competition rules

Fornax Mounts Astrophotography Competition 2021

 

Article 1:

GENERAL PROVISIONS

 

1.1 The Rules (hereinafter referred to as “the Rules”) define the terms and conditions of participation in the Fornax Mounts Astrophotography Competition 2021, hereinafter referred to as “the Competition”.

1.2 The Rules come into force on the day the Competition starts and are in force until the moment it ends.

1.3 The Competition is organized by Fornax 2002 Ltd. (Hungary), hereinafter referred to as “the Organizer”.

1.4 The Competition is to be judged by a group of individuals chosen exclusively by the Organizer, hereinafter referred to as “the Jury”.

1.5 It is a one-stage competition.

1.6 It is an open competition, i.e. it is addressed to all enthusiasts of astronomy and astrophotography. No purchase is necessary.

1.7 The Rules constitute the only document including the terms and conditions of the Competition.

 

 

Article 2:

COMPETITION PARTICIPANTS

 

2.1 Persons who participate in the Competition (hereinafter referred to as “the Participants”) must be natural persons, of age, with full capacity to enter into legal transactions.

2.2 Organizer’s employees and Jury members cannot take part in the Competition. So as the family members of the Organizer and the Jury.

 

 

Article 3:

COMPETITION ENTRIES

 

3.1 A Competition Entry includes a single photograph or a series of photographs taken by a Competition Participant, as well as Photograph Details Form constituting Appendix no. 1 to the Rules. A series of photographs includes photographs of the same object or the same astronomic event.

3.2 The Organizer has the right to contact Participants in order to ask them to supplement incomplete data.

3.3 A Competition Entry that does not contain all of the elements mentioned in par. 3.1 will be rejected.

 

3.4 The Competition is organized in the following categories:

3.4.1  Category I: Deep Sky Objects (photographs of star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, etc.),

3.4.2  Category II: Solar System Objects (photographs of planets, the Moon, comets, meteors, eclipses, object transits, etc.),

3.4.3  Category III: Astrolandscape (photographs showing landscape elements with astronomical objects, e.g. astronomical object rising and/or setting, movement of the celestial sphere, etc.).

 

3.5 A Participant may submit a maximum of 5 Competition Entries (photographs) jointly in each of the three categories outlined in par. 3.4; however, only one entry per Participant may be awarded a prize in each category.

3.6 Photographs may be colour or black and white, either in horizontal or vertical format. Preferred file formats are .jpg or .tiff, and each Competition Entry uploaded may be a maximum of 50 Mb. The photographs should not contain signatures, descriptions, or watermarks.

 

3.7 Competition Entries should be upload solely at:
www.fornaxmounts.com/competition

 

3.8 A Competition Entry uploaded according to the standards mentioned in par. 3.7 means that a Participant:

3.8.1 has accepted the provisions of the Competition Rules.

3.8.2 has given his/her consent for his/her Competition Entry to be presented at the post-competition exhibition and in the post-competition album, to be published in Competition documents, on the Organizer’s website, and in press releases concerning the Competition.

3.8.3 has given his/her consent for the Organizer to processes Participant’s personal data in order to organize the Competition and award prizes.

 

3.9 When Competition prizes are awarded, prize-winners will be asked to submit the data needed to sign the agreement mentioned in par. 6.3, as well as .jpg or .tiff files in a minimum resolution of 3000 x 4500 px at 300 dpi. Such minimum resolution is not obligatory for Competition Entries in the “Solar System Objects” category. A Participants submitting entries in this category that are  of a lower resolution than outlined above in par 3.9 are obliged to make an appropriate note on the Photograph Details Form.

 

3.10 During the Competition each Participant must have a permanent e-mail address.

 

3.11 The Organizer may demand from a Participant additional verification and confirmation of copyrights mentioned in par. 7 of the Rules. One of the forms of such verification and confirmation may be calling a Participant to present an original photograph or a series of photographs being the basis for a Competition Entry.

 

 

Article 4:

COMPETITION TIMELINE

 

4.1 The Competition starts on 01 August 2021 and ends on 31 October 2021.

4.2 Competition Entries must be submitted on or before 28 November 2021, 12:00 PM Central European Summer Time – CEST (UTC +2)

4.3 If no confirmation has been sent, it is deemed that the Organizer has not received a Competition Entry.

4.4 Competition results will be announced before the end of December 2021.

4.5 The Organizer reserves for itself the right to change the deadline for submitting Competition Entries and announcing Competition results.

 

 

Article 5:

EVALUATION OF COMPETITION ENTRIES

 

5.1 In order to evaluate Competition Entries the Organizer nominates the Jury in the following composition:

5.1.1 Lóránd Fényes (Hungary) – Fornax Mounts brand ambassador

5.1.2 Alex Conu (Norway) – Fornax Mounts brand ambassador

5.1.3 Mehmet Ergün (Germany) – Fornax Mounts brand ambassador

5.1.4 Gáspár Bakos (USA) – Professor of Astrophysical Sciences Princeton University

5.1.5 Bence Sári (Hungary) – Fornax 2002 Ltd delegated, Street and wedding photographer, Student of Metropolitan University Photography MA class

 

5.2 The Jury controls the correctness of the Competition process and evaluates Competition Entries on the basis of the criteria mentioned in par. 5.4.

 

5.3 The Jury’s decisions concerning the evaluation of Competition Entries are valid, if taken in the presence of at least three Jury members.

 

5.4 Competition Entries will be evaluated in three stages. At the first stage the Jury members will jointly select at maximum 15 best Entries in each category. At the second stage each Jury member will evaluate Entries individually by granting from 1 to 5 points in each of the following areas:

5.4.1  content: object type, observed brightness, level of difficulty in imaging an object, phenomenon’s exoticness (uniqueness), etc.,

5.4.2  aesthetics: object’s visual attractiveness, picture sharpness, noise reduction, etc.

 

5.5 The final number of points received by a Competition Entry is the sum of points granted by individual Jury members in both above-mentioned areas.

 

5.6 The sum of points will be used to create a ranking of Competition Entries, i.e. to arrange them from those with the biggest to those with the smallest number of points. If two or more Entries receive the same number of points, the Jury will vote which of them will have a higher position in the ranking.

 

 

Article 6:

PRIZES

 

6.1 The prizes:

6.1.1 – GRAND PRIZE: Fornax 52 mount + MC5 controller

6.1.2 – 2nd Prize in each Category: LighTrack II Full Set

6.1.3 – 3rd Prize in each Category: LighTrack II mount

6.1.4 – 4th Prize in each Category: 60% OFF from any LighTrack II Set or Accessories for the LighTrack II mount

6.1.5 – 5th Prize in each Category: 40% OFF from any LighTrack II Set or Accessories for the LighTrack II mount

6.1.6  – 6th Prize in each Category: 20% OFF from any LighTrack II Set or Accessories for the LighTrack II mount

 

6.2 The Organizer reserves itself the right to award honorary mentions in each category.

 

6.3 A prizes will be awarded, provided a Participant who has been awarded such prize has signed a copyright (licence) agreement constituting Appendix no. 2 to the Rules and has delivered the files mentioned in par. 3.9. If a Participant fails to sign the agreement within two weeks from the date he/she is informed about the Competition results or fails to deliver the files, the prize will be granted to the next Participant with the highest number of points in a specific category.

 

6.4 A prize is subject to taxes according to general principles.

 

6.5 Jury’s decision about prizes is final and no appeals will be taken into account.

 

6.6 Competition results will be published on the Organizer’s website. Prize-winners will be informed about Competition results by e-mail.

 

6.7 The Organizer reserves itself the right to desist from awarding prizes in the Competition.

 

6.8 We accept all photos that were previously entered in a photo contest, but  photos that have won or placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd in previous photography contests (including “Photo of the year”-type contests) may not be submitted. Photos of the day, week, or month are not considered photography contests.

 

6.9 Moreover all Participants take note of the fact that entries can not show up in any professional print or online media such as magazines or e-zines, or be available or have been available for purchase in any form such as through online marketplaces, stock photo sites, private sale both online and offline, either previous to or for the duration of the Competition.

 

Article 7:

COPYRIGHTS

 

7.1 Competition Participants retain full ownership of the copyrights they hold in relation to their Entries, and these copyrights do not pass to and are never held by the Organizer.

As the proper legal holders of the Entries’ copyrights, Participants authorize the Organizer to use non-exclusively and free of charge the Entries delivered for the Competition within the scope defined in par. 3.8.2 for 5 years starting from the date of announcing Competition results, with no need to sign a separate agreement, subject to provisions of par. 7.3.

 

7.2 Formats and sizes in which the photographs have been delivered may be changed to the extent justified by the photograph use defined in the Rules.

 

7.3 Moreover, on the basis of a copyright (licence) agreement (having regard to the fact that Act LXXVI of 1999 Pursuant to Section 1 (2) (i) of the Act, a photographic work is subject to copyright protection)

7.4 Pursuant to Section 23 of the above Act, the right of distribution by the Organizer also extends to the lending of certain copies of the work to the public.

7.5  The Organizer may disseminate the photographs in other ways than those defined in sections 1–4 – show (exhibit, project, reproduce) the photographs at an open exhibition, enter them into the memory of Organizer’s computers, disseminate them with the help of the Internet (e.g. website, electronic mail, ftp servers), Intranet, Extranet and other computer networks, broadcast them by a ground station through wire and wireless transmission, broadcast them through a satellite.

7.6 The Participant gives his/her consent for photograph editing or having them edited by third parties for publishing purposes or for cropping or having them cropped by third parties for Organizer’s promotion purposes, and to use such developments and the rights to such developments in the fields of exploitation defined in sections 1–4.