I apologize if this has been discussed already - I tried reading through other posts and did not see this questions asked/answered.

Each moon visit left items behind on the lunar surface. With the quality telescopes available today, I would think we could "zoom in" on the moons surface and see these items - thereby proving once and for all that man was on the moon. Or does a telescope that powerful not exist?

I don't think there is a telescope that would have that kind of resolution. Any articles on the moon would be on the order of a couple of meters at the largest, too small to see.

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I am sure others more qualifed will also answer here.

However, currently there is no earth based telescope capable of a resolution of less than about 10 metres (others will give the correct figure, that I am sure!) at the lunar surface. As it is about 240000 miles (385000 kilometres) away, it has to do with the angle the telescope is able to resolve.

The same is true of the Hubble telescope, it can only resolve objects down to about 2 or 3 times the diameter of the lunar module landing stage. This was left on the moon to give the ascent stage a good solid flat base to take off from.

As this is the largest of the objects left behind, unfortunately we still won't be able to show evidence of Apollo and therefore man's presence on the moon until such time as we at least get a high resolution camera in lunar orbit, and it is specifically aimed to take such pictures.

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The largest pieces left behind on the moon are the LM descent stages, which measure 4.2 meters across (9.4 m diagonally across the legs). In order to see them and be able to identifiy them as a real object, it would probably be necessary to have a resolution of about 2 meters. But the Moon is 385,000 km away, thus the 'angular' resolution needed is:

arctan(2/385,000,000) = 0.000000297 degress = 0.00107 arcseconds

The theoretical resolving power of a telescope (in arcseconds) is approximated by dividing 4.56 by the diameter of the telescope's main objective (measured in inches). That is,

resolution = 4.56/objective diameter

If we need a resolution of 0.00107 to see the Apollo hardware, we can calculate the size of the telescope required to do this as follows:

objective diameter = 4.56/resolution = 4.56/0.00107 = 4,262 inches

That's a 355 foot (108 meter) diameter telescope! And this is based on the 'theoretical' limit. In practice, the Earth's atmosphere reduces a telescope's resolving power to below this limit. The largest telescope on the planet is only about 1/10th this size.

Many people say, "but if a telescope can see galaxies 13 billion light years away, surely we can see the flag on the Moon". What people don't realize is that galaxies are huge. The Milky Way galaxy, for instance, is 100,000 ly across. If you do the math it actually takes far less resolution then one might think:

arctan(100,000/13,000,000,000) = 0.0004407 degress = 1.587 arcseconds

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Webmaster, Rocket & Space Technology

There is this.

OK, That would be a mighty big telescope!


Thanks - that was going to be my next question - won't a lunar orbiter be able to record evidence.....

Somewhere I've seen another image taken around lunar sunrise/sunset that seemed to show a large shadow from one of the landers.

Also, to the original poster, take a look at this website:
http://www.merzo.net/

Start out on the 10X page and work your way up. Eventually, you'll get to the scale of the moon. That's a good way to get an idea of just how big it is, and therefore how small an apollo lander is in comparison.

The only mission I've heard about so far that seems to possess the ability to image the Apollo hardware is NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, for which I started a new thread.

ESA's SMART-1 is in orbit around the Moon now but it has only a 27-meter per pixel resolution. Another mission that is sometimes mentioned is Japan's SELENE, which is due to launch this year, but its resolution is just 10-meters per pixel. This is still not good enough to image the Apollo hardware itself.

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No current telescope (including the Hubble Space Telescope) has sufficient resolution to image residual Apollo hardware. You need about one milliarcsecond angular resolution, which is 50 times better than Hubble.

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), when fully functional might have that ability. http://www.eso.org/projects/vlti/

The 100 meter Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) if constructed could possibly resolve the Apollo hardware. http://www.eso.org/projects/owl/

The Keck Interferometer might be able to, when fully functional, and if using visible wavelength adaptive optics. However at 85 meters baseline from Keck I to Keck II, it might be too small.

For terrestrial telescopes, the general requirements are:

(1) About 100 meters aperture (actual or interferometric)
(2) Very efficient visible-wavelength multiconjugate adaptive optics (AO) to compensate for atmospheric distortion

I think most current AO systems only work at the near infrared. The longer the wavelength, the lower the angular resolution. You need the right combination of AO spectral capability and physical size to achieve the necessary angular resolution. If AO doesn't work at the visible spectrum you need an even bigger telescope.

At the 500 nanometer visible wavelength, a 100 meter telescope has 1.25 milliarcsec angular resolution. At lunar distance this is 2.3 meter spatial resolution. By contrast at 900 nanometers near IR wavelength, angular resolution of the same 100 meter telescope drops to 2.25 milliarcsec, which at lunar distance is 4.2 meters.

It may be a few years before the right combination of these capabilities enable imaging of residual Apollo hardware.

at the risk of sounding contrary , what would be the point ?

the HBers dont accept the hi res photograps from the ALSJ archive and the realms of other evidence

i can see no valid reason to image the landing remnants [ IMHO - HB appeasment is not a rational endeavour ]

from a scientiific perspective it might be very useful to see what state the equipment is in after 35 years exposure to the lunar elements

as the durability of various materials over decades would be helpgull to the planners of forthcoming long term lunar development

but to do this we would need a remote lander of some sort to land right next to the abandoned equip and do some tests that would include destructive testing to see just what the tensile stengh of the samples is after all these years

YRS - APE

Imaging the landing sites could conceivably calibrate the equipment. You have something a known size in a known place with a known shape. Not that you would need to do this, but it's one possible non-conspiracy application.[/i]

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Clavius Moon Base

I wunder if them flags have blown away yet?

(the above post was made with a sarcastic tone)

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Of course they have! Haven't you seen the footage of the astronauts standing around the flag and holding the pole just to keep it standing and protected, and how it still rocked in the wind??!!

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How long will the flags last given exposure to repeated heat/cold cycles and unfiltered sunlight?

The general concensus I've seen is that they've long since disintegrated.

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