Catch a Star!
...and the Winners are...!
Congratulations!
Here is the eagerly awaited list of the prize winners in the "Catch a Star!" competition, as announced by the international jury during a short ceremony on Friday March 4, 2005, during a webcam event from the ESO Headquarters in Garching, at the time of the EAAE General Assembly .
This year saw a record number of entries and again, the jury members were very impressed by the quality of many of the 251 reports that were received and accepted for participation. Much attention was paid to the proper fulfillment of the rules as these were displayed on the top page of the "Catch a Star!" website. In order to be considered for a prize, the reports also had to demonstrate originality, individual initiative and thoroughness. The quality of the presentation also played a role. The jury also decided to award a number of additional prizes, and more teams are therefore receiving official recognition for their good work. There are also some "special prizes".
The jury and all who were involved in the organisation of this year's "Catch a Star!" cordially congratulate the winners! Thank you to all teams who participated! All members of winning teams will receive a personal certificate.
The reports of the winning teams and those that received special prizes are now available (click on the team number). Please note that due to the different formats in which the reports were delivered, there may possibly be some browser incompatibilities. If you have problems with one browser, try to use another (e.g. Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla Firefox). Moreover, although care was taken to check that all links function properly, there may still be some bad ones, since the ESO web servers are UNIX-operated, while most of the reports were generated on PCs in a Window-environment.
Winners of the 1st - 5th Prize (*)
The jury awarded the main prizes - visits to observatories in Chile, Germany and Austria - to the following five teams:
| Place | Prize | Object | Group | Location | Reg. No. |
| 1. prize | A trip to the Paranal Observatory | The Venus Transit | Albert Agraz Sánchez Oscar Puértolas Cabré Kacper Wierzchos Anicet Cosialls Manonelles | Lleida (Spain) | 228 |
| 2. prize | A trip to the Wendelstein Observatory | Comet C/2003K4 (LINEAR) | Nadezhda Lyubomirova Veselka Radeva Hristo Stoev | Varna (Bulgaria) | 003 |
| 3. prize | A trip to ESO HQ in Garching | The Moon | Antoine Clenet Pierre Dabreteau Jean-Jacques Rives | Montaigu (France) | 032 |
| 4. prize | A trip to the Koenigsleiten Observatory | The Venus Transit | Piotr Dworaczek Daniel Neugebauer Stefan Schulz Werner Warland | Düsseldorf (Germany) | 173 |
| 5. prize | A trip to the Koenigsleiten Observatory | The Perseids | Ann Astashonok Christina Karchevskaya Andrei Pobiyaha Siarhei Dubrouski | Gomel (Belarus) | 182 |
Shared 6th Prize (*)
The jury decided to award a shared 6th prize - each a jumbo-size, framed astronomical photo from one of the ESO telescopes - to the following ten teams, listed in order of their registration number:
| Object | Group | Location | Reg. No. |
| Variable Star RZ Cas | Eva Stefanova Bojurova Valerii Valeriev Poshtarov Petar Georgiev Todorov Zhelyo Zhelev Zhelev | Varna (Bulgaria) | 006 |
| The Venus Transit | Diego Castellano Sánchez Daniel Cantero González Irene Llucia López José María Rosales Crespo | Cádiz (Spain) | 035 |
| The Kuiper Belt | Florian Mihai Banc Iulian Ionita Alexandru Lucuan Ionita Andrei Mihai Tudor | Bucharest (Romania) | 039 |
| Variable Stars | Mark Krummelbein Jens-Jakob Kratmann Nissen Peter Sejr Peter Hansen | Lemvig (Denmark) | 215 |
| Alpha Lyrae (Vega) | João Maria Anes Rafael Monteiro Mariana Machado Manuela Amaral | Cascais (Portugal) | 230 |
| Beta Aurigae (Binary Star) | Malte Baer Helena Fischer Jerome Wolpers Martin Falk | Buchholz in der Nordheide (Germany) | 236 |
| Asteroid (9069) Hovland | Aurelien Aureille Alexis Reynaud Guillaume Garaix Jean Strajnic | Orange (France) | 253 |
| Active Galaxies | Ludmilla Buller Mateusz Dabrowski Karol Opara Grzegorz Brona | Warsaw (Poland) | 293 |
| IK Pegasi (Binary Star) | Ivan Zhivkov Dimitrov Hristo Stavrev Stavrev Svetlana Yordanova Tzekova | Elhovo (Bulgaria) | 310 |
| Enceladus | Edina Budai Andrea Szabo | Budapest (Hungary) | 321 |
Thirty-Two Additional Prizes (*)
The jury also decided to give 32 additional prizes to teams who had done a very good work. Each of them will receive the ESO "3D Atlas of the Universe" CD-ROM . They are listed below in order of their registration number.
| Object | Group | Location | Reg. No. |
| The Moon and Lunar Eclipses | Tanya Zhivkova Nikolova Denitsa Georgieva Georgieva Dimitar Georgiev Kokotanekov Rositsa Petkova Zhekova | Dimitrovgrad (Bulgaria) | 024 |
| Messier 42 | Vladimir Alexandrov Leila Chavdarova Anton Iliev | Smolyan (Bulgaria) | 040 |
| The Venus Transit | Georgi Cvetanov Conkov Nadka Stoqnova Ivanova-Dankova Ralica Rumenova Karanikolova Marin Nikolinov Kovachev | Troian (Bulgaria) | 042 |
| Toutatis | Trajan Petkov Petkov Veselka Radeva | Varna (Bulgaria) | 059 |
| Mars | Janis Libeks Iveta Murane Kristina Popila Martins Priedols | Riga (Latvia) | 068 |
| Exoplanets | Jennifer Björklund Sara Levin Saglind Anders Västerberg | Saltsjöbaden (Sweden) | 070 |
| The Venus Transit | Bilyana Hristova Dimitar Kokotanekov Georgi Kokotanekov Vladimir Palankov | Dimitrovgrad (Bulgaria) | 080 |
| The Venus Transit | Tatjana Gulic Alen Jambrosic Andrej Miklavcic Miha Osredkar | Medvode (Slovenia) | 081 |
| The Moon | Alex Feyereisen Fabrice Muller Felix Retter Claude Boncher | Luxembourg (Luxembourg) | 106 |
| Exoplanets | Stefan Iliev Karatodorov Joanna Stefanova Kokotanekova Krasimir Veselinov Vasilev | Haskovo (Bulgaria) | 117 |
| The Venus Transit | Jacek Dargiel Kamil Matuszewski Joanna Trociuk Miroslaw Trociuk | Wlodawa (Poland) | 118 |
| The Venus Transit | Szigeti Balazs | Budapest (Hungary) | 127 |
| The Moon | Mateusz Nowak Kamil Suchodolski Grzegorz Anasiak Jaroslaw Wloszek | Lublin (Poland) | 139 |
| The Venus Transit | Tomas Mojzis Jan Zeman Tereza Weingartova Eva Mojzisova | Teplice (Czech Republic) | 152 |
| Alpha Tauri (Aldebaran) | António Martins Fabiano Fonseca Ofelia Melo Silvestre Beatriz Cachim | Agueda (Portugal) | 154 |
| The Venus Transit | Albert Castelltort LLorenç Samsó Ricardo González Albert Capell | Badalona/Barcelona (Spain) | 180 |
| The Sun | Yuriy Rozhin Andrey Shurikov Konstantin Yokimaitis Alexandr Pobiyakha | Gomel (Belarus) | 184 |
| Io | Manos Veroutis Dimitris Arvanitidis Manos Panagiotis Manos Apostolakis | Pallini Attikis (Greece) | 191 |
| The Sun | Kristian Poulstrup Henrik Bjerregaard Rasmus Davidsen Kirsten Kragbak | Vejle (Denmark) | 197 |
| The Venus Transit | Ivan Nenkov Kolev Milko Todorov Markov Joanna Stefanova Kokotanekova | Haskovo (Bulgaria) | 205 |
| The Venus Transit | Carlos Sampedro-Villasan Jesica Leyva-Rodriguez Sonia Martin-Plata Estefania Molinero-Cortes | Granada (Spain) | 207 |
| The Venus Transit | Jose Manuel Orrego Alvarez Berlarmino Alvarez Alvarez Daniel Dos Santos Machado | Oviedo (Spain) | 213 |
| Exoplanets | Peter Greskovic Peter Rudy | Svidnik (Slovakia) | 226 |
| The Pleiades | Artem Khvastunov Egor Eremeev Stanislav Pashkov Irina Guseva | St. Petersburg (Russia) | 237 |
| The Venus Transit | Gergely Kun Csaba Szávai Alpár Ferenczi | Szentendre (Hungary) | 239 |
| The Sun | Giedra Abramaityte Agne Marudinaite Rigonda Skorulskiené | Vilnius (Lithuania) | 256 |
| Supernova 1987A | Carola Alejandra Campos Hernández Patricio Andrés Manuel Robles Jorge Eduardo Fuentes Peralta Olga Victoria Hernández de la Fuente | Talca (Chile) | 289 |
| Tidal Forces in the Solar System | Marcel Törpe Daniel Weh Clemens Spensberger | Landsberg am Lech (Germany) | 292 |
| The Venus Transit | Diego Manuel Carrasco Pinto Jonathan Rodríguez Gómez Jairo Infantes Andivia Manuel Miguel Reina Viedma | Huelva (Spain) | 295 |
| Sedna | Jakub Macioszek Krzysztof Gregorczuk Natalia Spychala Marek Ogorkiewicz | Suchy Las (Poland) | 300 |
| Titan | Guiseppe Caso Alfredo Lamberti Alfonsina Senatore Ernesta De Masi | Cava de Tirreni (Italy) | 316 |
| The Moon | Agate Rublovska Liva Galina Kristiana Mindere Iveta Murane | Riga (Latvia) | 349 |
Winners of three special prizes! (*)
The jury also decided to present three prizes to participants who have distinguished themselves in a special way. Each of the prizes consists of a visit in the near future by an ESO astronomer to the school of the respective teams, for interaction with students and teachers (as far as possible, in the language of the country):
- Teacher Oita Marinescu-Voicu (Bucharest, Romania), with Laura Chiriazi and Maria Alexandra Crucica ( Team 075 ), for their excellent report on the Moon and as the youngest participants (8 years!)
- Teacher Carme Alemany Miralpeix (Santa Eulália de Riuprimer, Barcelona, Spain) with Raquel Prat Farràs, Nil Serra Tió and Marc Junyent Puig ( Team 265 ), for involving the entire school in the Venus Transit event
- Teacher Anders Västerberg (Saltsjöbaden, Sweden) and the members of Teams 022, 023, 054, 070, 071, 072, 090, 111 and 114 , as the teacher with the largest number of delivered reports that fully conform with the Catch a Star! rules.
(*) The organisers will soon contact all the winning teams to arrange for the transfer of the prizes. Please direct any further questions to eduinfo@eso.org.