Galilean Nights




The Galileo Experience

Four hundred years since Galileo’s telescopic observations revolutionised our view of the Universe, the public will once again be turning their attention to the heavens. People all around the world are encouraged to take part in Galilean Nights activities on 22-24 October 2009 and experience for themselves the same sense of awe and wonder that Galileo must have felt.






Competition Rules

General Rules for the Galilean Nights Astrophotography Competition

In the framework of the Galilean Nights Cornerstone Project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the International Astronomical Union and Europlanet are the organisers of the Galilean Nights Astrophotography Competition (the Competition) and Galilean Nights Flickr group. The competition focuses on the astronomical objects that Galileo first observed 400 years ago. By entering the Competition you agree to comply with the following competition rules.

1. The Competition is announced at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, on 17 September 2009. Submission to the competition will be via the Galilean Nights Flickr group, using the appropriate tags. All entries must be submitted to the Galilean Nights Flickr group by 27 October 2009, 23:59 hrs GMT/UT. All entries submitted later than this date will be excluded. Photographs submitted by any method other than the Flickr group will be excluded.
2. Submission to the Galilean Nights Flickr group is open to anybody, while submission to the Competition is open to anybody except those involved in the running of the Competition, judging panel, Galilean Nights Task Group, employees of Europlanet, the IAU or Yahoo! or their direct relatives. Those aged under 18 are able to participate under the responsibility of a person legally in charge of parental authority.
3. The photographs must be taken during the dates of the competition, between 17 September 2009 and 27 October 2009. Photographs must not have been previously published or a winner of another photography competition.
4. The Competition is split into two categories. Entrants to the Competition are allowed to submit a maximum of three (3) photographs into each category. In the event that more than three photographs are submitted to a category of the competition, three of the submitted photographs will be arbitrarily selected.

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   1. The first category is titled “Earth and Sky”. Entries to this category must show part of the surface of the Earth with one or more of the Galilean Objects in the sky above. Photographs under this category must be submitted to the Galilean Nights Flickr group and be tagged with the words “competition” and “earthandsky”. Use of a telescope is not allowed.
   2. The second category is titled “Beyond Earth”. Entries to this category must show one or more of the Galilean Objects, but not show any aspect of the Earth. Photographs under this category must be submitted to the Galilean Nights Flickr group and be tagged with the words “competition” and “beyondearth”. Use of a telescope is allowed up to a maximum diameter of 20 cm (approximately 8 inches).

1. For the purposes of the Competition, the Galilean Objects are taken to be:

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   1. The Sun
   2. Venus
   3. The Moon
   4. Jupiter
   5. Saturn
   6. The Milky Way
   7. The Pleiades (Messier object 45)
   8. The Beehive Cluster (Messier object 44)
   9. The Orion Nebula (Messier object 42)

1. Post-processing of photographs is allowed, however if your photograph is short-listed, judges will request details of any processing techniques used and technical details of your photograph and this will be taken into consideration when assessing the entries.
2. Europlanet and the Galilean Nights Task Group will select a panel of judges to assess the entries. The deliberations of the panels are confidential and the findings definitive. No appeal will be accepted and no correspondence entered into. They cannot be brought before a court of justice. Photographs will be assessed for

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   1. Originality
   2. Technical quality
   3. Creative expression

1. You retain complete copyright of your photograph but by submitting a photograph to the Galilean Nights Flickr group you agree to your photograph being used on the Galilean Nights, Europlanet and related IYA2009 websites and for other non-profit IYA2009 activities. You may withdraw your entry at any time by removing it from the Galilean Nights Flickr group.
2. Following the close of the competition, a shortlist of entries will be drawn up from which the winners will be selected. If your photo is shortlisted, you will be contacted via e-mail during the week commencing 30th November. If you do not respond to the e-mail within one week of the date of the e-mail, your photo will not be included on the shortlist. You will be asked to provide the following:

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   1. Your name, address, e-mail address and telephone number. These contact details will only be used or passed onto third parties (e.g. for the distribution of prizes) for the purposes of running the competition. Your name and country will appear with your photograph in the event that short-listed and winning photographs are publically displayed or distributed.
   2. A high resolution version of the photograph. The photograph must be at least six (6) megapixels, 300dpi
   3. All technical details of the photograph, including post-processing and digital manipulation. This must include the following:
      1. Camera type
      2. Focal length of the lens focal length and relative aperture and/or telescope diameter if applicable
      3. Exposure time
      4. Sensitivity (if applicable).
   4. A written statement acknowledging that you authorise the organisers of the Galilean Nights Photography Competition and the IYA2009 royalty-free use of your photograph for non-profit and awareness-raising purposes. You will retain copyright of your photograph. This agreement holds regardless of whether the photograph is subsequently removed from the Galilean Nights Flickr group. If aged under 18, the statement must have written agreement from a parent or guardian.

1. The panel will select a winner and two runners-up for each of the two categories, “Earth and Sky” and “Beyond Earth”. The prize for the winner in each category will be a Celestron SkyScout offered by ESA. The first runner-up will receive an iPod Touch with Star Walk software provided by Vito Technology and the highly commended entry will receive a Sky Atlas provided by Sky and Telescope magazine.
2. The winners will be announced on 21st December on the IYA2009 and Galilean Nights websites and may also be announced on the websites of Europlanet and prize sponsors.
3. Use of the Galilean Nights Flickr group indicates understanding and agreement of the Flickr Terms of Service.
4. By submitting your entry to the Competition, you declare that the entry represents your own work and that you are the copyright holder. You agree to undertake to hold the organisers of the Competition harmless against any and all claims by third parties.
5. The Galilean Nights Task Group and Europlanet reserve the right to cancel the Galilean Nights Flickr group and the Competition and change the prizes and rules at any time and will not be held liable for any losses an entrant may incur.
6. Participation in the Competition implies agreement with these General Rules.

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"My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?"
--Letter from Galileo Galilei to Johannes Kepler


In the 1633 trial of Galileo Galilei, two worlds come into cosmic conflict. Galileo's world of science and humanism collides with the world of Scholasticism and absolutism that held power in the Catholic Church. The result is a tragedy that marks both the end of Galileo's liberty and the end of the Italian Renaissance

On the morning of June 22, 1633, Galileo, dressed in the white shirt of penitence, entered the large hall of the Inquisition building. He knelt and listened to his sentence: "Whereas you, Galileo, the son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine....." The reading continued for seventeen paragraphs:

And, so that you will be more cautious in future, and an example for others to abstain from delinquencies of this sort, we order that the book Dialogue of Galileo Galilei be prohibited by public edict. We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure.

As a salutary penance we impose on you to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. And we reserve to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting, or taking off, the whole or part of the said penalties and penances.

This we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, order and reserve by this or any other better manner or form that we reasonably can or shall think of. So we the undersigned Cardinals pronounce.

Seven of the ten cardinals signed the sentence.

Following the reading of the sentence, Galileo knelt to recite his abjuration:

....[D]esiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this strong suspicion, reasonably conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church; and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me....

I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present do***ent of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633.

I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.

Two days later, Galileo was released to the custody of the Florentine ambassador. Niccolini described his charge as "extremely downcast over his punishment." After six days in the custody of Niccolini, custody of Galileo transferred to Archbishop Piccolomini in Sienna. In late 1633, Galileo received permission to move into his own small farmhouse in Arcetri, where he would grow blind and, in 1642, die.

 

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