As amateur astronomers can help lunar mission LADEE

Mission Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) scheduled for launch into space from Wallops Island on September 5 this year. LADEE will be the first mission, sent from the Wallops Island, which will go beyond low-Earth orbit. As a joint project of the Goddard Space Flight Center and NASA Ames Research Center, LADEE will learn from orbit conditions that exist on the Moon, including its tenuous exosphere.

Scientists hope with this mission for a long time to answer the facing space science questions: how thin is the lunar atmosphere? how often clashes with the Moon micrometeoroids?

In preparation for the mission, the project team LADEE merged with the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO), calling for amateur astronomers to look at the moon flashes, indicating its surface collisions with micrometeoroids. Ideally, the need for such observation station including a telescope with an aperture of not less than 20 centimeters. In addition, participation in the project requires the mandatory presence of video recording device. All hardware requirements for observations presented in detail here .