Astrophotography Contest
Are you a fledgling astro-photographer or an experienced pro and have an image that you'd like to share with the rest of us?
Awards will be given for the best Photographs & digital images in the following three categories.
You may enter in any of three categories:
-
Best Solar System Object
Lunar, solar, or planetary photos, including comets, meteor showers, eclipses, etc.
-
Best Deep Sky Object; and
Nebulae, galaxies, globular and open clusters, etc.
-
Best Widefield or Starry Landscape.
Low-power wide field or piggy-back photos of star fields, celestial groupings, or starry landscape of the night sky.
Contest Rules:
-
The photo must have been taken between January 1, 2009 and April 1, 2010 (inclusive).
-
ONLY registered NCRAL attendees may participate in the Astrophotography Contest.
-
A photo entrant may enter all three categories, but can only win in one category.
-
To ENTER, complete an NCRAL contest entry form available online here or at the REGISTRATION desk and submit the form and photo before 12 noon on Saturday, April 17, 2010.
Photographs must be exhibited on quality print form (i.e.; no electronic images which require computer/TV screens to display) and mounted on cardboard or poster board. The overall size must not exceed 16" x 20".
Each entry must include the following information to go with your photo display:
-
Contest category
-
Subject name
-
Date and location at which taken.
-
Information about type of medium, i.e., your setup, telescope, camera specifics, eyepiece projection if used, the exposure time of the image, focal ratio of the equipment.
-
Judging: Astrophotos will be blind-judged on technical merit and aesthetic appeal.
Technical and aesthetic issues assessed by the judges will include degree of technical difficulty,
quality of the image given the equipment used, and quality of image processing, and image composition.
There will be one prize awarded for each category.
Ties or disputes will be settled at the discretion of the astrophotography coordinator – John Werner.
-
Popular Choice: Three special tickets will be issued to registered attendees that can
be used to vote the photo (by entry number) representing your “popular choice” for each of the
three categories. There is a limit of one vote per member per category. Contestants can vote
for their entry. The photo receiving the highest number of votes will receive the
Grand Prize – Popular Choice Award.
-
Award Presentations: Contest winners will be announced later on Saturday evening at the banquet.
-
Ownership: All images remain the property of the owner and can be picked up Saturday evening after 5:30p.m.
Download Contest Entry Form