Harold J. Reitsema

Harold J. Reitsema is an 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 now director for Space Science Advanced Programs at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado, and is currently working on the Kepler Space Observatory project.