[meteorite-list] Rosetta Up Close Photo Contest Winners Announced

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Apr 18 12:39:01 2005
Message-ID: <200504181638.j3IGcOB24656_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMKI9W797E_FeatureWeek_0.html

Rosetta Up Close photo contest winners announced
European Space Agency
18 April 2005

ESA received more than 45 fascinating images from Canada, USA, Europe
and Africa during last month's 'Rosetta Up Close' photo contest.
Competition was tight, the quality was universally high and the judges'
job was tough; in the end, eight winners in two categories were
selected. Here we present the winning images, as well as all the
submissions.
 
Eight winning images in two categories (still and animated) for the
'Rosetta Up Close' photo contest were chosen earlier this month and
they're great! This article presents the eight winners (below) and
includes links to an online album showing the rest.

Judging tension runs high

On Friday 7 April, seven members of the Astronomy Club at ESA's Space
Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) met to review the images
submitted and select the winners. The contest, hosted by the
Communications Office at ESA's Space Operations Centre (ESOC), in
Darmstadt, offered some great prizes, including a VIP pass to attend the
Venus Express launch.

This meant that competition was especially fierce and tension was
palpable as the judges, led by Dr Detlef Koschny, a senior Rosetta
mission scientist and a keen amateur astronomer himself, started the
review.

The review committee first agreed on the criteria for judging the
images. It was agreed to use the following criteria:

   1. Esthetic appearance: The image should look 'nice'

   2. Equipment used: In general, using more 'amateur-like' equipment
      should give a higher ranking than using a more professional
      telescope and camera

   3. Special effects: Images showing magnitude changes, asteroids or
      galaxies in the field of view or showing Rosetta speeding up as it
      approached Earth were given more weight

Furthermore, it was decided that the distance of the spacecraft to the
Earth when the image was taken would not play a role in judging. Both
large distances and very short distances pose a challenge; the former
since Rosetta would be very faint, the latter since the craft would be
moving very fast.

Also, images were split into two categories: Group A (still) and Group B
(animated); these were judged separately, thus there are 1st, 2nd and
3rd prizes to be awarded in each category.

 
 
Submissions from international amateurs
 
A total of 36 people submitted images from Europe, USA, Canada and South
Africa comprising 49 still images and 17 animations. The committee
assessed all images in Round 1 and from this produced a short list of
some 10 still images and 8 animations. These were discussed and
reassessed in detail and judged according to the criteria mentioned
earlier.

Group A - still images

In Group A, the judges are pleased to announce the following winners:

   1. 1st Place: Erich Meyer, Davidschlag Observatory, Austria. This
      shows Rosetta on 4 Mar 2005 at 20:10 UTC. The image is
      esthetically very pleasing, tracking Rosetta and showing the stars
      as sharp, regular lines. It was taken with a rather large
      telescope (60 cm), however, this is still a privately funded
      amateur telescope.

   2. 2nd Place: Rolando Ligustri, Talmassons, Italy. He took a series
      of three images with an 80-mm refractor and an SBIG ST9e CCD
      camera on 4 Mar 2005 at 19:30, 20:30 and 21:20 UTC. These images
      are also esthetically pleasing, showing Rosetta as a faint line in
      front of many stars. In addition, the images nicely show the
      increase of apparent speed of the spacecraft. Each image is a
      1-minute exposure, but the line Rosetta makes gets longer and longer.

   3. 3rd Place: Stefano Sposetti, Gnosca, Switzerland. Stefano recorded
      Rosetta with a 40-cm telescope taken on 2 Mar 2005 around 00:00
      UTC. He presents it showing black stars on a white background,
      i.e. as a negative image. The image shows fairly faint stars and
      several galaxies. It reminded the committee of the old
      photographic plates used in the pioneering days of astronomy.


 
 
Group B - animations
 
In this group, it was much more difficult to select the best candidates
and judges spent a lot of time deliberating. In the end, the committee
compromised and selected three 2nd-Place winners:

   1. 1st Place: Thomas Hugentobler, Switzerland. He was the first
      person to submit an image, which showed Rosetta as a faint moving
      dot at a distance of 1.44 million km on 28 February at 21:38 UTC.
      While we later received an image showing Rosetta at an even larger
      distance, Mr. Hugentobler managed to take his image sequence with
      an off-the-shelf commercial amateur telescope, a Meade SCT 12",
      and an SBIG ST7 CCD camera.

   2. 2nd Place (A): Eric J. Allen, Canada. His image, taken on 4 Mar
      2005, 01:52 UTC, is very attractive as the spacecraft is a very
      smoothly moving dot, a consequence of the high number of images
      taken (131) at short exposure times, making it particularly
      pleasing to watch.

      2nd Place (B): G. Masi, F. Mallia, R. Wilcox. They imaged Rosetta
      on 4 Mar 2005 from 02:04 to 02:45m UTC. Their animation ends with
      a nice sum image which looks like a string of pearls, which is
      also very esthetically pleasing. The group used a telescope
      remotely operated in Chile and the judges spent some time
      confirming that the team really qualified as amateurs (they do).

      2nd Place (C): Martin Fiedler, Radebeul, Germany. This image shows
      Rosetta on 3 Mar 2005 around 21:13 to 21:55m UTC. Again, the
      committee enjoyed the smooth motion of Rosetta with no jumps
      visible. In addition, the image also shows minor planet 25342
      moving in the background. This is definitely a 'special effect' as
      defined in the selection criteria.

   3. 3rd Place: Carolina and Francesco Fumagalli, Italy. Using a 310-mm
      f/5 telescope from Calina observatory on 4 Mar 2005 at 20:05 UTC,
      the two prepared a short animation showing Rosetta passing 31 Leo;
      it dramatically shows the faintness of the spacecraft relative to
      the star. Carolina is the daughter of Francesco, and the committee
      wishes to promote with this selection the cooperation between
      generations.

The judges wish to thank all participants and wish them good luck with
future stargazing.

Editor's note: Winners will be contacted in the next several weeks to
confirm addresses and issue prizes.

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Received on Mon 18 Apr 2005 12:38:24 PM PDT