Mount Teide is the highest peak in Spain, and the 3rd tallest volcano in the world, measured from its base on the ocean. It is found in the Spanish Canary Islands.



For a short period of time, during sunrise, Mount Teide throws an impressive large shadow that is perfectly pyramidal in shape, with long straight lines. It is an awesome sight, especially when viewed from the peak of Mount Teide itself. Here are some images of that magnificent shadow, together with one image of Mount Teide itself.





(click on any image to view it full size.)

The Louvre museum, located inside the Louvre Palace, in the center of Paris, adjacent to the Tuileries Gardens, is the largest museum in the world in terms of the floor area of its exhibition space (72,735 m²). It opened to the public on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property.



Before the Grand Louvre overhaul of the late 1980s and 1990s, the Louvre had several street-level entrances, most of which are now permanently closed. Since 1993, the museum's main entrance has been the underground space under the Louvre Pyramid, or Hall Napoléon (pictured in the accompanying video), which can be accessed from the Pyramid itself.



The Grand Louvre project was announced in 1981 by François Mitterrand, the President of France, and the Louvre Pyramid was its centerpiece. The pyramid and the underground lobby beneath it were created because of deficiencies with the Louvre's earlier layout, which could no longer handle the increasing number of visitors on an everyday basis. Visitors entering through the pyramid descend into the spacious lobby then ascend into the main Louvre buildings.



The Grand Louvre project also created another world right under the Louvre Museum — a shopping mall that is entirely underground, called the Carrousel du Louvre, centred on the Inverted Pyramid glass sculpure — which has a large, upturned base, that could be easily viewed from outside. This shopping mall opened on the 15 October 1993.



The Grand Louvre project also included the Louvre Inverted Pyramid, which essentially acts as a skylight for the shopping mall below. The main pyramid has a square base of 35.4m and a height of 21.6m, while the inverted one has a square base of 15.5m and a height of just 7m. Underground, a small stone pyramid, mirroring the larger inverted glass pyramid above, is a stands about 1 metre tall. The tips of the stone pyramid and the larger inverted glass one almost touch, they are only about 40cm apart.



The construction of the glass pyramids triggered many years of lively aesthetic and political debate. Those criticizing the aesthetics said it was sacrilegious to tamper with the Louvre's majestic old French Renaissance architecture, and called the pyramid an anachronistic intrusion of an Egyptian death symbol in the middle of Paris.

Fantastic photographs from Marco Bottigelli, a master of his art, of two different lakes in the Italian Dolomites. (Click on image to view full size.)

The backwaters of Alappuzha in Kerala, as well as the Jhelum River, in Srinagar, Kashmir, are famous for their houseboats, which are typically rented out to tourists as accommodation, comprising of bedrooms, living room and kitchen, during vacations. (Click on an image to view full size.)

The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as M104 or NGC 4594), as seen from the Hubble Telescope. (Click on image to view full-size.)

Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada with its iconic Parliament Hill Clock Tower that is visible in each of these four images. (Click on an image to see full size.)

The House of Lords in the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament, is a much more ornate and elaborate chamber than the House of Commons. At its front end there is, after all, the Sovereign's Throne with its gilded Canopy, from where the monarch opens each new parliamentary session, in a formal ceremony called the State Opening of Parliament. The British Parliament is composed of the Sovereign, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and a State Opening is the only routine occasion when the three are gathered together in one place. No business of either House of Parliament (the House of Lords or the House of Commons) can proceed until the Sovereign’s speech has been delivered. The first order of business of a State Opening of Parliament is to check the cellars to ensure that it doesn't have any bombs in it — this is a tradition that has carried on after the original failed gun powder plot of 1605.



For the State Opening of Parliament, the brass rails delimiting the throne room are removed, and the Sovereign occupies the throne in the central of the three compartments. A second slightly smaller throne is installed alongside the principal throne in the central compartment when the sovereign's consort is present. The consort’s throne, which was first installed in 1901 for Queen Alexandra, is in the care of the Lord Great Chamberlain the Marquess of Cholmondeley for safekeeping. The throne usually remains at the Marquess’ Houghton Hall home in Norfolk unless needed at the state opening.





(See also related post in this group: zafoid.com/post/view/11822)

From our vantage point high over the Indian Ocean, we can see the "underwater waterfall" that exists just off the Le Morne Brabant peninsula on the Mauritius coast . This is really an optical illusion created by the trails of silt and sand deposits on the seafloor as they are carried by sea currents over the edge of an ocean shelf — it's not really a genuine waterfall. Though at first sight it does appear like the ocean is falling into a huge, mysterious, marine sinkhole.

Blood moons, one from Colorado (USA), and the other from Switzerland. (Click on the images to see them full-size.)



The term "blood moon" relates to the reddish color of a totally eclipsed Moon. During a total lunar eclipse (when the moon moves completely behind the Earth vis-a-vis the sun), the gray full moon begins to slowly turns red, displaying ever-changing reddish, pinkish and orange hues for a short while, and then slowly returning back to normal grey as it comes out of the Earth's shadow.



The reddish colour of the eclipsed moon comes about because the rays from the sun are able to wrap around the Earth from one side to the other, reaching the moon in this roundabout way and reflecting off it. However as the green to violet wavelengths of the sun's rays scatter more strongly than the red, the eclipsed moon obtains a reddish cast.