TY - CONF
TI - NELIOTA: ESA's new NEO lunar impact monitoring project with the 1.2m
telescope at the National Observatory of Athens
AU - Bonanos, Alceste
AU - Liakos, Alexios
AU - Xilouris, Manolis
AU - Boumis,
AU - Panayotis
AU - Bellas-Velidis, Ioannis
AU - Maroussis, Athanassios and
AU - Dapergolas, Anastasios
AU - Fytsilis, Anastasios
AU - Noutsopoulos,
AU - Andreas
AU - Charmandaris, Vassilis
AU - Tsiganis, Kleomenis and
AU - Tsinganos, Kanaris
AU - Els, Sebastian
AU - Koschny, Detlef
AU - Lock, Tim
AU - and Navarro, Vicente
PY - 2016
SP - null
PB - SPIE - INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING
T2 - MODELING, SYSTEMS ENGINEERING, AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR ASTRONOMY VII
TODO - 10.1117/12.2232453
TODO - Moon; flash; impact; Lunar imager; Lunar monitoring; fast imaging;
sCMOS; near-earth objects
TODO - NELIOTA is a new ESA activity launched at the National Observatory of
Athens in February 2015 aiming to determine the distribution and
frequency of small near-earth objects via lunar monitoring. The
objective of this 3.5 year activity is to design, develop and implement
a highly automated lunar monitoring system, which will conduct an
observing campaign for 2 years, starting in the Summer 2016, in search
of NEO impact flashes on the Moon. The project involves: (i) a complete
refurbishment of the 40 year old 1.2m Kryoneri telescope of the National
Observatory of Athens, (ii) development of a Lunar imager for the prime
focus with two fast-frame sCMOS cameras, and (iii) procurement of
servers for data processing and storage. Furthermore, we have developed
a software system that controls the telescope and the cameras, processes
the images and automatically detects lunar flashes. NELIOTA provides a
web-based user interface, where the impact events, after their
verification and characterization, will be reported and made available
to the scientific community and the general public. The novelty of this
project is the dedication of a large, 1.2m telescope for lunar
monitoring, which is expected to characterize the frequency and
distribution of NEOs weighing as little as a few grams.
ER -