Special Public Star Night – Friday, December 19, 2025
Little Thompson Observatory
Doors Open: 7:00 | Guest Speaker 7:30 | Observing at LTO: 7:00-10:00
Webb, Roman and HabWorlds – Space Telescopes at the Astronomical Frontier
A special presentation by
Dr. Gregory Wirth
Join us for an evening with Dr. Gregory Wirth of BAE Systems on the remarkable technologies behind NASA’s current and future space telescopes. Learn how the pending Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope promises to change our ideas about dark matter and dark energy with a camera 100 times more powerful than those on Hubble and Webb. Get a glimpse into the future with NASA’s ambitious Habitable Worlds Observatory, designed to identify and study Earth-like exoplanets using cutting-edge optics technology. And learn what new astronomical discoveries NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope is delivering with its astonishingly sharp infrared images of the universe. This accessible talk is geared to all with an interest in astronomy.
Dr. Wirth is an avid astronomer with a passion for sharing his love of space with the public. He studied physics, math, and astronomy at Northwestern University before earning his Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where his thesis exploited early data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Greg spent 16 years on Hawaii’s Big Island at the renowned W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and has lived in Longmont since 2014. He now serves as an astronomer and systems engineer for Boulder-based BAE Systems, a leading American aerospace company with a long history of contributing to groundbreaking astrophysics missions like Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, and Deep Impact.
