The winter solstice occurs exactly when the Earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'. Though the winter solstice lasts only a moment in time, the term is also a turning point to midwinter or the first day of winter to refer to the day on which it occurs. More evident to those in high latitudes, this occurs on the shortest day, and longest night, and the sun's daily maximum position in the sky is the lowest. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. Depending on the shift of the calendar, the winter solstice occurs on December 21 or 22 each year in the Northern Hemisphere, and June 20 or 21 in the Southern Hemisphere.The 2010 winter solstice (summer solstice in the southern hemisphere) will occur on December 21, at 23:38 UTC or 11:38 pm Western European Time (WET).
In celebration of the midwinter festivals, I give you some seasonal vector features from the Digital Art > Vector galleries. Please check out these night and winter themed pieces:
What is Vector Art?
In digital art there are two layer formats: raster and vector. Raster formats are based in pixels and vector is based in paths and points.
When you resize a raster image, you are expanding the pixels. Your program has to try to estimate what the colours would be for the additional pixels created. Due to this, the image loses it's clarity and creates a pixel effect.
When you resize a vector image, you are increasing the distance between the points. Due to this, the image doesn't lose it's clarity and doesn't pixellate.
The key element of vector is that it's infinitely scalable without any quality loss and it's why we love it!
If you have any questions or concerns to do with the vector gallery, please feel free to contact me via note Happy Winter Solstice you scalable lovies!