"Ideally what you'd have," said Mr. Stotz, "is a completely dark skyline so it wouldn't look like anything to the birds".
As rain shrouded the castle and university, it was almost impossible to see the buildings, but what suddenly became apparent with dazzling clarity was the influence of Edinburgh's high, dark, skyline on the architecture of Hogwarts Castle, JK Rowling's creation.
They feature women who look like Princess Diana drawn in comic book style, with eery dark skylines, interspersed with torn out photographs, some obscene and some catalogue shots of tea sets or women on sofas.
Three studies used digital color photographs to compare responses to natural scenes, skylines after dark, and skylines during the day (seven of each).
The evidence was elusive: late last month, a professional Web site suddenly appeared, showing the party's swastikalike logo set against a dark Manhattan skyline and calling on the city's Greek diaspora to donate food and clothing to a charity drive to benefit struggling poor people in Greece.
Looking from Brooklyn to Manhattan at night, you could see the line in the skyline: dark downtown, shimmering uptown.
Radiohead has the clout to command a main attraction's spoils: a slot after dark, when the skyline and the statue are lighted; full-stage production values, complete with Fortress of Solitude décor; respectful silence from the two smaller stages.
The jacket art for the first printing of The Great Gatsby, a disembodied face above a dark blue Manhattan skyline by Francis Cugat, is one of the most famous cover illustrations in American literature.
When they sit back in the carriage on the final note of "Dancing in the Dark," the New York skyline is shimmering behind them and all is suddenly, romantically, perfect in the world.
That night, you returned from a ten-course Kaiseki business dinner awash in a waft of intoxicating scents to find me seated on the plush, windowed-walled couch of our hotel room staring out at the jewel speckled skyline, dark shadows of a river snaking below, a vast garden built by some shogun or samurai, eating rice triangles, and drinking from a bottle of convenience store sake.
To the north of us, dawn is lifting the veil of darkness from the Manhattan skyline, and the tall dark skyscrapers are backlit by a muted orange horizon.
