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Mannheim Observatory
The Mannheim Observatory was a tower observatory built between 1772 and 1774 in Mannheim, Germany, which remained in operation until 1880. The observatory was transferred to Karlsruhe and finally in 1898, was established on the Königstuhl near Heidelberg where today's successor institution the State Observatory Heidelberg-Königstuhl is located. The observatory tower is now owned by the city and was restored in 1905–1906, and after the Second World War. Since 1958, the tower houses studio flats. History Schwetzingen The Palatinate Elector Karl Theodor was a prince of the Age of Enlightenment. The French thinker Voltaire was a frequent visitor to his Court, the Elector made numerous reforms during his reign and founded scientific institutions. The Physics Institute, established in 1751 in Heidelberg, had as its Professor of Experimental Physics and Mathematics the Jesuit Father Christian Mayer. In 1756 Mayer was sent to Paris to study the local water supply, he als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economist Intelli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jesuit Church (Mannheim)
The Mannheim Jesuit Church is a Catholic church of historic and artistic importance in Mannheim, Germany. Church construction was begun in 1733 and completed in 1760. It was consecrated to St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier. During the Second World War, the church suffered severe damage from air attacks; after the war it was rebuilt in its historical style using original parts. The church displays many Baroque features in its exterior and interior. The exterior includes a twin towered facade, statues of the four cardinal virtues, and a 75 m high dome. The interior includes marble pilasters, a dome decorated with scenes from the life of the order's founder, and several organs. The most important sculpture is the 1747 "Crowned Silver Madonna." The Mannheim Baroque bell was cast in 1754, and recast in 1956 into five bells. In 1975 another two bells were cast. The bells are now distributed between the exterior two towers. History The church was built between 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mannheim Palace
Mannheim Palace (german: Mannheimer Schloss) is a large Baroque palace in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was originally the main residence of the Prince-electors of the Electorate of the Palatinate of the House of Wittelsbach until 1777. Part of the palace is used today by the University of Mannheim. The castle, which features tapestries, furniture, paintings, porcelain and silverware can be visited on a free-flow basis with audioguides. Origins The city of Mannheim, founded in 1606, was fortified and at the present site of the castle there was a fortress called ''Friedrichsburg'', sometimes serving as alternative residence for the Elector, one of the most important territorial princes of the Holy Roman Empire. The actual palace dates from the 18th century. When Elector Karl III Philip had confessional controversies with the inhabitants of his capital Heidelberg, he decided to make Mannheim the Palatinate's new capital in 1720. Karl Philip decided to construct a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Xavier Of Saxony
Franz Xavier of Saxony ( pl, Ksawery Saski) (b. Dresden, 25 August 1730 – d. Dresden, 21 June 1806) was a Saxon prince and member of the House of Wettin. He was the fourth but second surviving son of Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and Maria Josepha of Austria. Life Regent of Saxony His older brother, the Elector Frederick Christian, died on 17 December 1763 after a reign of only 74 days. Franz Xavier took over the regency of the Electorate together with his sister-in-law, the Dowager Electress Maria Antonia of Bavaria, on behalf of his infant nephew, the new Elector Frederick Augustus III. As co-regent, Franz Xavier continued the rationalistic reforms of his brother. In October 1765, Franz Xavier performed in the name of the young Elector a formal renunciation of the Polish Crown in favor of Stanislaus Poniatowski, as was required by the treaty signed between Prussia and Russia on 11 April 1764. This was done against the wishes of the boy's mother, the Do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schwetzingen Castle
Schwetzingen Palace is a schloss in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Schwetzingen was the summer residence of the Electors Palatine Charles III Philip and Charles IV Theodore (of the House of Wittelsbach). It is situated in Schwetzingen, roughly equidistant from the electors' seats at Heidelberg and Mannheim, and is most notable for its spacious and ornate gardens. Other than these exceptionally well preserved gardens and the palace proper, the compound also features the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen, the principal venue for the annual Schwetzingen Festival. The palace The main building replaces a 17th-century hunting lodge built on the foundations of an older moated castle of which it also retains some foundations and walling (hence the slightly irregular layout). It was built in its current form in several building campaigns between 1700 and 1750, in part to plans of the Heidelberg architect, Johann Adam Breunig. Construction began in the reign of Johann Wilhelm von de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orangery
An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large form of greenhouse or conservatory. The orangery provided a luxurious extension of the normal range and season of woody plants, extending the protection which had long been afforded by the warmth offered from a masonry fruit wall. During the 17th century, fruits like orange, pomegranate, and bananas arrived in huge quantities to European ports. Since these plants were not adapted to the harsh European winters, orangeries were invented to protect and sustain them. The high cost of glass made orangeries a status symbol showing wealth and luxury. Gradually, due to technological advancements, orangeries became more of a classic architectural structure that enhanced the beauty of an estate garden, rather than a room used for wintering pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Historically, observatories were as simple as containing an astronomical sextant (for measuring the distance between stars) or Stonehenge (which has some alignments on astronomical phenomena). Astronomical observatories Astronomical observatories are mainly divided into four categories: space-based, airborne, ground-based, and underground-based. Ground-based observatories Ground-based observatories, located on the surface of Earth, are used to make observations in the radio and visible light portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most optical telescopes are housed within a dome or similar structure, to protect the delicate instruments from the elements. Telescope domes have a slit or other opening in the roof that can be opened during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venus (Planet)
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never far from the Sun, either as morning star or evening star. Aside from the Sun and Moon, Venus is the brightest natural object in Earth's sky, capable of casting visible shadows on Earth at dark conditions and being visible to the naked eye in broad daylight. Venus is the second largest terrestrial object of the Solar System. It has a surface gravity slightly lower than on Earth and has a very weak induced magnetosphere. The atmosphere of Venus, mainly consists of carbon dioxide, and is the densest and hottest of the four terrestrial planets at the surface. With an atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface of about 92 times the sea level pressure of Earth and a mean temperature of , the carbon dioxide gas at Venus's surface is in the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transit Of Venus
frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black dot moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually several hours (the transit of 2012 lasted 6 hours and 40 minutes). A transit is similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon. While the diameter of Venus is more than three times that of the Moon, Venus appears smaller, and travels more slowly across the face of the Sun, because it is much farther away from Earth. Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that generally repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. The periodicity is a reflection of the fact that the orbital periods ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmond Halley
Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Halley catalogued the southern celestial hemisphere and recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun. He realised that a similar transit of Venus could be used to determine the distances between Earth, Venus, and the Sun. Upon his return to England, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society, and with the help of King Charles II, was granted a master's degree from Oxford. Halley encouraged and helped fund the publication of Isaac Newton's influential ''Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' (1687). From observations Halley made in September 1682, he used Newton's laws of motion to compute the periodicity of Halley's Comet in his 1705 ''Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets''. It was named after him upon its predicted return in 1758, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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