The ballots have been counted and the winners chosen in a contest between spacecraft-hunting skywatchers.

Judges for the European Space Agency (ESA) chose this snapshot of its Rosetta spacecraft as the champion of the still image category during a March 2005 competition to track the comet-bound probe during its first Earth flyby.

Erich Meyer of Austria’s Davidschlag Observatory caught this glimpse of Rosetta on March 4, 2005 using a 60-centimeter telescope. Judges said this image of the spacecraft was particularly eye-pleasing, depicting Rosetta as a bright point of light and background stars sharp, regular lines.

Meyer’s entry was one of 45 pored over by judges. Other winners were chosen based on the aesthetic quality of their observations, the equipment used and the appearance of special effects – such as magnitude changes or Rosetta’s increase in speed as it past through the Earth-moon system.

Rosetta’s Earth flyby was the first of three swings around our planet – with another around Mars – with the closest approach occurring over the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 1,954 kilometers. Rosetta is in the midst of a 10-year voyage to rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 and drop the Philae lander on its surface.

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: E. Meyer/ESA.