Related: Importance of Moon Sighting | First day's moon on UK horizon | Winning Crescent Moon Photos
Looking at the predicted crescent visibility maps for a whole year, it can be seen that from the start of 1439 AH (2017/2018) the first day's crescent moon (Hilal) appears on the northern hemisphere almost every month. [Read more]
Therefore, to encourage more Hilal sighting participation in the UK, we have decided to run a "Spot the Moon Photo Competition" every month from the UK and whoever is judged to submit the best photo of the Hilal will be the winner, InShaAllah.
If you wish to support the prize by purchasing any of the ICOUK Merchandise, please click: Donate.
Terms and Conditions (T&C)
The photo(s) will be published on our ICOUK website and the winner may be asked to select the next month's winning photo of the Hilal (with or without landscape). The photo(s) submitted must be original (with date/time stamp meta data) and the report must be submitted within 1 hour of the observer’s sunset time (so it can be taken into consideration for decision making when to start the month).
If the photo is not ready to be submitted within the above timescale (e.g. due to technical delays of downloading the files from the camera), then a note must be added to the report that it will be sent as soon as possible.
The ICOUK website photo upload may not accept photo sizes greater than 5 MB each, in which case you may submit the report without the photo and email it (or a Google/One Drive shared link) to the address stated on our online Contact Us form. Please contact us via SMS/WhatsApp if any problems ASAP.
The winning prize for any monthly Hilal Photo will be either a "Collins Moongazing: Beginner’s guide to exploring the Moon (Royal Observatory Greenwich)" book (or one of the ICOUK Merchandise on the Donate page) and for the Holy month of Ramadan, it will be a pair of (10x50) Astronomy Binoculars (or alternative competition prizes), InShaAllah.
The runners-up may claim an ICOUK keyring on the Donate page. We reserve the right to provide an alternative/equivalent value of the prize in unforeseen circumstances.
The winner will be notified within 3 days of sending the Observation Report and the prize will be sent to the observer’s address on the registration form or the equivalent value as a Gift Voucher.
Anyone wishing to take part in the competition must have prior Membership Registration on the ICOUK website to minimise any potential delays in the submission of the Observation Report photos.
The Judges who will assess the winning photos will include (1) Eng. Qamar Uddin (York), (2) Br Juned Patel (Bolton) and (3) one other (e.g. previous winner of the photo competition).
Credits/Acknowledgements
The Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said: “He who does not thank the people is not thankful to Allah”, (Abu Dawud, Book 43, Hadith 39).
Any observation photos submitted to our website are published under the observer’s name in an effort to thank them for their efforts. However, we reserve the right to add our website address/logo to the photos to help our visitors acknowledge the source under the relevant copyright laws. If someone else has given you permission to use their photos, please mention their name in the comment section of the report (e.g. Photo by: <full name>). If you wish to add some details on the photo (e.g. name, date/time, location etc), please do so on the top-left corner only and leave the rest of the photo blank (which may be watermarked by our website automatically).
If you have any comments or questions regarding this competition, please do not hesitate to email us via our online Contact Us form.