Harold Reitsema

Who is Harold Reitsema?

Harold James Reitsema is an American astronomer who was part of the teams that discovered Larissa, the fifth of Neptune's known moons, and Telesto, Saturn's thirteenth moon. Reitsema and his colleagues discovered the moons through ground-based telescopic observations. Using a coronagraphic imaging system with one of the first charge-coupled devices available for astronomical use, they first observed Telesto on April 8, 1980, just two months after being one of the first groups to observe Janus, also a moon of Saturn. Reitsema, as part of a different team of astronomers, observed Larissa on May 24, 1981, by watching the occultation of a star by the Neptune system.

Reitsema is also responsible for several advances in the use of false-color techniques as applied to astronomical images. He was a member of the Halley Multicolour Camera team on the ESA Giotto spacecraft that took close-up images of Comet Halley in 1986.

Reitsema received a B.A. in physics from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1972 and a Ph.D. in astronomy from New Mexico State University in 1977.