I think he was trying to wind me up (it sort of worked), but he had some questions (which I've bolded)I couldn't answer specifically.

He asked 'why couldn't they build a telescope to show a close-up of the debris as they can see stars light years away?'
I said those are different sorts of telescopes, eg. infrared, and to show a close-up would require so many lenses you couldn't see through the glass.

He asked, 'they can see a number-plate from a satellite, why can't they turn the satellites around to see the moon debris'?
I said they would still be much too far away.

He asked 'why haven't they been back to prove they went there?'
I said, why would they? Almost everyone, and they, know they've been there, why spend billions to prove something that's already been proved?

He then asked, 'how did they get footage of Neil Armstrong taking the first steps on the moon, and of them taking off again - who had the camera? I said to look it up. He said he didn't need to look it up, he knew it was a hoax. I said, 'but that's just arguing from ignorance', which actually shut him up, but I'd like to know the answers to those questions in case he brings it up again.

I know I could look it up, but I haven't discussed much here since joining, and I also thought you might be able to help me or point me to a specific link, because I'm daunted by the resources I've found here and in skeptic circles.

He asked 'why couldn't they build a telescope to show a close-up of the debris as they can see stars light years away?'

Firstly, the stars and galaxies imaged by space telescopes are a) huge and b) a bright object on a black background. Ask him if he thinks he'd be able to see an aircraft's formation light fittings as it passed overhead if the lights were not switched on. Many of the stars and galaxies are so faint they are imaged by pointing the telescope such as Hubble at the same part of the sky for hours or days and letting the light collect in the instrument.

Secondly, a telescope's resolution is limited by its size. There just isn't a scope large enough to detect something that small that far away. It's like trying to see an ant a mile away with a pair of binoculars.

He asked, 'they can see a number-plate from a satellite, why can't they turn the satellites around to see the moon debris'?
I said they would still be much too far away.

And you'd be right. The satellite is orbiting around a hundred or so miles up. The Moon is 240,000 miles away. He could probably read the newsprint on a daily newspaper from across the room with a pair of binoculars, but he couldn't do it with the same binoculars if the newspaper was being held up by someone standing a mile away.

He asked 'why haven't they been back to prove they went there?'
I said, why would they? Almost everyone, and they, know they've been there, why spend billions to prove something that's already been proved?

They did it six times beck then. What difference will one more make? And does he really think 'we want several billion dollars to fund a trip to the Moon to prove we went there forty years ago' is going to be an approved budget proposal? There is already a vast pile of evidence for the Apollo landings. If that's not enough I can't see that one more flight is going to work.

He then asked, 'how did they get footage of Neil Armstrong taking the first steps on the moon, and of them taking off again - who had the camera?

Ask him if he thinks there's a man sitting in the ceiling in a department store operating the CCTV camera.

On Apollo 11 the camera was located inside the MESA. This was a section of the lower part of the LM that folded out which contained various pieces of equipment. When Neil Armstrong was on the porch of the LM he pulled a D-ring which opened the MESA. The camera was mounted on a spring loaded arm such that it popped out and was pointed at the ladder ready to take the first pictures of a man stepping onto the Moon. In the LM, Buzz Aldrin pressed a switch to activate the camera and there it was: TV pictures being beamed back without anyone standing with the camera. Later, Armstrong moved the camera and stood it on a tripod and let it transmit the images all on its own. It's so basic that a camera can perate without a man holding it that I have to wonder if he was serious asking that question.

As for the take-off shot, on Apollos 15, 16 and 17 the TV camera was mounted on the lunar roving vehicle and operated remotely from Houston by a guy named Ed Fendell. Getting the best take-off shot actually took three attempts. On Apollo 15 the camera tilt function broke so they could not pan upwards to follow the departing LM. On Apollo 16 the rover was parked in slightly the wrong place, so although Fendell correctly timed his upward pan (taking into account the fact that the signal wouldn't get there until 1.3 seconds after he hit the switch) the LM drifted out of frame too soon. Finally on Apollo 17 the shot was achieved.

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"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

In the film "The Dish" They explain about how the TV camera on Apollo 11 was worked.

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Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

Can you see a number-plate? How does he know? I keep seeing this claim, but I've never seen any evidence for it.

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"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head" Terry Pratchett

This Apollo 12 photograph (taken by Pete Conrad of Alan Bean descending the ladder) shows the Modular Equipment Storage Area (MESA) hanging down on the lower left of the frame (it's the silver foil-covered thing). If you look closely (or at this high-resolution version) at the MESA, you can see the oblong TV camera strapped-down with its cylindrical lense pointed at Bean. Note that the camera is actually upside down and tilted. Here is the video it took at the time.

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

probably read it in someone's newspaper from a secret spy satellite

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Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

I was going to mention the number plate thing. Surely the resolution of a spy sattelite is fixed by the size of the lens. that would be fixed by the max size of the satellite. I would doubt that they have the resloution to read a license plate.

In fact I think it was discussed in a moon hoax thread a couple of years ago on the old BA board.

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'

Someone check my math: The lines on licence plate numbers & letters are ~5mm wide. To resolve 5mm from 200km up I calculate that the optics would have to be a whopping ~23.2 meters in diameter (assuming 580nm wavelength of light) - Larger than any optical telescope ever built.

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

But on the tv show Las Vegas they show us their real abilities like face recognition of casino guests - they check the drivers licence database within seconds to identify someone on the casino floor, LOL.

Would that be for perfect resolution?

You don't need perfect focus to determine the letters on a licence plate. It sure helps, but an out of focus "F" is still an "F".

At what resolution do you think you'd need to tell what the letters are, rather than read them perfectly? I've no idea..."I'm just asking questions"...Ha!

Later

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

As for specific links, www.clavius.org is a very good starting point.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

I have to wonder how a satelite which is looking directly down can see a licence plate anyway.....

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Well I've seen some very good recon camera systems for aircraft. Work mainly in the IR. Also the film itself is important, in the case of aircraft, not satelites. I was in VF-211 and we were assigned the TARPS system. Since I don't know whats still confidential and this is the world wide web, I'll just say I was stunned at some of the pictures taken at altitude.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

Equivalent to 5 mm resolution from 160 km up?

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"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head" Terry Pratchett

How about reading a poker hand from ten thousand feet? Don't know how that equates.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

No, falls short by more than an order of magnitude.

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"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head" Terry Pratchett

Okay, well that was in 1980. Maybe they got better. Look how long the military sat on that technique for adjusting for atmospheric ripple before the declassified it.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

The best I've heard anyone in authority admit to is 6 inch resolution, and those were a little over ten years old. If the boys and girls at Vint Hill wanted to, they could use the same technique that Mars Odyssey uses to enhance its resolution by matching the satellite's rotation to its relative orbital speed over the target point, giving it a few moments of enhanced vision, which might just give them the resolution needed to read a license plate.

It wouldn't be something you could do on every pass, but if you had a stationary target you knew would be there when the next pass occurred, its just possible they could pick it off.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

Well, you know, this is what eye charts would tell you. How's your vision? And how do you test that? Your ability to recognize letters at a distance.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"