Imagens de Lisboa - Palacios - Queluz

Inspired by France’s Versailles, the Portuguese royal family built this beautiful rococo palace as a summer home but it eventually became the official residence. The interior is splendid, but it’s best known for the gardens dotted with mythological statues and fountains.

Inspirada no palácio de Versailles em França, a família real portuguesa decidiu construir um belo palácio rococó como sua residência de férias, que no entanto acabou por vir a ser o palácio oficial. O interior é magnífico, mas são os jardins com as suas estátuas e fontes mitológicas que mais atraem a atenção de quem visita.

Astronomy picture of the day - 2016 September 4 - Io over Jupiter from Voyager 1

Io over Jupiter from Voyager 1 
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Voyager 1; Processing: Alexis Tranchandon, Solaris

Explanation: Back in 1979, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft flew past Jupiter and its moons. The images in this mosaic, featuring the moon Io against a background of gas giant Jupiter's diffuse swirling cloud bands, were recorded by Voyager's camera from a distance of about 8.3 million kilometers. The Io image from this mosaic may be the first to show curious round features on Io's surface with dark centers and bright rims more than 60 kilometers across. Now known to be volcanic in origin, these features were then thought likely to be impact craters, commonly seen on rocky bodies throughout the Solar System. But as Voyager continued to approach Io, close-up pictures revealed a bizarre world devoid of impact craters, frequently resurfaced by volcanic activity. Earlier this year a new robotic spacecraft, NASA's Juno, began to orbit Jupiter and last week made a pass within 5,000 kilometers of Jupiter's clouds. During the next two years, it is hoped that Juno will discover new things about Jupiter, for example what's in Jupiter's core.

Imagens de Lisboa - Palacios - Pena

Before the great Bavarian fantasy that is Neuschwanstein, there was fairytale Pena just outside Lisbon. It was a dream-come-true for the king, found up on a hill in Sintra, mixing several architectural styles which make it one of Europe’s finest Romantic constructions.

Antes da grande fantasia que é Neuschwanstein na Baviera, já existia o Palácio da Pena, um verdadeiro conto de fadas às portas de Lisboa. Construído na serra de Sintra, foi um sonho tornado realidade para o rei, misturando vários estilos arquitetónicos, que fazem dele um dos mais emblemáticos exemplos do Romantismo europeu.

Imagens do Rio de Janeiro - Palácios cariocas - Itamaraty

Construído em 1855, no Centro do Rio de Janeiro, pelo conde de Itamarati, este palácio foi a sede do governo republicano entre os anos de 1889 a 1898 e a sede do Ministério das Relações Exteriores entre 1899 e 1970.

Imagens do mundo - Surf - Africa do Sul

El surfista sudafricano Andy Marr toma una ola en el arrecife de coral Dungeons en el oceáno Atlántico, a las afueras de Ciudad del Cabo (Sudáfrica).

NIC BOTHMA EFE

Astronomy pictures of the day - 2016 September 3 - Reunion Island Eclipse

Reunion Island Eclipse 
Image Credit & Copyright: Stephane Moser

Explanation: The New Moon's dark shadow crossed planet Earth on September 1. In silhouette the Moon didn't quite cover the Sun though, creating an an annular solar eclipse. The shadow's narrow central path was about 100 kilometers wide at maximum eclipse. Beginning in the South Atlantic, it tracked toward the east across Africa, ending in the Indian Ocean. Waiting on the Indian Ocean's Reunion Island, eclipse watchers enjoyed a view just north of the eclipse centerline, the annular phase lasting a few minutes or less. Clouds threaten the nearly eclipsed Sun but create a dramatic sky in this partial phase snapshot from the northern side of the 50 kilometer wide island.

Photos from my mind - "Writing a letter"

"Writing a letter"

05-04-2015

JoanMira

Pintura digital - "Floresta" - 23-03-2015

"Floresta"

23-03-2015

JoanMira

Astronomy picture of the day - 2016 September 2 - Little Planet Astro Camp

Little Planet Astro Camp 
Image Credit & Copyright: György Soponyai

Explanation: Day and night on this little planet look a lot like day and night on planet Earth. In fact, the images used to construct the little planet projection, a digitally warped and stitched mosaic covering 360x180 degrees, were taken during day and night near Tarján, Hungary, planet Earth. They span a successful 33-hour-long photo experiment at July's Hungarian Astronomical Association Astro Camp. The time-series composite follows the solar disk in 20 minute intervals from sunrise to sunset and over six hours of star trails in the northern night sky centered on the North Celestial Pole near bright star Polaris. The orbiting International Space Station traced the offset arc across the northern night. Below the little planet's nightside horizon, red light lamps of fellow astro-campers left the night-long, dancing trails.

Astronomy picture of the day - 2016 September 1 - Light at the End of the Road

Light at the End of the Road 
Image Credit & Copyright: Josh Calcino

Explanation: The bright light at the end of this country road is actually a remarkably close conjunction of two planets. After sunset on August 27 brilliant Venus and Jupiter almost appear as a single celestial beacon in the night skyscape taken near Lake Wivenhoe, Queensland, Australia. A spectacular vertical panorama from the southern hemisphere, it shows the central Milky Way near zenith, posed on top of a pillar of Zodiacal light along the ecliptic plane. Of course Mars and Saturn are near the ecliptic too, just below the galaxy's central bulge. Above and left of a tree on the horizon, fleeting planet Mercury also adds to the light at the end of the road.