And the Winners Are...

Congratulations to the following winners of the IceinSpace 1st Birthday Competition!

• 1st Prize Winner - Mick 
• 2nd Prize Winner - RapidEye
• 3rd Prize Winner - Astroman

Many thanks to Bintel, Eddie Trimarchi and Australian Sky & Telescope for their support and sponsorship of the competition.

And many thanks to the members of IceInSpace for their continuing valued support and for taking part in the competition.

Click to Enlarge Mike from Bintel (left) and Mike (iceman) from IceInSpace (right)

On the 9th of September 2005, IceInSpace will be 1 year old! To celebrate this special occassion we will be having a competition open to IceInSpace members. The competition is kindly supported by Bintel, Eddie Trimarchi and Australian Sky & Telescope.

The competition will be in the form of 30 quiz style questions about astronomy, and you will have two weeks to get your entries in. The competition will also be promoted in the October issue of Australian Sky & Telescope. We welcome all new members to be part of our 1st Birthday Celebrations!

The prizes, thanks to our generous supporters are:

1st place

• $200 gift voucher at Bintel
• Your choice of one of two signed framed prints by Award winning astrophotographer Eddie Trimarchi. Choose between an A4 size print of the David Malin award winning Tarantula Nebula image, or a 600x200mm image of the Milky Way in Hydrogen-Alpha. Valued at $90.

Click to Enlarge Bintel		Click to Enlarge Tarantula Nebula		Click to Enlarge MilkyWay in H-a

2nd place

• A Telrad 1x viewfinder from Bintel, valued at $89
• A 1 year subscription to Australian Sky & Telescope, valued at $82.50

Click to Enlarge Telrad 1x Viewfinder		Click to Enlarge Australian Sky & Telescope

3rd place

• "The Year Round Messier Marathon Field Guide" by Pennington from Bintel, valued at $59

Click to Enlarge Year Round Messier Marathon

All place getters will also receive an IceInSpace pen and some IceInSpace stickers.

How To Enter

To enter the competition, follow these easy steps:

1. You first have to be sign up to be a member of the IceInSpace Forums. To do this, simply register with the forums and don't forget to use a valid email address as you will need it to activate your account. It's free to become a member and will only take you 30 seconds!
2. Answer all (or as many as you can) of the quiz questions.
3. Submit your entry by sending a Private Message to me (iceman) via the forums before the close date of 5pm 23rd September 2005 AEST. The message should contain your answers, and make sure they are numbered.

Quiz Questions and Answers

The competition has now closed, here are the questions and answers that were accepted.

1. Who wrote “Sidereus Nuncius" ?  

   A: Galileo

2. Which constellation represents long hair? 

   A: Coma Berenice

3. What constellation recalls a Polish king? 
   

   A: Scutum

4. How long is a synodic month?   
   

   A: Approx 29.5 days

5. How many solar eclipses are there each year? 
   

   A: At least 2, maximum of 5. Any answers between that range were accepted.

6. Which planet has features named for artists, composers and writers?
   

   A: Mercury

7. Where is the 4.3m William Herschel telescope? 
   

   A: La Palma, Canary Islands. The WHT is actually 4.2m, and the ESA is launching what they call the Herschel Space Observatory in 2007, which is 4.3m. So this answer was also accepted.

8. What is the limiting magnitude of a 200mm telescope? 
   

   A: Due to differing calculations, any answer between 13 and 15.5 was accepted.

9. King Tyndareus’ wife is familiar with which constellation?
   

   A: Cygnus and Gemini were both accepted.

10. Where is Rupes Recta?    
    

    A: On the moon (straight wall/lunar fault).

11. Which spacecraft found indications of water at both of the Moon’s poles?
    

    A: The Lunar Prospector. Clementine is not correct, as it only found evidence at the South pole, not both poles as the question asked.

12. What was the diameter of Grote Reber’s original radio telescope?
    

    A: Approximately 9 metres, or 31.5 feet. Answers within 1/2 a metre were accepted.

13. What would you do with a schiefspiegler? 
    

    A: It's a telescope, look through it.

14. What is the temperature of a blue supergiant star?    
    

    A: Due to the vast range of sources, anything between 10,000 - 60,000 deg Celcius and 10,000 - 60,000 deg Kelvin was accepted.

15. What percentage of sunlight is reflected from the Moon? 
    

    A: Anything between 5-18% was accepted.

16. What gases are nebulae mostly made of? 
    

    A: Hydrogen mostly, so anything with Hydrogen was accepted.

17. Where would you find “barred olivine chondrules”? 
    

    A: In a meteorite.

18. Who was H. C. Russell?   
    

    A: Government Astronomer, Meteoroligist, Author, Director of Sydney Observatory all correct.

19. In what year and what country was John Dobson born?  
    

    A: 1915 in China.

20. Carl Zeiss and  Ernst Abbe joined a third man to develop new types of optical glass in 1884. Who was the third man?  
    

    A: Otto Schott.

21. How many stars have (visual) magnitudes of less than 0? Name them.
    

    A: 4 (Sirius, Alpha Centauri, Canopus, Arcturus). 5 is also correct if you count the Sun.

22. How many of today's constellations were originally the giant constellation of Argo Navis? Name them.
    

    A: Due to the wide range of conflicting information, 3 (Carina, Vela and Puppis), 4 (Carina, Vela, Puppis, Pyxis) and 6 (Carina, Vela, Puppis, Pyxis, Volans, Columba) were accepted as correct.

23. What is the largest (degrees of arc) planatery nebula?
    

    A: The popular answer Helix was accepted, as well as the more recent findings Hewitt 1, PG1034+001 and sh2-216. Any of these are correct.

24. Which famous astronomer died the year that Sir Isaac Newton was born?
    

    A: Galileo

25. Which apollo 14 astronaut achieved a famous first on the lunar surface, and what did he do?
    

    A: Alan Shephard, he played golf!

26. What star lights up Hubble's Nebula?
    

    A: R Monocerotis

27. Which triple star system was expected to feature in an occultation with Pluto and its moon Charon?
    

    A: P126 (in 2002)

28. What was the third discovery of Caroline Herschel?
    

    A: NGC253 (on 23/09/1783). Comet C/1790 A1 (in 1790) is not correct, that was her third comet discovery, but not her third discovery.

29. On which celestial body is the structure called "Pele" found, and what is it?
    

    A: It's a volcano on Jupiters' moon Io.

30. Which 2 of Saturn's moons share the same orbit?
    

    A: All of the following were accepted, due to there being more than one correct answer and also due to poor wording of the question.
    Janus (1980 S1) and Epimetheus (1980 S3),
    Dione and Helene,
    Tethys, Telesto, Calypso
    Tethys, Telesto
    Tethys, Calypso
    Telesto, Calypso

Don't forget to follow the instructions in the How To Enter section, and remember to read the rules!

Competition Rules

Please read the rules carefully, and be sure to ask any questions on the forum if anything is unclear. A thread discussing the competition is found here in the General Chat section.

1. The competition is open to all IceInSpace Forum registered members, including the moderators. The moderators are volunteers and have had no involvement in organising this competition, so they are eligible to enter. The administrators (mojo and myself) are not eligible to enter.
2. There is no minimum length of membership to be eligible to enter; anyone who is a member before the closing date can participate.
3. The competition will be launched on the IceInSpace 1 year anniversary date, September 9th 2005 at 9am AEST and will run for 2 weeks. The competition will close at 5pm AEST on the 23rd of September 2005.
4. All entries must be sent via Private Message to me (iceman) via the forum, before the closing date. Entries received after the closing date will not be eligible.
5. Only 1 entry per member is accepted.
6. On (or around) the 27th of September 2005, all correct entries will be placed into a barrel and the first, second and third place getters will be drawn in that order out of the barrel. The actual date of the draw will be announced as it gets closer.
7. Prizes will be posted out to the winners in the week following the draw, after all winners have been contacted and acknowledged their prize.
8. Where a question has more than one right answer, any of the correct answers will be accepted.
9. The winners will be contacted via email or forum PM and may have their names displayed on this site. Make sure your profile is setup to receive PM's and ensure your email address is valid so that you can be contacted!
10. All winners must acknowledge their prize within 1 week of the draw. In the event that the winner cannot be contacted, the runners up will receive the next available prize and a new 3rd place winner will be drawn.
11. The prizes cannot be converted to cash.
12. The judges decision is final and no correspondance will be entered into.