Set Adrift on Lunar Seas
There are many reasons why the Moon is an excellent location for locating a telescope. It is geologically stable, it has no atmosphere, and the lunar far side is shielded from the electromagnetic sources of Earth. For a long time, astronomers have contemplated the advantages of constructing telescopes on the Moon and this long-time aspiration might become a realistic possibility due to recent investments in technologies to make transporting payloads to the Moon affordable. The NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is intended to support the development of the lunar economy, and there is a growing number of projects hoping to make good use of this opportunity. One example is the MoonLITE project, which plans to use CLPS to build a sophisticated optical telescope on the Moon.
Tonight's speaker is Dr Gerard van Belle. Dr van Belle is one of the driving forces behind MoonLITE. He'll fill us in on efforts to bring telescopes to the Moon and the amazing science it will enable. His description of his presentation is below.
Dr. Gerard van Belle has been working on the largest telescopes systems on Earth throughout his career. This continuing quest has taken him across the globe: from the tallest mountain in the world, to the driest deserts, to the darkest skies in the US. Dr. van Belle now has his sights set higher ground for his telescopes, with designs for lunar observatories.
About Dr Gerard van Belle
Dr. van Belle is the former Director of Science at the Lowell Observatory. He is an internationally recognized expert in the design, construction, commissioning, and use of optical telescope arrays, for carrying out astronomical observations at the highest levels of spatial resolution. His astrophysical research projects have been pioneering in the fields of fundamental stellar parameters, stellar surface imaging, and characterization of exoplanet host stars. At home he is a not-quite-incompetent homebrewer, and is restoring a vintage Stern Meteor pinball machine.
Recent works: lunar optical telescope array proposal, "MoonLITE" and Caltech-KISS report on lunar telescope arrays
Notable quirk: was a voter in Prague in 2006 on definition of "planet"