When the first man walked on the Moon, DLR Facility Head Rolf Hempel was sitting in front of the television and sharing in the excitement. Since then, he has spent much of his spare time on his hobby of astronomy. For years he was one of the keenest asteroid observers in Germany. As a student, he developed a software package for calculating the orbits of asteroids. Today the astronomy anthusiast photographs the International Space Station, Jupiter and, of course, the Moon.