with what Martin could only hope were stun-darts. When he gave her a disapproving look, she just shrugged “Just wyvern tranquilizer sir.” It was then that Ely Emberchest, a cleric of Ishala, decided she couldn’t stand this sight any longer. The voslar mumbled a quick prayer, quickly followed by a flash of golden light. “Miss Stonearm, if I could have a moment of your time.” She spoke with a voice laden with magic “I understand your reservations, but think about it. The captain is here on request from a member of the Edorian royal family, so if you think about it, nobody is asking to cancel your given assignment. It’s merely been… redirected, so to say.” The dwarf’s eyes filled with a golden light for a single moment. “Aye” she said “Of course, yer right miss.” Ely winked to Martin “So that’s how you do that, a little persuasion can get you a long way.” The human chuckled “Sure, magic can get you a long way you mean.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about sir.”

A woman in red sits on a ledg to check her phone in London.

confess that I barely, if at all, remember making this photograph, nor can I say precisely where in London I made it. I grabbed it while in a particular mode of street photography that is the antithesis of how I might photography, say, landscape. I shoot handheld. I carry a small camera with a single small prime lens. I work extremely quickly, often not even slowing down to frame the subject, and continue on. In this case, I shot “blind,” holding the camera down at my side. (That created a little problem. More below.)

There are a few things about this photograph that could make some viewers a bit uneasy. First, I did not ask for permission and I doubt the subject was even aware that I made the photograph. There was no time, and if I had asked the photograph would have been a very different thing. (BTW, sometimes I’m in public and I see that I might end up in someone’s photograph like this — and I remind myself that it is OK since I do it, too!) Second, the original image had a serious problem. It was badly tilted, perhaps as much as 20-degrees. I liked the image, but I had to crop radically to get the framing I wanted, and there were still problems. How did I fix it? For the first time, I allowed an AI tool to generate some content in the corners of the frame. Still not sure how I feel about that, but it seems worth experimenting with at least.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

"Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment - a little makes the way of the best happiness."

- Frederich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

"Remember this - that very little is needed to make a happy life." - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

I greatly appreciate your visits, comments, invitations, awards and faves, my friends. Have a wonderful week, everyone...!

Best seen on black - press L or click on image above.

I felt it was time to post another candid shot of O'Henry's. I was trying to get a close-up shot of his paw, when he started yawning. I thought it was too funny to pass ;-)

Anyway, 'good morning' and have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Title by Eiderdown from the "Title me" group.

Dublin (/ˈdʌblɪn/; Irish: Baile Átha Cliath,[12] pronounced [ˈbˠalʲə aːhə ˈclʲiə] or [ˌbʲlʲaː ˈclʲiə]) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Situated on a bay on the east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster and the Eastern and Midland Region. It is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 census, it had an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the traditional County Dublin as a whole was 1,347,359. The population of the Greater Dublin Area was 1,904,806.

There is archaeological debate regarding precisely where and when Dublin originated, with a settlement established by the Gaels during or before the 7th century CE, and a second, Viking, settlement, following. As the small Kingdom of Dublin, the city grew, and it became Ireland's principal settlement after the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland.[17] The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire and the sixth largest in Western Europe after the Acts of Union in 1800. Following independence in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland in 1937.

Dublin is a contemporary and historical centre for Irish education, arts and culture, administration and industry. As of 2018 the city was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha minus", which places it as one of the top thirty cities in the world.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The date of the church’s construction was not precisely known until 1969, particularly as the pisanie (inscription) is partly deteriorated.

That year, the parish priest discovered a petition from the Christians of the Broșteni district to the Metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia.

Authored by Manul "Cavaful", head of the shoemakers’ (cavafi) guild, the document asks permission for building a church on the land of the late Hagi Dumitrache Papazoglu, in accordance with his will.

It is dated July 1815, and construction probably started on August 15, a date mentioned on the inscription.

The structure was probably erected by summer 1816, and was completely finished by November 1817, as attested by a document of that date.

Repairs were carried out in 1868, 1891 and 1906, while the painting was redone in 1929.

Thorough repairs took place in 1949–1950 and 1957.

Repainting was done under Patriarch Justinian, whose portrait appears among the ktetors.

The 1930 parish house was demolished in 1985 to make way for the surrounding apartment blocks.

The church has two spires, one above the nave, the other, the bell tower, above the narthex.

The iconostasis is carved in wood and gilt.

The facades are simple, with a classical cornice and pediment on the western side, painted with three panels of saints’ icons.

Saint Haralambie, whose relics are here, awaits them every day.

The church, in the shape of a cross, was built between 1815 and 1817 on the land left by Hagi Dumitrache Papazoglu, by Maria and Manea Cavafu, the latter being the elder of the tanners in the Broşteni slum.

Over time, the church was repaired several times.

Among the objects of historical or documentary value, the very old icons stand out (the oldest is from the 17th century), but also the iconostasis, which is carved in wood and gilded.

The current painting dates from 1986, made by a certain Gheorghe.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Church,_Berlin

St. Mary's Church, known in German as the Marienkirche, is a church in Berlin, Germany. It is located on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße (formerly Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße) in central Berlin, near Alexanderplatz. The exact age of the original church site and structure is not precisely known, but it was first mentioned in German chronicles in 1292. It is presumed to date from earlier in the 13th century. The architecture of the building is now largely composed of comparatively modern restoration work which took place in the late 19th century and in the post-war period. The church was originally a Roman Catholic church, but has been a Lutheran Protestant church since the Protestant Reformation and a united Protestant church since the Prussian Union of churches in 1817.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin

Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3,723,914 (2018) inhabitants make it the second most populous city proper of the European Union after London. The city is one of Germany's 16 federal states. It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and contiguous with its capital, Potsdam. The two cities are at the center of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which is, with 6,004,857 (2015) inhabitants and an area of 30,370 square km, Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions.

Berlin straddles the banks of the River Spree, which flows into the River Havel (a tributary of the River Elbe) in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel, and Dahme rivers (the largest of which is Lake Müggelsee). Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. About one-third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers, canals and lakes. The city lies in the Central German dialect area, the Berlin dialect being a variant of the Lusatian-New Marchian dialects.

First documented in the 13th century and situated at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417–1701), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), and the Third Reich (1933–1945). Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II and its subsequent occupation by the victorious countries, the city was divided; West Berlin became a de facto West German exclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989) and East German territory. East Berlin was declared capital of East Germany, while Bonn became the West German capital. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany.

Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media and science. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations and convention venues. Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination. Significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics.

Berlin is home to world-renowned universities, orchestras, museums, and entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events. Its Zoological Garden is the most visited zoo in Europe and one of the most popular worldwide. With the world's oldest large-scale movie studio complex, Berlin is an increasingly popular location for international film productions. The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a very high quality of living. Since the 2000s Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernsehturm_Berlin

The Fernsehturm (English: Television Tower) is a television tower in central Berlin, Germany.

Close to Alexanderplatz in Berlin-Mitte, the tower was constructed between 1965-69 by the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It was intended to be both a symbol of Communist power and of Berlin. It remains the latter today, as it is easily visible throughout the central and some suburban districts of Berlin. With its height of 368 metres (including antenna) it is the tallest structure in Germany, and the third-tallest structure in the European Union. Of four tallest structures in Europe, it is 2 m shorter than the Torreta de Guardamar, 0.5 m shorter than the Riga Radio and TV Tower, and 8 m taller than the Trbovlje Power Station in 2017. The structure is also more than 220 metres higher than the old Berlin Radio Tower in the western part of the city, which was built in the 1920s.

In addition to its main function as the location of several radio and television broadcasting stations, the building – internally known as "Fernmeldeturm 32" – serves as a viewing tower with observation deck including a bar at a height of 203 metres, as well as a rotating restaurant. Also, the Berlin TV Tower can be booked as a venue for events. The distinctive city landmark has undergone a radical, symbolic transformation: After German reunification, it changed from a politically charged, national symbol of the GDR into a citywide symbol of a reunited Berlin. Due to its universal and timeless design, it has increasingly been used as a trademark and is identified worldwide with Berlin and Germany. In 1979, the Berlin TV Tower received monument status by the GDR, a status which was perpetuated after the German reunification.

The tower has become one of the most prominent symbols of the country and is often in the establishing shot of films set in Berlin, alongside monuments such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Victory Column and the Reichstag building. It is also one of the ten most popular attractions in Germany with more than 1,000,000 visitors every year. Due to its location near Alexanderplatz, it is occasionally called Alex Tower.

Belgium.

National Botanic Garden.

www.br.fgov.be/PUBLIC/GENERAL/index.php

The azure damselfly (Coenagrion puella) is a species of damselfly found in most of Europe. It is notable for its distinctive black and blue colouring. They are commonly found around ponds and lakesides during the summer.

Mating in damselflies, as in dragonflies, is a complex, precisely choreographed process involving both indirect insemination and delayed fertilisation. First, the male has to attract a female to his territory, continually driving off rival males. When he is ready to mate, he transfers a packet of sperm from his primary genital opening on segment 9, near the end of his abdomen, to his secondary genitalia on segments 2–3, near the base of his abdomen. The male then grasps the female by the head with the claspers at the end of his abdomen; the structure of the claspers varies between species, and may help to prevent interspecific mating. The pair fly in tandem with the male in front, typically perching on a twig or plant stem. The female then curls her abdomen downwards and forwards under her body to pick up the sperm from the male's secondary genitalia, while the male uses his "tail" claspers to grip the female behind the head: this distinctive posture is called the "heart" or "wheel"; the pair may also be described as being "in cop".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damselfly

*** Don't have to fav/comment.. u can ask qs here tho & i will try to put them up here b4 next post ***

"Not another shameless wanky post from this bugger! Move on & stop showing off!" Well, that's precisely what i was thinking when i'm about to post this shot. Seriously I PROMISEI will not post this type of self-indulge promotional shot ever again unless its something you guys can benefit from. This is most probably my 5th or 6th mag publications to date so THIS IS IT (for shameless post) as Michael Jackson said :)) Quite a no of ppl have asked me qs relating to my photostream, publications etc all along therefore i thought this is the best time to consolidate similar FAQs & answer them here. Hope u can gain something out of them. cheers!

:: FAQs ::

Q. How do I get my photos published in a magazine?

A. Well, its hard to say ...luck plays a part i suppose.. esp for journalists to spot your work out of millions. One thing i know for sure is correctly tagging your photos helps in contributing to the success of others finding your shots. All my published photos were found by editors of the publishing/magazine company through Google, Yahoo search engines & Flickr. Another possible factor is perhaps being known for the sort of photography style u do helps a fair bit too. For instance, if you are into IR photography & your entire photostream is full of IR style images, very high chance when someone is lookin' for IR publication, you will be the outstanding one.

Q. How did I achieve so much attention in flickr?

A. Pretty much the same theory as above... I reckon for me, specialising in just hdr helps bring everyone who has the same interest to my photostream. Perhaps versatility in subject tend to catch ppl's attention too. One definite fact is you should have determination to keep doing what u love & passionate about (it could be flower, macro, seascape, bokeh, BW, night photography, digital manipulation etc..) just pursue this interest be it what others might have said about your images or even negative comments to bring u down along the way (Trust me.. i get those %^$ comments esp when i just started hdr.. even now!). Believe in yourself & others will eventually believe in you & your work ;) go out & make friends in flickr...what goes around comes around.

Q. Am I paid to have your photo published?

A. About 75% of my published photos were paid. Some companies asked for quote before using my photos but usually the publishers seek for publication permission before making an offer.The remaining 25% (non-profit co) either gave me full credit in print with link to my flickr website & free copies of their magazines.

Q. How much do the publishing companies pay usually?

A. I was paid all in USD or GBP... so in Aussie rates, it ranges from 150 -250 per image. Really..all depending on where & what the publisher will be using the images for.. big coverage like front cover/double pages print or just a few small prints.

Q. You have had a lot of your photos on Explore, could you give us any tips or advice on how we could get our images on Explore?

A. Explore is a funny thing. The only tip or advice I can give is if your photo can get enough visits or comments even without adding them to groups, there is a high chance you can get your images on Explore. That's my theory at least. I know its easy to get obsessed with Explore.. i do initially but its good to get over it now :) Seriously, Explore is not about how good your shots are.. being on Explore consistently really does not make one a better photographer. Explore is just a simple way to let one explore the world within a few click of a button. If one is too concern about Explore, it definitely ruins photography in a lot of ways. If you still are really keen, be really active in flickr.. i'm sure you will get your rewards eventually but rem it always take time to build your community of friends here too ;)

Q. Is photography your fulltime job?

A. Photography is not my fulltime job. I only really started photography in April 2008. I work as a computing guy in my state uni. The only time I bring my camera out with me is mostly when i go on a trip. In fact I haven't touch my cam much since April this year except for a couple snapshots here & there... now that's really sad case haha!

The look on this poster felt precisely like being caught while candid-shooting :)

Duxford Air Show May 2013

"At least it's not a mullet!" But this is precisely how this bittern looked when he initially arrived in Raleigh last fall. If that's not a hockey mullet he's sporting, I'm Wayne Gretzky. I think this clearly answers the question of where this bittern migrates for the warmer months: Canada. Why not travel a few thousand clicks for some delicious Canadian walleye (or "pickerel" for those in parts of Ontario) and, perhaps, a yummy mummy?

The Omo Valley, often more precisely called the Lower Omo Valley, is a place like no other. Home to a number of tribal communities, the variety and diversity of life, truly a melting pot of humanity.

The Lower Omo Valley region has been as UNESCO World Heritage Site since the discovery of human remains dating back nearly 2.5 million years.

"To possess the world in the form of images is, precisely, to re-experience the unreality and remoteness of the the real." Susan Sontag, On Photography

Biwa, an esteemed Kara elder and charismatic leader, pauses for a moment to volunteer this near-surreal pose during preparations for an early-evening communal dance at a small settlement set high on the east bank of Ethiopia's lower Omo River.

Adorned with finger-painted white-chalk body markings and brass earrings. The ivory lip-button and clay hair bun with ostrich feather reflect a "culture of heroism" shared with other tribes in the region, one that glorifies and rewards individual acts of bravery for the killing of an enemy or a predatory wild animal.

© All rights to these photos and descriptions are reserved.

Meantime last night or about so (my relationships with the Time are fascinating) I’ve begun or more precisely continued another project. It turned out to be small that time but promises to be big now (I’ll explain in a minute). We’ve taken photos for that project about a year ago and I feel closer to it just now. More or less. Rita run through the winter forest not just naked, which is relatively easy, but barefoot and sat bareass on snow-covered stumps, which is tough absolutely (the whole idea was all hers!). She’s my hero. Real artist. It was just pre-war like some presentiment or precognition. Homeless. Out of all the previous life. Wild. Rita called that project “Run wild”, so be it, I do like this title (decided I right now, translating the title Russian-English). It was getting dark in the forest because it took me that long to get out and that’s – because I didn’t believe that Rita really means it so why bother, let it go as it will. I’ll show you what we’ve got for you, hopefully pretty soon. So, I desire to upload all that that I’ve got for now in this previous project. It’s important for me as well. Cause I’m still bet on freedom in these awful times. Any times. How d’you like it?

Instagram

facebook

VK

Behance

Patreon

Why do I still mention Behance and Patreon? Don’t get them till now. And insta? Just hate it. Fb and vk – about the dead either good or nothing. But what else do we have? What do you have?

Südafrika - Kleine Karoo

Red Stone Hills - Window Rock

The Karoo (/kəˈruː/ kə-ROO; from a Khoikhoi word, possibly garo "desert") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. There is no exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo, and therefore its extent is also not precisely defined. The Karoo is partly defined by its topography, geology and climate — above all, its low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and extremes of heat and cold. The Karoo also hosted a well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils.

The Karoo is sharply divided into the Great Karoo and the Little Karoo by the Swartberg Mountain Range, which runs east-west, parallel to the southern coastline, but is separated from the sea by another east-west range called the Outeniqua –Langeberg Mountains. The Great Karoo lies to the north of the Swartberg range; the Little Karoo is to the south of it.

The Little Karoo is separated from the Great Karoo by the Swartberg Mountain range. Geographically, it is a 290 km long valley, only 40–60 km wide, formed by two parallel Cape Fold Mountain ranges, the Swartberg to the north, and the continuous Langeberg-Outeniqua range to the south. The northern strip of the valley, within 10–20 km from the foot of the Swartberg mountains is most un-karoo-like, in that it is a well watered area both from the rain, and the many streams that cascade down the mountain, or through narrow defiles in the Swartberg from the Great Karoo. The main towns of the region are situated along this northern strip of the Little Karoo: Montagu, Barrydale, Ladismith, Calitzdorp, Oudtshoorn and De Rust, as well as such well-known mission stations such as Zoar, Amalienstein, and Dysselsdorp.

The southern 30–50 km wide strip, north of the Langeberg range is as arid as the western Lower Karoo, except in the east, where the Langeberg range (arbitrarily) starts to be called the Outeniqua Mountains.

The Little Karoo can only be accessed by road through the narrow defiles cut through the surrounding Cape Fold Mountains by ancient, but still flowing rivers. A few roads traverse the mountains over passes, the most famous and impressive of which is the Swartberg Pass between Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo and Prince Albert on the other side of the Swartberg mountains in the Great Karoo. There is also the main road between Oudtshoorn and George, on the coastal plain, that crosses the mountains to the south via the Outeniqua Pass. The only exit from the Little Karoo that does not involve crossing a mountain range is through the 150 km long, narrow Langkloof valley between Uniondale and Humansdorp, near Plettenberg Bay.

(Wikipedia)

Die Karoo (auch Karroo, früher Karru; Khoisan für Halbwüste) ist eine Halbwüstenlandschaft in den Hochebenen des Landes Südafrika, nördlich der Großen Randstufe und im südlichen Namibia. Unterschieden werden Kleine Karoo, Große Karoo und Obere Karoo sowie Sukkulentenkaroo und Nama-Karoo. Mit einer Ausdehnung von 500.000 km² umfasst die Karoo fast ein Drittel des Territoriums Südafrikas. Die Sukkulentenkaroo gehört zu den Biodiversitäts-Hotspots der Erde und wird u. a. im Rahmen von BIOTA AFRICA systematisch kartiert.

Der Name Karoo kommt von kurú (trocken) aus der Sprache der San, die einst hier lebten und jagten. In Hinsicht auf die geographische Ausdehnung des Karoo-Begriffs sind die folgenden Teilaspekte zu beachten und voneinander zu unterscheiden.

Die Karoo als Landschaft im traditionellen Verständnis ist eine südafrikanische Trockenregion innerhalb der Provinzen Westkap, Ostkap und Nordkap sowie im Süden Namibias. Ihre spezifische kapländische Strauchvegetation weist sie als Halbwüste aus. Ursprünglich wird in zwei Regionen unterschieden: Große Karoo und Kleine Karoo.

Die Große Karoo besitzt eine West-Ost-Ausdehnung von über 750 Kilometern und eine Nord-Süd-Ausdehnung von etwa 110 Kilometern. Sie wird im Westen vom Massiv der Zederberge und im Osten durch die Winterberge begrenzt. Im Norden bilden die Bergketten vom Roggeveld-, Koms-, Nuweveldberge und Sneeuberg und im Süden die Höhenzüge der Witteberge, Groot Swartberge und die Groot Winterhoek die natürliche Begrenzung.

Südlich dieser Region schließt sich die Kleine Karoo an. Diese wird wiederum an ihrer südlichen Flanke von den küstennahen Langebergen und Outeniqua-Bergen begrenzt.

Anders als in dieser traditionellen Gliederung, wird die Karoo heute nach ökologischen Gesichtspunkten in einen östlichen Teil, die Nama-Karoo, und einen westlichen Teil, die Sukkulenten-Karoo, gegliedert, wobei auch die Gesamtausdehnung der Karoo nach diesem Konzept von jener der traditionellen Betrachtungsweise abweicht.

(Wikipedia)

Die Little Karoo (englisch, auf Afrikaans Klein Karoo) ist eine Region in der Western Cape Provinz in Südafrika.

Durch die Little Karoo zieht sich die Route 62.

Die Klein Karoo ist ein halbwüstenartiger Landstrich, der zwischen den Swartbergen im Norden und den Outeniqua-Bergen im Süden liegt. Die Gegend ist fruchtbar und nicht ganz so trocken wie die nördlich anschließende Große Karoo. Die Kleine Karoo ist bekannt für die Straußenzucht, allein in der Umgebung von Oudtshoorn gibt es angeblich über 400 Betriebe, landwirtschaftliche Nutztiere der Region sind auch Schafe und Angoraziegen.

Die Kleine Karoo ist das östlichste Weinbaugebiet Südafrikas. Muskatweine, Portweine und Desertweine gedeihen in dem recht trockenen Klima, ein Teil des Weines wird zu Brandy verarbeitet. Auch das hier angebaute Obst wird teilweise zu Schnaps verarbeitet, man bekommt aber auch überall recht preisgünstig getrocknete Früchte.

(wikivoyage.org)

Precisely one third of the 36 E400 hybrids at Stagecoach's Holbrook depot in Sheffield retain original green and white colours, meaning that they will presumably never receive standard beachball livery before being repainted into one of the 2020 colour schemes. YN62BCY (12163) is seen on Windmill Greenway in Mosborough whilst operating the 14:48 120 from Halfway cross-city to Ranmoor.

The Horsehead Nebula aswell as the Flame Nebula can be found in Orions belt, more precisely near the star Alnitak.

The Horsehead nebula is a darknebula, which you can only see, because its backlit by IC 434, a emissionnebula.

You can also see the Flamenebula (NGC 2024), its also an emission nebula. Both nebulae are star forming regions.

IC434 and NGC 2024 are about 1500 light years away.

Detail about equipment:

TS PHOTON 8" 1000mm f5

EQ6 PRO belt modded

ZWO ASI 1600MM PRO

ZWO ASI 120mini

ZWO EFW

Ts 80mm Guidescope 600mm

PegasusAstro Ultimate Powerbox V2

Bortle Class 3-4

Backyard in my own Observatory

Germany, Lower Bavaria

Image details:

250 x 3 minute lightframes

50x ZWO Luminance

50x ZWO Red

50x ZWO Green

50x ZWO Blue

50x ZWO Ha

Chandra's unique ability to precisely locate and resolve individual X-ray sources in 12 globular clusters in our Galaxy has given astronomers a crucial clue as to the origin of these sources. Two clusters, known as NGC 6266 (or M62) and NGC 7099 (or M30), are shown here in this 2003 image.

A globular cluster is a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands and even millions of stars buzzing around each other in a gravitationally bound stellar beehive that is about a hundred light years in diameter. The stars in a globular cluster are often only about a tenth of a light year apart. For comparison, the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away.

Most of the point-like sources in these images are binary star systems containing a collapsed star, such as a neutron star or a white dwarf star, that is pulling matter off a normal companion star. While direct, head-on collisions between stars are rare even in these crowded circumstances, close encounters occur and can lead to the formation of binary star systems containing a collapsed star.

The images illustrate a general trend observed for globular clusters. Clusters such as M62 where the stars are packed very closely together and the rate of close encounters is high have more X-ray binaries than those such as M30 in which close encounters occur less often. This is strong evidence that the X-ray binaries in globular clusters are formed by close encounters.

Image credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/D.Pooley et al.

#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #globularcluster

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Schweiz / Wallis - Ober Gabelhorn (4,063 m), Wellenkuppe (3,898 m) und Zinalrothorn (4.221 m)

seen on the way from Grindjisee to Grünsee (Zermatt)

gesehen auf dem Weg vom Grindjisee zum Grünsee (Zermatt)

The Zinalrothorn (4,221 m) is a mountain in the Pennine Alps in Switzerland. Its name comes from the village of Zinal lying on the north side and from the German word Rothorn which means Red Peak. When it was first climbed in 1864 the mountain was known locally as Moming.

Geography

The Zinalrothorn is one of the high summits separating the Matter valley on the east and the Val d'Anniviers (or more precisely the Val de Zinal) on the west. The summit of the Weisshorn (4,505 m) is located 5 km to the north and the Dent Blanche 7 km to the west. At the western foot of the mountain lies the large Zinal Glacier and, on the northern side, the Moming Glacier. L'Epaule (the shoulder) is a minor summit lying at the base of the northern ridge.

The villages of Täsch and Zermatt are the closest while Zinal on the north-west is located further (9 km).

Climbing history

The first ascent was made on 22 August 1864 via the north ridge by Leslie Stephen and Florence Crauford Grove with guides Jakob Anderegg and Melchior Anderegg (AD). They left Zinal at 1 a.m. and ascended the Zinal Glacier. They reached the shoulder from the ridge connecting the Blanc de Moming at the base of the northern ridge at 9 a.m. The traverse of the ridge to the summit took them 2 hours, Stephen wrote later that it was 'the nastiest piece of climbing I have ever accomplished'.

The slightly less difficult normal route, the south-east ridge, was first climbed by the combined parties of Clinton Thomas Dent with guide Alexander Burgener, and George Augustus Passingham, with guides Ferdinand Imseng and Franz Andermatten on 5 September 1872.

The first winter and ski ascent was by Marcel Kurz and T. Theytaz on 7 February 1914.

In the 1880s Mrs Aubrey Le Blond, the first president of the Ladies' Alpine Club, left her detachable skirt by mistake up the Zinalrothorn. To preserve her modesty, she made the decision to climb the mountain a second time to retrieve it rather than return to Zermatt in trousers.

(Wikipedia)

The Ober Gabelhorn (4063 m) is a mountain in the Pennine Alps in Switzerland, located between Zermatt and Zinal.

Geography

The Ober Gabelhorn lies in the Swiss canton of Valais at the southern end of the Zinal valley (part of the Val d'Anniviers). It rises, together with the Dent Blanche (west) and the Zinalrothorn (north), above the Zinal Glacier. On the south side lies the Zmutt Glacier in the valley of Zmutt, which extends west of Zermatt.

The Ober Gabelhorn has a pyramidal shape, similar to the nearby Matterhorn but on a smaller scale. Only the smooth north face is completely glaciated, the other faces being mostly rocky. The south-west ridge is called the Arbengrat while the north-north-west ridge is the Arête du Coeur. The south-east ridge looking over the Ober Gabeljoch (3,597 m) is the Gabelhorngrat. The Wellenkuppe is a lower prominence on the north-east ridge; it is usually climbed as part of the normal route.

Huts serving the peak are the Rothorn Hut (3,198 m), the Grand Mountet Hut (2,886 m) and the Arben Bivouac (3,224 m).

Climbing history

The first ascent was by A. W. Moore, Horace Walker and Jakob Anderegg on 6 July 1865, via the east face.

The second ascent of the peak, and the first by the north-north-west ridge, was made one day later by Lord Francis Douglas, Peter Taugwalder and Joseph Vianin on 7 July 1865. At the time of their ascent they were not aware of Moore and party's success on the previous day.

Douglas and Taugwalder made several attempts before they reached the summit. P. Inäbnit accompanied them on the first attempt from the south-east ridge. They didn't have enough time to go higher than the base of the mountain. On the second attempt they reached the Wellenkuppe (3,900 m) on the north-east ridge (the normal route today) but they considered that the ridge above was too difficult to continue. They finally reached the summit on their third attempt (Inäbnit having been replaced by Viennin). They were disconcerted to see some footprints on the east face (made by Moore, Walker and Anderegg on the previous day), but were relieved that no traces were visible on the summit. Not aware of the dangers that might have made the previous expedition turn back, they sat down on the summit to have lunch. Suddenly an avalanche started and everything on the summit began to fall away from them. Douglas and Taugwalder were swept away, but they were roped to Viennin who was a little distance below the summit. Viennin was able to belay Taugwalder and Douglas with the rope, which didn't break. Francis Douglas returned to Zermatt, and was killed a week later on 14 July on the first ascent of the Matterhorn.

The Arbengrat was first climbed in 1874 by H. S. Hoare and E. Hulton with guides J. von Bergen, P. Rubi and J. Moser. The route on the Gabelhorngrat was opened three years later by J. Walker Hartley, W. E. Davidson, P. Rubi and J. Juan.

The north face, similar to but 'rather steeper' than the north-east face of the Lenzspitze, was first climbed on 30 July 1930 by H. Kiener and R. Schwarzgruber. They started from Zermatt at midnight and made a direct 2,000-metre ascent to the Triftjoch. They reached the base of the north face after having traversed the crevasses of the Ober Gabelhorn Glacier and successfully climbed it. This route was repeated only once until 1951.

Christian Klucker and L. Norman-Neruda made the first ascent of the east-north-east ridge on 1 August 1890. Nowadays most of the climbers use this route, starting at the Rothorn Hut (above Zermatt) and passing over the summit of the Wellenkuppe. The major obstacle, the Klucker tower, is equipped with ropes since 1918.

(Wikipedia)

The Wellenkuppe is a mountain of the Swiss Pennine Alps, located west of Zermatt in the canton of Valais. It lies on the range separating the Val d'Anniviers from the Mattertal, just east of the Ober Gabelhorn.

(Wikpedia)

Das Zinalrothorn ist ein 4221 m ü. M. hoher Berg bei Zermatt in den Walliser Alpen. Im Gegensatz zu vielen Gipfeln dieser Höhe handelt es sich beim Zinalrothorn um einen reinen Felsgipfel, mit drei Graten in festem Fels.

Den Namen hat es vom Ferienort Zinal im Val d’Anniviers, das sich in der Nähe befindet. Bis zum Aufkommen des Alpentourismus trug der Berg jedoch nach dem Mominggletscher, der an der Nordflanke seinen Anfang nimmt, den Namen Moming. Das Zinalrothorn befindet sich nur 4 km südlich des Weisshorns (4505 m ü. M.). Vom Gipfel hat man einen hervorragenden Blick auf das Matterhorn und das Monte-Rosa-Massiv.

Die Erstbesteigung erfolgte durch Leslie Stephen und Florence Crauford Grove mit den Führern Melchior und Jakob Anderegg aus Zinal über den Nordgrat (ZS, III) am 22. August 1864.

Die drei Grate bieten Anstiege im mittleren Schwierigkeitsbereich. Neben dem Weg der Erstersteiger über den Nordgrat gibt es noch den etwas weniger anspruchsvollen Südostgrat (ZS, III (Stellen), sonst II und I) und den Rothorngrat (ZS+, Südwestgrat, IV (kurze Stelle), III+), einer der schönsten Felsanstiege in der Gegend von Zermatt. Ausgangspunkt für den Südostgrat ist die Rothornhütte auf einer Höhe von 3198 m ü. M., für den Nordgrat die Mountethütte auf 2886 m ü. M. Der Südwestgrat kann von der Rothorn- oder der Mountethütte erreicht werden.

(Wikipedia)

Das Ober Gabelhorn (oft auch Obergabelhorn, jedoch nicht Gabelhorn) ist ein Viertausender in den Walliser Alpen.

Ausgangsorte für eine Besteigung sind Zermatt über das Mattertal oder Zinal über das Val d’Anniviers.

Besteigungsgeschichte

Die Erstbesteigung wurde am 6. Juli 1865 durch Adolphus Warburton Moore, Horace Walker und Jakob Anderegg unternommen. Schon am nächsten Tag folgten die Verlierer beim Rennen um den Gipfel, Francis Douglas, Peter Taugwalder und Joseph Viennin bei ihrem dritten Anlauf. Francis Douglas kam eine Woche später bei der Erstbesteigung des Matterhorns ums Leben.

Der Normalweg führt von der Rothornhütte (3198 m) über den Triftgletscher zur Schulter der Wellenkuppe (3898 m), über diese in leichter Kletterei (III-) hinweg und den ausgeprägten Ostnordostgrat folgend über den grossen Gendarm (Kluckerturm, Fixseile) zum Gipfel. Es handelt sich um eine kombinierte Hochtour (III+, Eis bis 50°, ZS / AD). Weitere interessante Anstiege sind der Arbengrat (Westsüdwestgrat, III+, ZS / AD) und die stark vergletscherte, selten begangene Nordwand (Eis 55°, S / D).

(Wikipedia)

Die Wellenkuppe ist ein 3898 m ü. M. hoher Berg im Kanton Wallis, Schweiz. Er liegt nordöstlich des Ober Gabelhorns und südlich des Zinalrothorns auf dem Grat, welcher das Mattertal vom Val d’Anniviers trennt.

(Wikipedia)

I've been thinking about what to do with jet engines I got in a Chima set, and also thinking about building one more speeder to improve my building skills.

Today I came up with an idea of making a pod racer as in Star Wars: EP 1. However, the minifigure pilot I have is actually a resistance pilot, precisely appearing much later in the SW galaxy.

So I tried the speeder to be more like a EP 4 thing, rather than a streamlined naboo star fighter.

Probably the resistance appropriated the Pod Racer to their fighter speeder. :D

Emmet and Ada are precisely six feet apart.

Nature. The most beautiful thing in the world is, precisely, the conjunction of learning and inspiration. Oh, the passion for research and the joy of discovery!

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Right now, there are 13 strategic bombers in the air over Russia, heading toward their launch points. Missile-carrying ships have been deployed at sea, and 100 Shahed drones are flying over the territory of Ukraine. I think we will spend this Christmas without electricity.

Wish us luck.

Just in case, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

And now I will continue my story about the events in Kyiv 20 years ago — the so-called Orange Revolution...

So, after a very dirty pre-election campaign and massive fraud during the second round of the presidential elections, people took to the streets demanding a revote.

Despite this, on November 22, Ukraine’s Central Election Commission declared Viktor Yanukovych the winner of those elections, and the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin publicly congratulated Yanukovych on his victory. Later he was also congratulated by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, and Armenia.

On November 27, Viktor Yushchenko came to the Maidan together with his wife (a U.S. citizen) and their children and, on the one hand, urged people not to disperse, and on the other hand, called exclusively for peaceful resistance.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Ukraine prohibited the Central Election Commission from announcing the election results while it was considering a lawsuit filed by opposition members of parliament.

On November 28, a congress of local deputies of all levels was held in Sievierodonetsk (a city in eastern Ukraine, in the Donbas), where the issue of holding a referendum on the federalization of Ukraine was discussed. A threat of separatism emerged, and of Ukraine splitting into two parts.

Why did this happen? The problem lies in the history of the formation of Ukrainian statehood.

For many centuries, ethnically Ukrainian lands did not have their own statehood and were part of many different countries and, one might even say, civilizations.

Western Ukrainian territories were part of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (and later became part of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire), Polish and Chech-Slovakian states. Southern regions were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and Romania (and later the Russian Empire). Central Ukrainian lands came under the protectorate of the Russian Empire as a result of the anti-Polish uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1648 and the subsequent events (known in Ukrainian history as the ‘Ruin’). The southeastern steppe territories began to be actively settled by Ukrainians from the second half of the 17th century. These lands were considered wild and served as pastures for the nomadic migrations of numerous Asian nomadic tribes, but were later colonized by the Russian Empire (with the active participation of those very same Ukrainian Cossacks).

In fact, the borders of the territory of the modern Ukrainian state (within its 1991 borders) were finally formed after the end of the Second World War. Following the victory over Hitler’s Germany, Joseph Stalin took almost all territories with compact Ukrainian populations from former countries allied with the Third Reich and attached them to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

The last territory to be added to the Ukrainian SSR was the Crimean Peninsula, already under the rule of Nikita Khrushchev. Crimea had never been an ethnically Ukrainian territory, but at that time the Moscow communist authorities considered it expedient to shift the burden of the peninsula’s postwar reconstruction onto the Ukrainian republic and its budget. In exchange, lands of Eastern Donbas and the Taganrog area, equivalent in size to the peninsula, were detached from the Ukrainian republic. They remain part of the Russian Federation to this day.

The Kremlin authorities also pursued a specific migration policy, deliberately mixing the populations of the national republics. Ukraine was one of the priorities in this regard. The goal was to create a new type of society — ‘Soviet people.’ These people were expected to adhere to communist Soviet values and be Russian-speaking.

Russian populations had been moving en masse to the industrial regions of Donbas and to Crimea since the late 19th century, back in the days of the Russian Empire (for economic reasons, as large deposits of coal, iron ore, and other minerals were discovered in Donbas; railways were built, and the region began to develop rapidly).

Over the decades of the USSR’s existence, the population of Donbas came to consist almost half of ethnic Russians, while the descendants of former Ukrainian Cossacks gradually became Russified. A particularly devastating blow was the famine artificially created by Stalin’s regime in 1932–1933, as it primarily affected rural regions — precisely those that preserved the language and cultural traditions. In fact, it was an act of deliberate genocide, now referred to in Ukrainian historiography as the ‘Holodomor.’ This was followed by the war of 1941–1945 and another famine in 1947.

In short, by 1991, when Ukraine gained its independence, the population of Donbas differed significantly in mentality from that of the Kyiv region, and even more so from that of Lviv. Donbas residents retained nostalgic memories of the USSR, because during those times miners’ labor was relatively well paid. After 1991, however, the region entered a period of economic decline, unemployment, an epidemic of drug addiction, and gang warfare.

In Crimea, the overwhelming majority of the population consisted of ethnic Russians (60%), while the minority was the indigenous people of the peninsula — the Crimean Tatars. There were very few Ukrainians there. And even that minority had already been largely Russified. In Crimea, there was only one Ukrainian school, and only one Ukrainian-language newspaper was published.

To be continued...

Gresley 'A3' Pacific 60103 'Flying Scotsman', or more precisely 'N.E.502' as it should be referred to in this composition, takes it steady heading the 1Z87 14:25 Carlisle to London Euston 'Cumbrian Mountain Express on 6th February 2016 at Duncowfold, near Cotehill, with no further explanation of the exact location being necessary! This was the last last steam charter to run over the S&C route during this winter season as Network Rail engineers closed the line on 9th January due to significant slippage on the embankment at Eden Brow. high above the River Eden, with repairs taking many weeks.

© Gordon Edgar - All rights reserved. Please do not use my images without my explicit permission

There’s nothing quite like sipping champagne at sunset on a luxury yacht, and Ivanna Wayne knows precisely how to match the moment with effortless glamor and undeniable style. For this radiant golden hour soirée, Ivanna turned heads in a sheer, crystal-studded azure pant set that sparkled as brilliantly as the sun on the water.

Her look features a sleek bralette and sheer high-waisted pants, allowing just the right amount of skin to peek through while keeping things sophisticated and summery. The matching headscarf adds a touch of old-Hollywood allure, reminiscent of seaside icons from a bygone era — think Grace Kelly meets modern mermaid.

This looks truly stunning because it blends resort wear with runway flair. The lightweight fabric floats with the breeze, while the shimmer creates a dreamlike aura against the sunset backdrop. Ivanna’s minimal accessories make the outfit speak for itself — calm, confident, and irresistibly chic.

Whether it’s a private yacht party or a summer beach gala, this look is a showstopper that says: “I came to celebrate, and I came in style.”

Clock in Munich Airport

There are 342 bridges in the city limits of Saint Petersburg, Russia. This is a partial list of most famous ones.

Peter the Great was designing the city as another Amsterdam and Venice, with canals instead of streets and citizens skillful in sailing. Initially, there were only about ten bridges constructed in the city, mainly across ditches and minor creeks. By Peter's plans, in the summer months, the citizens were supposed to move around in boats, and in the winter months when the water froze to move in sledges. However, after Peter's death, new bridges were built, as it was a much easier way of transportation. The first permanent bridge of bricks and stones across the main branch of the Neva river appeared in 1850.

Today, there are 342 bridges over canals and rivers of various sizes, styles and constructions, built at different periods. Some of them are small pedestrian bridges, such as Bank and Lion bridges, others are huge transport arteries such as almost one kilometer long Alexander Nevsky Bridge. There are about 800 small bridges across hundreds of smaller ponds and lakes in public parks and gardens, and over 100 bridges in various ports, marinas, yacht clubs and private industries. The total number of bridges in Saint Petersburg is over a thousand. The nearly 100-meter-wide Blue Bridge, claimed to be the widest in the world, spans the Moyka River. There are bridges designed in various styles with such decorations as statues, lamplights, lions, horses, sphinxes and griffins, and there are modern styles lacking any decor. Thanks to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called the "Venice of the North" which is a popular poetic name for the northern capital.

A familiar view of Saint Petersburg is a drawbridge across the Neva. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea into the Volga-Baltic waterway system. A calculated schedule with precise time of consecutive opening and closing for each bridge is maintained to guarantee passage of cargo ships and tankers at a precisely controlled speed, in order to have at least one bridge at a time staying connected to ensure passage for firefighters, police, ambulances and other ground transportation.[citation needed

The double spacecraft of ESA’s Proba-3 mission will become the most precisely controlled objects in space, maintaining a set distance from each other down to millimetre-level precision. An ESA cleanroom was turned into a hall of mirrors to test the laser-based measuring system that will maintain the pair in position for hours at a time.

“Due to launch in 2024, Proba-3 is ESA’s precision formation flying mission,” comments Damien Galano, ESA’s Proba-3 project manager. “By maintaining their relative position against one another for up to six hours per orbit at a nominal 144 m apart, the ‘Occulter’ spacecraft will cast a shadow onto its ‘Coronagraph’ counterpart to form an artificial solar eclipse in space, so that the Sun’s faint outer atmosphere or corona can be studied freely.

“But the satellite pair require a sophisticated metrology system to hold them in position – and we needed to test the flight hardware of the most precise element of this multi-faceted system, the laser-based ‘fine optical metrology’ system.”.

The project requested support from the Metrology Laboratory of ESA’s ESTEC Test Centre in the Netherlands, part of the biggest satellite test facility in Europe, operated for the Agency by European Test Services. The Lab's Ramon Vink explains: “Our challenge was to find a cleanroom long enough to encompass the full range of distances involved for the laser and its retroreflector, as far as 250 m apart.”

The team settled on the Vacuum Test Chamber-1.5 cleanroom, adds Steven Sablerolle of the Metrology Lab: “At 60 m in length the VTC-15 cleanroom was too small, so instead they installed a folding array of mirrors that could bounce the laser beam around the chamber to cross the full range of distance required.”

Jorg Versluys, Proba-3 System Engineer, says: “The Test Centre’s Metrology Lab assisted us in precisely aligning and mapping the mirrors’ positions, using their own laser trackers. The test campaign took about six weeks, mostly during the night to minimise unwanted perturbations from the rest of the busy site – even a lorry driving past on the road outside might show up in our results. This testing marked the first time the various parts of this fine optical metrology system were operated together, but the results were right in line with our previous models.”

For the testing, Proba-3’s laser-generating optic head was integrated onto the mission’s optic bench, then placed on a granite table for maximum stability. The laser was shone onto a laser retroreflector – which is a special kind of mirror, resembling reflective ‘cat’s eyes’ on a motorway, that possesses carefully-designed internal reflectivity to bounce back the laser light in the exact same direction that it has come from.

A photo diode on the optic head then recognises reflected laser light to calculate the number of wave oscillations the light has taken to bounce back, to derive its precise travel time and therefore distance between the two satellites. A second detector, a 2D array, is acquires the lateral position of the reflected laser beam to identify the lateral displacement of the retroreflector relative to the optic head.

This is the most precise of multiple metrology methods employed by the two Proba-3 satellites, each one around a cubic metre in scale. A continuous inter-satellite radio link is supplemented by Global Navigation Satellite System receivers. When the satellites come less than 250 m apart then cameras on the Occulter spacecraft will image and detect LEDs mounted on the Coronagraph spacecraft. Then the laser-based system will come into use to maintain precise satellite alignment.

“Our testing allowed us to map just how the metrology system responds as the target moves slightly up or down or side to side,” adds Jorg. “So we’ve ended up with a complete database of the two units’ movement down to pixels per millimetre scale that we can employ for real when we reach space.”

Proba-3’s laser operates at an infrared wavelength, invisible to the naked eye. So this photograph was actually acquired as a long exposure in infrared, with the path of the beam gradually traced using a sheet of white paper. The beam seen in the photo is where the paper scatters the infrared light of the laser beam.

Credits: ESA - J.Versluys

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**** This frame was chosen on January 8th 2016 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #163. This is my 83rd photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 13.9 Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Forty eight metres at 07:35am on Sunday January 3rd 2016 following a two hour journey up the A2 and M11 to March in Cambridgeshire this morning. This image was taken around sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 08:07am), off London Road A11 in Thetford, looking towards Thetford Forest Park.

Thetford Forest is the largest lowland pine forest in Britain and is located in a region straddling the north of Suffolk and the south of Norfolk in England. It covers over 19,000 ha in the form of a Site of Special Scientific Interest

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Nikon D800 360mm 1/4s f/11.0 iso1000 RAW (14 bit) Handheld with Nikkor VR Vibration Reduction enabled. Single point AF-S focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. Auto Active D-lighting.

Nikkor AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR. Power UP 95mm HD UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

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LATITUDE: N 52d 23m 44.86s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 42m 9.69s

ALTITUDE: 48.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED FILE: 23.84MB

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PROCESSING POWER:

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

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My life is merely a play, a play that never ends.

Everyone in it knows precisely how to play his role perfectly without any mistake whatsoever!

I try sometimes to go with the flow and cope with the players, but at times I realize how hard it is to dye the night's black sky in perfect ivory color.

I am neither an actor nor a philosopher, yet I can tell who wares the ornamented golden mask and who does not. Who is true to himself and who is not.

Being able to look through people's masks is not a gift as much as it is some sort of a damned curse that hunts my mortal life. I tend to judge the false masks despite how beautiful and perfect they may seem.

Masks can be in any shape and color depending on what it indicates. There is the white perfect one and the black broken one, the golden feathered angelic mask and the flamed red devilish mask, and the smiling yellow face and the cried eye blue face.

A mixture combined to survive an endless masquerade on a stage full of assorted colors of lights and shades called "Life".

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This was the story of my Nickname, I chose it after writing the above lines, I thought it was about time to finally share it with you guys ^^.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlovsk_Palace

Pavlovsk Palace is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by Paul I of Russia in Pavlovsk, near Saint Petersburg. After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna. The palace and the large English garden surrounding it are now a Russian state museum and public park.

Creation

In 1777 The Empress Catherine II of Russia gave a parcel of a thousand hectares of forest along the winding Slavyanka River, four kilometers from her residence at Tsarskoye Selo, to her son and heir Paul I and his wife Maria Feodorovna, to celebrate the birth of their first son, the future Alexander I of Russia.

At the time the land was given to Paul and Maria Feodorovna, there were two rustic log lodges in the called 'Krik' and 'Krak.' Paul and his wife spent the summers of 1777 to 1780 in Krik, while their new homes and the garden were being built.

They began by building two wooden buildings, one kilometer apart. Paul's house, a two-story house in the Dutch style, with small gardens, was called "Marienthal", or the "Valley of Maria." Maria's house was a small wooden house with a cupola, flower beds, named "Paullust", or "Paul's Joy." Paul and Maria Feodorovna began to create picturesque "ruins", a Chinese kiosk, Chinese bridges and classical temples in the English landscape garden style which had spread rapidly across Europe in the second half of the 18th century.

In 1780, Catherine the Great loaned her official architect, the Scotsman Charles Cameron, to design a palace on a hillside overlooking the Slavyanka River, near the site of Marienthal.

Cameron had studied under English architect Isaac Ware, who was close to the architect of Chiswick House, the villa of Lord Burlington one of the earliest and finest Palladian houses in England. Through this connection Cameron became familiar with the original plans of Palladio, which were in the personal collection of Lord Burlington. This style was the major influence on Cameron when he designed Pavlovsk.

Cameron began his project not with the palace itself but with two classical pavilions. The first was the Temple of Friendship, a circular Dorian temple with sixteen columns supporting a low dome, containing a statute of Catherine the Great. It was placed at a bend of the Slavyanka River, below the future palace, and was surrounded by silver poplars and transplanted Siberian pines. The second was the Apollo Colonnade, a double row of columns with an entablature, forming a setting for a reproduction of a reproduction of the Belvedere Apollo. It was placed at the entrance of the park, and it was made of porous limestone with a coarse finish the surfaces to suggest that they had been aged by centuries of weather. At the same time the Slavyanka River was dammed, to create a lake which would mirror the facade of the palace above.

Maria Feodorovna also insisted in having several rustic structures which recalled the palace where she grew up at Étupes, forty miles from Basel, in what was then the Duchy of Württemberg and today is in Alsace. Cameron constructed a small Swiss chalet with a library; a dairy of rough stones with a thatched roof, where milk products were kept and prepared, and an aviary in the form of a small classical temple with metal netting between the Dorian columns, which was filled with nightingale, goldfinch, starling and quail.

For the palace itself, Cameron conceived a country house which seems to have been based on a design of Palladio shown in a woodcut in his book Quattro libri dell'architectura, for the Villa Tressino at Meledo in Italy. This same drawing was later used by Thomas Jefferson in his design for the University of Virginia. The palace he designed had a cube-shaped central block three stories high with a low dome supported by sixty-four columns. On either side of the building were two single story colonnades of curved open winged galleries connected to service buildings one and a half stories high. Each facade of the palace was decorated with molded friezes and reliefs.

In September 1781, as construction of the Pavlovsk Palace began, Paul and Maria set off on a journey to Austria, Italy, France and Germany. They traveled under the incognito of "The Count and Countess of the North". During their travels they saw the palaces and French gardens of Versailles and Chantilly, which strongly influenced the future appearance of Pavlovsk Park. King Louis XVI presented them with four Gobelins tapestries, Marie Antoinette presented Maria Feodorovna with a sixty-piece toilet set of Sèvres porcelain, and they ordered more sets of porcelain and purchased statues, busts, paintings, furniture and paintings, all for Pavlovsk. While they traveled, they kept in contact almost daily with Kuchelbecker, the supervisor of construction at Pavlovsk, sending back and forth drawings, plans and notes on the smallest details.[6]

Paul and Maria Feodorovna returned in November 1782, and they continued to fill Pavlovsk with art objects. A shipment of antique marbles, statues, busts, urns, and pottery discovered and purchased at Pompei, arrived in 1783. Sixteen sets of furniture, over two hundred pieces, were ordered from Paris between 1783 and 1785 for the State Rooms. In 1784, twelve Hubert Robert landscapes were commissioned for Pavlovsk. The couple purchased ninety-six clocks from Europe. The Imperial Glass factory, made special chandeliers for each room.

In the midst of the construction, and tensions grew between her and Cameron; Cameron was used to the unlimited budget for materials given him by Catherine the Great, while Catherine gave very little money to Paul; and Cameron was annoyed by the furniture, tapestries and fireplaces brought back from Europe by Maria Feodorovna without consulting him. Maria Feodorovna in turn was annoyed by the bright polychrome decoration and Pompeian arabesques used by Cameron, and wanted more delicate colors, and Paul did not like anything that resembled the style of his mother's house, the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo.

The tensions led to a parting in 1786. Cameron left to build a new palace for Catherine in the Crimea. He had finished entry vestibule and the five rooms of the private apartments. The work of decorating the interior was taken over by an Italian architect, Vincenzio Brenna, from Florence, who had come to Russia in 1783. Brenna designed interiors which reflected Paul's taste for Roman classicism. He created the white and gold Halls of War and Peace, on either side of the Greek Hall by Cameron, which had a colonnade of green false marble columns, resembling a Greek temple. He made the Italian hall into a replica of a Roman temple, and he built the State Bedroom for Maria Feodorovna as an imitation of the state bedroom of the King of France, with a huge gilded bed, and cream silk wallpaper painted in tempura with colorful flowers, fruit, musical instruments and gardening tools.

Catherine the Great died in 1796, and Paul became Emperor. He decided to enlarge Pavlovsk into a palace suitable for a royal residence, adding two new wings on either side of the main building, and a church attached to the south wing. Between 1797 and 1799, he lavished money and the finest materials on Brenna's interiors.

The reign of Emperor Paul did not last long. He alienated the nobles, and became increasingly fearful of conspiracies. His fears were justified; the Emperor Paul was murdered by members of his court in 1801, and his son Alexander became Emperor. Pavlovsk Palace became the residence of the Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828), the mother of both Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. She turned the house into a memorial to her murdered husband, filled with his furniture and portraits, and made the house a showcase for finest 18th century French furnishings, paintings, sculpture and porcelain.

Another disaster struck Pavlovsk in 1803; a fire caused by a defective chimney destroyed a major part of the interior of the palace, including all the decor of the State Apartments and living rooms. Most of the furniture was saved, along with some door panels, fireplaces and mirrors, but most of the Palace had to be rebuilt.

Maria Feodorovna brought Cameron and Brenna's young assistant, the Italian architect Carlo Rossi, to help restore the Palace. She also employed a Russian architect, Andrei Voronykhin, who had been born a serf, and was trained in decoration and design, who rose to become the architect of Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Voronykhin was named chief architect of Pavlovsk by Maria Feodorovna. He brought back the architect Quarenghi, who had redecorated five rooms on the main floor, to recreate his work. He remade some of the rooms, such as the Tapestry Room and the State Bedroom, exactly as they had been, but for other rooms he added decoration inspired by Roman models discovered at Pompeii and Herculaneum; Roman-style lamps, furniture, Roman couches, and chairs copied after those of Roman senators. Following the French taste of the time for Egyptian art, he added black Egyptian statues in the entry vestibule of the Palace, He also redesigned the Greek and Italian halls, replacing the molding on the walls with false marble, and he added a Russian touch; fireplaces faced with Russian lapis-lazuli and jasper, which had originally been in the Mikhailovsky Palace that Paul had built in St. Petersburg. Voronykhin also made plans for a semi-circular library in one of the wings, which was later built by Carlo Rossi, and he redesigned the private apartments of Maria Feodorovna on the ground floor, which included a library, boudoir and bedroom. He installed French doors and large windows in the apartment, so the flower garden outside seemed to be part of the interior.[7]

In 1805 Voronykhin built the Centaur bridge in the park, and the Visconti bridge, which crossed the Slavyanka at a point it was filled with water lilies. His last construction in the park was the Rose Pavilion, built in 1811, a simple structure surrounded entirely by rosebushes. The Rose Pavilion was the site of a grand fete on July 12, 1814, celebrating the return of Alexander I to St. Petersburg after the defeat of Napoleon. For the occasion the architect Pietro de Gottardo Gonzaga built a ballroom the size of the Rose Pavilion itself in just seventeen days, and surrounded it with huge canvases of Russian villagers celebrating the victory. The ball inside the pavilion opened with a Polonaise led by Alexander and his mother, and ended with a huge display of fireworks.

In her later years Maria Feodorovna had a literary salon at Pavlovsk, which was frequented by the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, the fable writer Ivan Krylov, and the historian Nikolai Karamzin.

The last great St. Petersburg architect to work at Pavlovsk was Carlo Rossi, who in 1824 designed the library, which contained more than twenty thousand books as well as collections of rare coins and butterflies. He also designed the Corner Salon, where Maria Feodorovna received guests such as the first American Ambassador to Russia, John Quincy Adams, and the Lavender Room, whose walls were made of lilac-colored false marble, matching the lilac flowers outside the windows. These rooms were furnished with furniture made of native Russian woods, including Karelian birch, poplar and walnut.

Maria Feodorovna died on October 24, 1828, fourteen days after her sixty-seventh birthday. She left the house to her younger son, Michael, and specified that none of the furniture should be taken away. After Michael's death, it went to the second son of Nicholas I, Constantine Nikolayevich. It then passed to his widow and then their eldest son, Constantine Constantinovich. Her descendants respected the will, and turned the house into a family museum, just as it was when she died.

After the Russian Revolution

At the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the eldest son of Constantine Constantinovich, Prince Jean, along with his wife Helen, the daughter of the King of Serbia, and the sister of Constantine, Queen Olga of Greece, were living in one of the wings of Pavlovsk. As the political situation deteriorated, they left, and the house was left to the care of Alexander Polovotsoff, director of the Art Institute and the Museum of Applied Arts in St. Petersburg, When Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, Polovtsoff went to the Winter Palace, found Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Commissar of Enlightenment of the new government, and demanded that Pavlovsk be saved as a museum. Lunacharsky agreed and named him Commissar Curator of Pavlovsk. He returned to the Palace and found that a group of revolutionary sailors had searched the Palace for weapons and taken a few sabers, but otherwise everything was in its place. He hired former soldiers to guard the house, put all the furniture into the main building, made an inventory of all the treasures in the Palace, and successfully resisted demands from various revolutionary committees for dishes, chairs, tables, and all the books from the library. He was able to persuade Lunacharsky himself to come to Pavlovsk, After Lunacharsky's visit, Pavlovsk was officially confiscated, but turned into a museum, open to the public two or three days a week. Having succeeded in saving the Palace, Polovtsoff took family and belongings and slipped across the border to Finland and moved to Paris.

World War II

The German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the swiftness of the German advance took the Soviet government by surprise. The morning after the attack, the curators of Pavlovsk, under the direction of museum curator Anatoliy Kuchumov, began to pack as many of art objects as possible, starting with the Sèvres porcelain toilet set given by Louis XVI to Maria Feodorovna and Paul in 1780. Ninety-six hours after the announcement of the beginning of the war, the first thirty-four crates were being carried from the palace by horse-drawn cart. Boards were put over the windows, and sand on the floor of the Palace. The thirty curators often worked by candlelight, and by July there were air raids. The paintings, chandeliers, crystal, porcelain, rare furniture, and works of ivory and amber were packed and sent first. They worked with great care – each piece of furniture had to be carefully dismantled, porcelain vases had to be separated from the bases, and delicate clocks had to have their casing and mechanisms separated and packed separately, with diagrams on how to put them back together. One piece of each set of furniture was saved, and the others left behind. The Roman and Greek antiquities were too heavy and delicate to move, so they were taken to the basements, placed as close together as possible, and then hidden by a brick wall.

By the third week of August thirteen thousand objects, plus all the documentation, had been packed and sent away. Some crates were sent to Gorky, others to Sarapul, and the last group, on August 20, 1941, went to Leningrad, where the crates were stored in the basement of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The last shipment included the chandelier from the Italian Hall and the jasper vases from the Greek Hall. On August 30, the last rail link from Leningrad to Moscow was cut, and the city was under blockade. By August 28 the Germans were fifty kilometers from Pavlovsk. A Soviet division headquarters was located in one wing of the palace,

As the Germans came closer, the park and Palace came under bombardment. The museum staff began to bury the statues which were too heavy to evacuate. They calculated that the Germans would not dig deeper than one meter eighty centimeters, so they buried all the statues as deep as three meters. The statues of the Three Graces were buried three meters beneath the private garden of Maria Feodorovna. Their calculations were correct; the statues were still there after the war. On September 16, the last soldiers left, and the Germans occupied Pavlovsk Palace, which was still occupied by a group of elderly women guardians.

The Germans occupied Pavlovsk palace for two and a half years. Officers were quartered in the salons on the first floor, and the ballroom was made into a garage for cars and motorcycles. Barracks were located in the north wing and a hospital in the south wing. German soldiers, Dutch soldiers and Spanish soldiers in special units of the German army occupied the buildings in the Park. The sculpture and furniture that remained in the house and all the books of the Rossi Library were taken to Germany. The statue of Emperor Paul in the courtyard was used as a telephone pole. Fortunately the Germans did not discover the antiquities hidden behind the brick wall in the basement.

Pavlovsk was liberated on January 24, 1944. When the Soviet troops arrived, the Palace had already been burning for three days. The main building of the Palace was a hollow shell, without a roof or floors. The north wall had fallen. Most of the parquet floors of the palace had been used as firewood; a few pieces were found in unburned portions of the palace near the stoves. Of the over one hundred thousand trees that had been in the park before the War, seventy thousand had been cut down or destroyed by the shelling. All the decorative bridges in the park had been blown up. Eight hundred bunkers had been dug in the park. The Rose Pavilion was gone; the Germans had used the materials to construct a fortified dugout.

Restoration

On February 18, 1944, a meeting was held at the House of Architects in Leningrad to discuss the fate of the ruined Palaces. The academician and architect Aleksei Shchusev, who had designed the Lenin Mausoleum, called for the immediate reconstruction of the Palaces. "If we do not do this", he said, "we who know and remember these palaces in all their glory as they were, then the next generation will never be able to reconstruct them." [11] Even before the war had ended, the Soviet government decided to restore Pavlovsk and the other ruined palaces around Leningrad.

First the mines had to be cleared from the ruins and palace and the park. Then the remaining walls were supported with scaffolding, and casts were made of the remaining molding. Fragments of plaster molding were collected, sorting, and casts made. The color of paint still on the remaining walls was carefully noted for later copying. Photographs and early plans of the palace were brought together to help with the restoration.

As soon as the war ended, a search began for treasures stolen from the Palace. Curators collected pieces of furniture, fabric, the legs of tables and pieces of doors and gilded cornices from the German fortifications around the Palace. In the buildings which had been German headquarters, they found chairs, marble statues and rolled-up paintings from the Palace. They found other furniture and objects as far away as Riga, Tallinn, and in Konigsberg, in Germany.

Some precious objects from Pavlovsk left Russia even before the war. Four Gobelins tapestries from Pavlovsk were sold by the Soviet Government to J. Paul Getty, and are now on display in the Getty Museum in Malibu, California.[12]

The restorers used only the original variants of the architectural decoration; those created by Cameron, Brenna, Voronykhin, and Rossi. The only changes permitted were to use modern materials. Columns made of wood were replaced by poured concrete or bricks, and the ceilings of the Italian and Greek Halls were made of steel and concrete so they would be fireproof.

A special school, the Mukhina Leningrad Higher Artistic Industry School, was created in Leningrad to teach the arts of restoring architectural details, furniture, and art objects. This school produced a corps of restoration experts who worked on all the palaces around Leningrad.

The work was meticulous and difficult, and proceeded very slowly. In 1950, after six years of planting new trees, parts of the Park opened to the public. In 1955, the restoration of the facade of the Palace was completed, and restoration of the interiors began.

Fortunately for the restorers, the original plans by Cameron, Brenna, Voronykhin and Rossi still existed. Also, fragments of the original interior molding, cornices, friezes and the frames for the carvings, bas-reliefs, medallions and paintings still remained, and could be copied. In addition, there were twenty-five hundred photographic negatives taken in the early century by Benois, and another eleven thousand photographs taken just before the war.[12]

The chief of the restoration, Feodor Oleinik, was insistent that all the restoration be faithful to the original work: "Pay attention and do not use later details", he demanded. "Only the original variant, only that done by Cameron, Brenna, Vornykhin, or Rossi." Old techniques of artisans of the 18th century, such as painting false marble and gilding furniture, had to be relearned and applied. A silk workshop was opened in Moscow to recreate the original woven fabrics for wall coverings and upholstery, copying the texture, color and thread counts of the originals. In forty rooms of the Palace, painted decoration on the walls and ceilings had to be precisely recreated in the original colors and designs. A Master painter and six helpers recreated the original trompe l'oeil ceilings and wall paintings.[13]

Once the interior walls and decoration had been exactly recreated, the next step was the furnishings. The twelve thousand pieces of furniture and art objects removed from their original places, from paintings and tapestries to water pitchers and glasses, had to be put back where they belonged. Furniture, doors, and parquet floors of many different colors of wood which had been burned or stolen were remade exactly like the originals. The crystal chandeliers of the 18th century were exactly copied.

In 1957, thirteen years after the Palace had been burned, the first seven rooms were opened to the public. In 1958, four more rooms were opened, and eleven more in 1960. The Egyptian Vestibule was finished in 1963, and the Italian Room opened in 1965. Eleven more rooms were ready by 1967. By 1977, on the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Palace, fifty rooms were finished, and the Palace looked again as it had in the time of Maria Feodorovna.

Hal the Hybrid Hawk. Focus is not precisely on the eyeball, but I like the image!

She always knew what i had in mind, and almost always it was the same thing she had in mind.

(1973, exactly)

Mamiya Sekor 500DTL

Plus x

The Dubonnet Xenia is a concept car from the 1930s. The designer named it after the first name of his second wife, who died before the vehicle was completed.

Description

André Dubonnet manufactured the vehicle in his company Automobiles André Dubonnet . It was a test vehicle and intended as a precursor to a production model.

Dubonnet had developed the Dubonnet suspension with the assistance of the engineer Antoine-Marie Chedru. [ 1 ] He bought a chassis of the type Hispano-Suiza H 6 , more precisely of the type H 6 B, which dates back to 1932. He fundamentally modified the chassis and mounted his independent wheel suspension. Unlike later production vehicles, the front swing arms are pulled and the rear ones are pushed.

The petrol engine comes from Hispano-Suiza H 6 C. It is a six-cylinder in - line engine . Each cylinder has a bore of 110 mm and a stroke of 140 mm . This results in a displacement of 7983 cm³ . The power output is stated as 160 hp (118 kW). [ 2 ] The engine is installed at the front of the chassis. It drives the rear axle via a shaft with a Hardy disk .

The body was designed by the designer and aerodynamics specialist Jean Édouard Andreau . The bodywork company Saoutchik was commissioned to carry out the work .

It is a two-door coupe in a streamlined shape with four seats. In the mid-1930s, Saoutchik patented a new type of hinge system which he called the "pantograph" after the drawing device. With this special form of sliding door, the door is supported and guided by struts. When opened, it is first pulled out to the side and, when it is far enough away from the body, pulled backwards parallel to the body until it completely clears the door opening. The vehicle has what is probably the first real panoramic window in an automobile. The tailgate contains the rear window, making it a station wagon coupe . A video shows three tailor-made suitcases in the trunk .

The car has the chassis number 103. [ 3 ] It cannot have come from Hispano-Suiza , because both the Spanish factory La Hispano-Suiza and the French factory Société Française Hispano-Suiza , which both manufactured the H 6, had long since reached five-digit numbers. On the type plate is Automobiles André Dubonnet, the address of the company in Neuilly-sur-Seine , as Type Xenia and a chassis number that is not visible here. [ 4 ] The usual features for vehicles of the Hispano-Suiza brand, the stork as a radiator figure and the lettering on the radiator grille , are missing.

The wheelbase is 4064 mm. The vehicle is 5664 mm long, 1956 mm wide and 1575 mm high. [ 2 ]

Depending on the source, the maximum speed is given as 160 km/h [ 2 ] and 177 km/h

Xenia today

Xenia was Dubonnet's private car. During the war years, the vehicle was hidden. On 9 June 1946, it took part in the ceremonial reopening of the Saint-Cloud tunnel for civilian use. Alain Balleret, president of the French Hispano-Suiza Club, bought the vehicle in the 1960s and restored it. In 1999, Charles Morse bought it at auction . Peter Mullin acquired the vehicle in 2003 and displays it in his Mullin Automotive Museum . [ 2 ] Another source names the first buyer as Alain Bailleres, the year 1960, and gives his death in 1999 as the reason for the auction. [ 6 ] According to another source, D&D Classic in Ohio restored the car. Wikipedia

For reference or comparison purposes, this photo -- excluding the mat and frame -- is cropped to precisely 8x10 format.

don't let your vision get cloudy. don't be blinded by feelings and emotions. tell yourself the truth. live by that truth. believe that truth. remember that truth. because it will be your rock and foundation in your mind when the winds and storms of emotions start to flood your heart.

ALSO. thankyou so much for the testimonial, jordan (SepiaTonedGypsy) :) you are so sweet, thankyou♥