Research Professor (Emeritus)
About
Pat Seitzer conducts research in Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and optical studies of orbital debris. Using U-M’s 0.6-meter Curtis-Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, he and his collaborators conduct optical surveys to determine the total amount of debris at geosynchronous orbit (GEO) then follow up with spectroscopy with the 6.5-m Magellan telescopes to characterize particular objects. Magellan is also used to do deep pencil-beam surveys for faint orbital debris in the GEO regime.
He served on the NASA delegation to the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordinating Committee (IADC) from 2001 through 2015.
Additional Interests
Star clusters, history of Michigan astronomy.
Background
BS, Georgetown University; PhD, University of Virginia. Instrument Scientist, Space Telescope Science Institute; Astronomer, Kitt Peak National Observatory; Postdoc, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/Chile.
Publications
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