Need help in Bicky's GD 'moon hoax' thread: what size telescope to see '69 moon shot?

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

In this thread, after a Yahoo list of about 250 small to medium-sized observatories and university-affiliated telescopes, I said,

**Okay. Now, granted, probably not all of these observatories and telescopes were around in July of 1969. But here’s my point. I’ll bet that when you, Bicky, think “observatory”, you’re visualizing something like Mt. Wilson, the big building with the dome. However, there are lots and lots of smaller observatories all around the world. (Where the heck is Adam Mickiewicz University, and why do they have an Astronomical Observatory? ) In July of 1969, anybody who had access to a big telescope, like the one at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, would have been pulling strings like mad to be the one with his eye glued to the eyepiece when Neil Armstrong stepped out the door and clambered down the ladder. (And at places like the Degenhardt Amateur User Facility, there was probably blood on the floor… )

And with all of these telescopes being trained on the Moon, straining to see them as they came around from the dark side every time, wouldn’t you think someone would have noticed, “Hey, they’re not in orbit around the Moon at all, they’re just in Earth orbit!”

And this is even more relevant for Apollo 13. Don’t you think that anyone with access to a telescope had his eyes glued to that tiny speck of light that was a space capsule, waiting to see somebody die?

If it turns out that you couldn’t spot the various Moon missions from the Earth, then of course I withdraw the suggestion. But here’s a website from a guy who took videos of meteorites hitting the moon, and he’s only got a 5 inch telescope. His friend has a 14 inch and presumably got better quality videos.

http://iota.jhuapl.edu/lunar_leonid/index2.html

Never underestimate the power of the obsessive amateur, Bicky. Here in Central Illinois, astronomy buffs have to get in the car and drive for miles to get to a place with no mercury vapor lamps so they can see the stars, but drive they do. In 1969 they may not have had the technology to take videos of the moon, but there certainly were plenty of backyard astronomers out there with good-quality telescopes, watching the Moon shot.

**

And Bicky said this:

**
As for whether you could have observed the astronauts sailing around the moon, I doubt it, since apparently you can’t see any of the debris they left behind. So for as many observatories as there are, we still don’t know how many would have found cause to be looking at the moon during the missions, and whether they would have known the difference one way or the other.

**
Okay. So? What size telescope would you have needed back in 1969 to watch the moon shot? Was there anybody watching? Is there any amateur footage or photos of anything to do with the Moon shot? A Google search under “amateur footage moon shot” doesn’t turn up anything. I’m not talking about the radio telescopes following their radio signals, I’m talking about the backyard astronomy buffs and the small to medium-sized university telescopes. I know if I were an astronomy buff, I’d have been out there trying to see something.

And as long as we’re talking about telescopes, what size telescope would you need to be able to spot the American flag and the other stuff they left behind on the moon today?

This has come up a couple of times in other threads, but nobody has given a good answer. So far this is all there is, that I could find:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28532

*originally posted by Chronos: *
I suppose you could build a telescope suitible for viewing the Apollo equipment, but the folks with the resources to do so aren’t interested, because they know it’s there anyway.

[tsunamisurfer]

[/quote]
**Okay. So? What size telescope would you have needed back in 1969 to watch the moon shot? And as long as we’re talking about telescopes, what size telescope would you need to be able to spot the American flag and the other stuff they left behind on the moon today?

This has come up a couple of times in other threads, but nobody has given a good answer. So far this is all there is, that I could find**
[/quote]

Obviously you have been waiting for me to hop off the world’s major tsunamis to answer your fascinating question: “How large of a telescope would you need to be able to see a flag on the moon?”

This is simple. Are you familiar with tensor analysis? No? Okay, then assuming no atmospheric degradation–a key assumption, of course–a 3-foot flag, at the Moon’s distance subtends an angle of 0".0005. Therefore, to resolve it you would need a perfect 10,000-inch telescope above Earth’s atmosphere to see it. And even then it would show as only a single pixel in size, meaning quite tiny.

At the time of Apollo 11’s launch, the lens of the world’s largest telescope was, um, slightly smaller than 834-feet (almost three football fields, end to end) in diameter. And, no, not even Hubble could see the flag today, nor even the descent stage of Apollo 11. To compensate for atmospheric degradation, your backyard variety telescope–the one next to your Weber gas grill and Wal*Mart tiki torches–would need to be much larger, and have sophisticated computer enhancement technologies to refine the image.

By the way, finding Tranquility Base is also quite simple: merely locate the twin craters of Sabine and Ritter near the (lunar) west side of Mare Tranquilitatis. (Each is 19 miles in diameter.) Next, locate the tiny, fresh crater Moltke to the east–it’s only 4 miles across but surrounded by a much larger patch of white ejecta. Just a few miles north of Moltke is Tranquility Base, the remaining descent stage, the flag, and assorted trash.

Such advanced mathematical computations, my dear Goose, are quite simple for us historic geniuses. Simple. Easy. Effortless. Especially when we shamelessly plagiarize from the July 1994 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, page 80, which answers your question in full. Enjoy.

[Triskadecamus]

This article gives some information on the physical parameters of limits for optical telescopes.

RESOLVING POWER
For telescopes this is referred to as “Dawes limit.” It is the ability to separate two closely-spaced binary (double) stars into two distinct images measured in seconds of arc. Theoretically, to determine the resolving power of a telescope divide the aperture of the telescope (in inches) into 4.56. For example, the resolving power of an 8" aperture telescope is 0.6 seconds of arc (4.56 divided by 8 = 0.6). Resolving power is a direct function of aperture such that the larger the aperture, the better the resolving power. However, resolving power is often compromised by atmospheric conditions and the visual acuity of the observer.

By that formula, the instrument on mount Palomar, (at that time the largest on earth by a large margin) had a resolving power limited to 0.0228 seconds of arc. (Dawes limit for the instrument)

This site has a precalculated formula for the size in kilometers of objects visible on the moon. It gives .08805 with our calculated Dawes limit, which means you could have seen objects of 88 meters or larger on the moon, under perfect observation conditions. That doesn’t even include the entire Lunar Module.

[Chronos]

OK, assuming that we want ~1 meter resolution, that we’re using visible light, that our telescope has perfect optics, that we can somehow ignore the atmosphere, and that our telescope is, say, in low-earth orbit (as opposed to, say, lunar orbit), you’d still need about a 150 meter diameter scope. If you’re just looking for a speck of light, rather than being able to actually distinguish details, then you could probably be done with a reasonable scope, but it’d depend on the brightness of the light source, its separation from other light sources (such as the Moon itself), the sensitivity of your equipment, and the operating temperature of your scope, in addition to the aperature. Meteor impacts on the moon are much easier to see, since they scatter debris over a very large area, much larger than the size of a lunar lander.

[handy]

In short, there is no telescope on earth that can see anything like that on the moon today. But when the japanese get an orbitor going there, it’ll be able to see things like that.

[Chas.E]

*Originally posted by handy *
**
In short, there is no telescope on earth that can see anything like that on the moon today. But when the japanese get an orbitor going there, it’ll be able to see things like that. **

You’re kidding, right? NASDA can’t even get their H-1 rocket off the ground without it blowing up.

And, it is not necessarily true that there is no telescope on earth that can resolve the lunar objects. True, there is no SINGLE telescope that can possibly resolve the objects. However, there is some current research in linking telescopes, in a manner similar to the VLA (Very Large Array) radiotelescope. And even the VLA is obsolete. Currently there are arrays of radiotelescopes separated by thousands of miles that work cooperatively, and this allows resolution beyond anything previously imagined.
The theoretical limit of the size of a telescope you can construct on earth is the diameter of the earth. But since you can’t turn the whole earth into a telescope, you just have to set up an array of widely separated telescopes working together. Imagine the Keck Telescope (which has 5 mirrors working together under computer control) except the mirrors are even bigger and separated by thousands of miles. What you’ve effectively created is a telescope the diameter of the earth, but with very low light-gathering power.

[Danielinthewolvesden]

However, seeing the Apollos in flight, with rockets burning would be much easier. I can remember seeing “Echo” when I was a kid, with my bare eyes and it was not all that big. But even if you COULD see the debris- it would not prove anything to these bozos- they would just say it was sent by unmanned rocket. Face it DDG, you are agueing with a wall.

So- they would also would have had to had an unmanned rocket up there - for us to see the Apollos flying around the moon. Quite a trick. And faking the reponse time gap was great. :rolleyes:

[Sam_Stone]

That’s the point about the silliness of these conspiracy nuts - if you managed to build a telescope that could resolve the landing site, the nuts would just claim that NASA planted it all there years later when they saw that these brilliant people were ‘closing in’ on them.

[handy]

Yep, those nuts should have just put a satellite in orbit around the moon so they could use their GPS units to find out if the lander is still there.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Well, shoot. My faith in technology is shaken to the core. “Better living through science,” indeed! So, the short answer to my question is, “No”? “Ain’t no such critter as a telescope big enough to see the flag on the moon”? Dang. They can show me a picture of a galaxy 200 light years away, but they can’t show me a picture of the freckle on my next-door neighbor’s nose?

Oh, well, as long as we still have moon rocks…

And how about being able to watch the Apollo module in orbit around the moon? I know you’re supposed to be able to see satellites in Earth orbit.

And what about the launch itself? If you were watching from the right place on Planet Earth, and had a big enough telescope, how far up could you have followed the rocket’s trajectory, and could you have watched the capsule leaving earth’s orbit, going off towards the moon?

I read too much Robert Heinlein, I can’t get rid of the mental image of Dad and Junior out in the back yard, watching Sputnik through their Sears Roebuck telescope. That’s where this all comes from.

[going down in the basement to finish assembling the Starship Enterprise (“authentic decals!”) and to brood over the tragic differences between science and science fiction]

[justwannano]

FWIW I have never heard of the Russians questioning it.

With the cold war still going on at that time they would have been the first to question it.

They would also have been watching the closest.

[Wendell_Wagner]

Duck Duck Goose writes:

> They can show me a picture of a galaxy 200 light years
> away, but they can’t show me a picture of the freckle on
> my next-door neighbor’s nose?

200 light years doesn’t even take you out of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest galaxy to ours, is 2,000,000 light years away. Despite being so far away, the Andromeda Galaxy, as seen from Earth, is two and a half times as wide as the Moon. It’s easy to get a good photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy from a fairly small telescope. A flag on the Moon is much tinier (as seen from the Earth) than the major features of the Andromeda Galaxy.

[Sam_Stone]

DDG: The satellites you are talking about are in low-earth orbit. That means they are only 100-200 miles above you. The moon is 240,000 miles away. Over 1000 times farther. So no, you couldn’t see anything in orbit around the moon without a giant telescope.

If it were bright enough, you could see it, but not as anything but a point source of light, like a star. We can see stars with the naked eye, but there’s not a telescope on earth (or orbiting it) that can actually see the ‘disk’ of a star.

[Chronos]

but there’s not a telescope on earth (or orbiting it) that can actually see the ‘disk’ of a star.

Not quite. Hubble has managed to image the disk of a couple of stars… Memory’s hazy, but I think it was Alpha Cen and Betelgeuse.

[kferr]

This may help: http://almagest.as.utexas.edu/~rlr/dda.html

excerpt:

It is noteworthy that we have recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of the first
placement of a retroreflector on the Moon. LLR is the only active Apollo
experiment that is still obtaining new data. And, it is still marching at the forefront
of science. During these times of tight budgets, it is important to point to examples
of efficient and cost-effective research. LLR, and the science it is able to accomplish, should be a source of pride to the scientific community in general. At
McDonald Observatory, we intend that the MLRS will continue to improve to
provide a constant stream of more and better LLR data into that scientific
community.

[kferr]

FWIW, I found the above link and loads others by putting ‘lunar laser ranging’ into Google.

[tsunamisurfer]

**Excerpt from USA TODAY, March 20, 2001" **

"However, Web news site, http://www.space.com, reports that imaging experts at the federal National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). think they have spotted the missing Mars Polar Lander “intact on the surface, sitting atop its trio of landing legs.”

That’s Mars, of course, but it makes you wonder!

[Montfort]

Okay, so I read the article about the Mars Polar Lander at space.com and found their “universal viewer”, which has some neat satellite views of various places, at amazingly high resolutions. I saw some neat views of NYC, DC, Baltimore, Miami, etc.

Then, I clicked on the “extra-terrestrial” link, and, lo-and-behold, there’s one for the moon. It seems to show a good percentage of the non-dark side of the moon, and claims to have 1m accuracy. Surely there’s some remnants bigger than 1m visible, or am I just mis-reading that page? (Hey, it is 2am.)

[Phobos]

*Originally posted by Chronos *
**

but there’s not a telescope on earth (or orbiting it) that can actually see the ‘disk’ of a star.

Not quite. Hubble has managed to image the disk of a couple of stars… Memory’s hazy, but I think it was Alpha Cen and Betelgeuse. **

Mira… http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010121.html
Betelgeuse… http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990605.html

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Search on Again for Mars Polar Lander

EXCLUSIVE: Spy Agency May Have Located Mars Polar Lander

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 06:49 pm ET
19 March 2001

WASHINGTON – The Mars Polar Lander may have been found – intact – by a top-secret spy imagery agency.

The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) has been quietly scanning Mars pictures, looking for the Mars Polar Lander since early December 1999. According to a source close to the NIMA effort, photographic specialists at NIMA think they’ve spotted something. But NASA officials say it’s too early to tell.

In the past, searches of images relayed by Mars Global Surveyor – still operating around the Red Planet – failed to find the craft itself, its reentry aeroshell, or the vehicle’s parachute.

Cool, but they’re looking at pictures of Mars taken from Mars orbit, so it’s not really applicable to the problem of spotting something on the Moon from the surface of Earth. Thanx anyway, TS.

And the space.com moon picture says “source–Space Imaging” http://www.spaceimaging.com/index_text.htm and was taken from a satellite in Earth orbit, not from the surface of Planet Earth. So that’s not really applicable, either. But thanks, guys!