Starship Asterisk*

I am wondering, what power telescope would it take to see the remains of the Apollo missions still on the moon, such as the Eagle, or the lunar rover or its tracks?

If an observatory has this capability, they should offer a day each year for public viewing, perhaps the anniversary of the 1st moon landing.

This day ought to be a National Holiday or observance, as well.
Perhaps, also, it should be law that it is noted on every calendar commercially sold.

James Davies,
Bellinghma, WA
StormbirdMe262@aol.com

No current telescope can see such small detail, even hubble can't do it. I read it somewhere else, but I forgot the link. It would take a very very powerful telescope to discern such small detail so far away.

skyglow1

Hmm ... I would still argue the notion of not possible. Websites are unreliable sources.

Try some amateur reasoning - It is a well known ''rumor'' that our spy satellites can read the writing on a golf ball, or something like that.

And Hubble can examine virtual pinpoint sectors in space.
Considering the comparitive scale and corresponding distance to the 'local' moon. It is reasonable to presume it might be possible.

So - Which earthbound observatory is the largest scope? The one in Hawaii on the summit? The director of that is the one to ask for a definitve answer.

James D,
Bellingham, WA

WHEN COMPLETED THE LARGEST TELESCOPE WILL BE THE VLT IN CHILE
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990309.html
THIS APOD FROM 1999 TELLS ABOUT IT

http://www.eso.org/projects/vlt/
THIS IS THE WEBSITE FOR THE VLT PROJECT.

And, where/what's the largest visible light scope in the US?

James D

Several of the Apollo Luna Surface Experimental Packages included the deployment of laser reflectors that are used to accurately measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon by measuring the mean time for a laser wavefront to propagate to the moon, be reflected, and return to Earth.

I have seen mpgs of the resultant "wink" of light.

In a sense that is 'seeing' the Apollo debris, given that vision is the detection of light relfected from an object.

Thanks for your input. I am aware of the laser reflector placed on the moon for measurement purposes. Certainly something to reflect upon.

However, from the perspective of the Conspiracy Theorist - who are by nature very suspicious and prone to believe anythig except the asserted truths - a reflector could have been placed by an unmanned probe at any time since Apollo.

Furthermore, the Conspiracy Types would as easily assert another explanation for a 'wink' of relected light. Even a special, naturally occurring geological formation.

Though - without diverting this thread - it would be an interesting bit of history trivia to read the story of targeting that laser on that pinpoint. Might have been a challenge. Much like it would be a challenge to target a telescope on the Eagle for viewing. The Moon is a 'fast' moving object, and the Eagle is small. Though it is known which sector of the moon was the landing site.

- James D
Bellingham, WA

To re-narrow the thread back to the origin. I am still interested in the answer to the question, what power telescope would it take to see the Eagle remains of Apollo on the Moon?

I suppose this is actually a mathematical question:
In other words:
- If the narrowest viewabe surface area of the moon is an unknown -
At the distance to the moon from Earth, how does a 20-30 foot wide object (or zone of surface) compare to, say, a star at known 'X' light years away?
Thusly the performance of the telescope might be derived?

What power telescope would it take to see the Eagle remains of Apollo on the Moon?

- James D
Bellingham, WA

Let's pretend that the remains on the moon have left features of roughly 50m in size (say big long shadows). Your question then turns into: what magnifications resolves features of 50m located 400,000 km away?

A feature of (s=) 50m located (R=) 400,000km away would tend an arc (theta) of:

s = theta*R, theta = h/R
theta = (50 m)/(400, 000, 000 m) = 125 x 10-9 radians.

Biology tells us that our eye can take in features of about 62 seconds of arc (which translates into 300 x 10-6 radians).

So we'd need roughly a 2400 power scope to see this shadow. Bummer that our atomosphere generally doesn't allow seeing better than say 300X.

They say that the HST was capable of resolving features on the moon of roughly 85m (it, of course, wasn't fighting the seeing of the earth's atmosphere). Is it too late to purchase some time on the HST?

~Neal

on the sky at night (an English bbc program about the universe) they were talking about plans to build a telescope large enough to make out the atmosphere of distant planets.

that should be up to the job one day

And, where/what's the largest visible light scope in the US?

James D

IF I AM NOT MISTAKEN, AND SOMEONE CORRECT ME IF I AM, THE LARGEST VISIBLE LIGHT TELESCOPE ON US SOIL IS THE KECK OBSERVATORY IN HAWAII

BRYAN

A great question in regard to a provicative subject. And thanks to Neal we have a reasonable answer.

I have pondered that myself. (as I'm sure many other have as well.)
The law of averages, it seems to me, would predict that if it were possible to capture such and image, it would have been done by now.

I wonder if HST operators haven't attempted the feat. And wht the results were.

John P.

Greetings again -

Thanks for the math.

Regarding the HST (Hubble Space Telescope): While I would find that interesting and re-affirming, it is likely insufficient.
Again, if you are thinking like the ultimate pessimist, perhaps paranoid, persnickity conspiracy types, unless the scope is Earthbound and viewable with a physical eye, any photographic images 'alleged' to be from the Hubble of an overhead view of Apollo 'artifacts', would be as easily dismissed as fakes, as surely as that US flag doesn't wave in the solar wind! (Double negative on purpose).
A 'modern' photo of Eagle has no more credence in terms of forgery to someone who rejects the photo mounds of evidence already available from the Apollo missions. It would be just another layer in the government's attempts to decieve us. This is why, when it is possible to view with an Earthbound telescope, it is imperative that the public be offered a once a month/year open viewing time - like on the Anniversary of the landing. One small look for the masses of mankind, one stupid myth debunked. Besides the debunking, it would be terribly interesting to see from Earth!

''Seeing is believing, everything else is a government propogated lie!''

Thanks again for the math. So I am wondering if the above referenced new 'scope in S America - the 'VLT - is up to the task? With High res cameras - though the naked-eye-with-scope doesn't get it - a portional enlargement of a 40 acre image might get it without too much grain/pixelization? Zoom of a zoom, so to speak.

I tried e-sending this link to the Hawaii Scope webmaster, and Palomar - both were returned undelivered. Will try more soon.

James D
Bellingham, WA

I do remember that KECK was used on at least one mission to inspect the space shuttle's tiles before reentry.

It wasn't so much that KECK could pull out the details, but the military's photos taken through KECK using their own cameras sure could.

Strombird wrote:I am wondering, what power telescope would it take to see the remains of the Apollo missions still on the moon, such as the Eagle, or the lunar rover or its tracks?

I was thinking about some things and posed a similar question at the How Stuff Works forum a few years ago... a lot of people replied with essentially the same response:

Anonymous wrote:No current telescope can see such small detail, even hubble can't do it. I read it somewhere else, but I forgot the link. It would take a very very powerful telescope to discern such small detail so far away.

skyglow1

I believe the moon landings took place, I'm just surprised we don't have a McDonald's there yet...

This whole topic of discussion makes me upset. Those people (few indeed) that believe we never went there have no spirit and no faith.

Many of those people are the same ones that believe aliens have traveled thousands of light-years to probe us, but they can't believe we broke earth's gravity and traveled 4 days in space to land on a solid body.

I've only ever met one person that held this conspiracy. He's not one with whom I would associate.

Funny enough is that most believe we have a presence in space via the space shuttle (soon enough) and the ISS. But they don't believe our capabilities go further than that.

Fact is they want to disbelieve. Those people are no friends of mine.





On a slightly different topic: in just 5 or so years the U.S will leave the ISS for ever. The Russians will have complete control over who visits it. They will also have a fully functional "outer space" capsule. They could send it anywhere, and the astronauts could survive for months. As long as they had resources brought to them they could survive indefinitely.

Why couldn't they lightly set the ISS down on the moon? It's completely within their capabilities.

Just a thought for you thinkers.

This is my prediction.

MAYBE WE COULD SEND CHRISTOF (THE ARTIST) TO THE MOON ON THE NEXT VISIT WITH HIS UMBRELLAS AND HAVE HIM COVER A SMALL CRATER SO THAT IT WOULD BE VISIBLE FROM EARTH???

Can't use my Bad Buoy wrote:I do remember that KECK was used on at least one mission to inspect the space shuttle's tiles before reentry.

It wasn't so much that KECK could pull out the details, but the military's photos taken through KECK using their own cameras sure could.

This sounds like crapola to me, where's the link

@others:
Stop going on about Keck. There are two 10m telescopes but as any astronomer knows angular resolution isn't set by apperture alone. You have already be told that the atmosphere is the contributing factor by someone who knows better than you.
Have you never heard of seeing?
The AO (adaptive optics) that Keck and other large ground based telescopes
used to compensate for seeing only brings them into the range of Hubble optically
and slightly better in near-IR. Why do you think Hubble was placed in orbit?

There are HST images of the moon on the web but they haven't got the resolution
to see a few bits of metal against a bright moon scape.
BTW, some people say the moon is as dark as a piece of coal because it has a
very low albedo but if you do some research you'll find this is not necessarily
the case due to the wavelength dependence of albedo and the strong dependence
of the reflected intensity on angle.

Lunar laser ranging is still carried out today in many places, but you only get a few
photons reflected back because even laser light is dispersed.

Anonymous wrote:Let's pretend that the remains on the moon have left features of roughly 50m in size (say big long shadows). Your question then turns into: what magnifications resolves features of 50m located 400,000 km away?

A feature of (s=) 50m located (R=) 400,000km away would tend an arc (theta) of:

s = theta*R, theta = h/R
theta = (50 m)/(400, 000, 000 m) = 125 x 10-9 radians.

They say that the HST was capable of resolving features on the moon of roughly 85m (it, of course, wasn't fighting the seeing of the earth's atmosphere). Is it too late to purchase some time on the HST?

~Neal

You can apply for time, but you can hardy ever buy time on any telescope.
You can "buy" the TAC though, so that's probably possible.

Anyway, 50m corresponds to 0.025" at 400000km.
HST ACS pixels are about 0.03" so you can't resolve it.
Even if you drizzeled or dithering it would be difficult.

I think one of the questions was, could we with military spy optics see the module left on the moon (since the spy sat has to look through the atmosphere too)

I tried some quick math with a few assumptions on this problem and was suprised at the answer

Diameter of Golf ball = 5 cm (actually 4.27) = 0.05m
(I don't believe that they can read the writing - but I've been wrong before)

estmated height of spy sat. = ~500km = 500,000m

Take ratio .05/500000 = 1x10^(-7)

distance to moon = 365500 km =365x10^6m

assuming we can detect object in the same ratio (there are differences but for an order of magnitude est. this should be a good assumption)

size of object detectable on moon using spy sat. optics (if my assumptions are correct) =

(365 x 10^6 m) x (1x 10^(-7)) = 36.5 m

Answer suggests that you might just be able to photograph the module on the moon but not "see" it.

I was not expecting the answer to be so close thought it would be a complete NO.
If I made a stupid mistake let me know. I've been known to do that from time to time

But in any case doubter will say that it was faked.

I know one cannot believe everything they read, but I do remember reading something a few years ago about an array of optical telescopes spread across the northern hemisphere that took a photo of Armstrong's footprint. Does anybody else remember this story?

Well, if anyone knows how it could be done, perhaps a large number of us could band together and pay for some time on a ridiculously powerful telescope that could, in theory, see the remains of out landing on the moon?

(No, I am not one of those that doesn't believe that we landed on the moon, but it should be interesting nonetheless, and kind of fun to debunk such a commonly-held belief for once and for all, beyond any reasonable doubt. Not to mention cool to see the remains with no interference between your own eyes and the moon?))