Expert: Tom Whiting - 6/18/2009

Question
Hi Tom, I have a question  that I've been thinking about for years. The Hubble telescope has been bringing us pictures of far galexy's for years.So why can't we take pictures of all  the Apollo missions moon landing sites and settle once and for all, that we were their? Thanks, Mark

Answer
Hi Mark,
It's a question of resolution.  While those distant galaxies
are billions of lightyears distant, they are also upwards of 100,000 lightyears in DIAMETER (one ly = about 6 trillion miles)...do you see any individual planets around any of the stars of those galaxies?  Of course not. That's the kind of resolution from Earth to the Moon that you (or others) are asking for.

{In angular terms, those galaxies are small diameter at 0.1 - 0.9
arc-second across, BUT for the resolution you're asking for, it's
down around 0.00005 arc-second diameter as seen from the Earth!}

So on the surface of the moon, in linear terms...you're asking for 5 feet resolution at 238,000 miles, and for that kind of resolution, it might take a telescope mirror that's 5 miles in diameter to resolve that small angle from the Earth, or Earth orbit.

Not to fret though, we will soon have a high resolution camera in orbit around the moon at less than 40 miles above the surface, the Lunar Recon Orbiter, (which I believe launches tomorrow, June 18) and eventually it will pass over and photograph those items you (or others) desire to see.  For me, I don't have to see them as I lived at that time frame, so I have no questions about it. It's only the younger generation that didn't think their parents and grandparents were smart enough to pull that trick off...but that's another story.  (your word "their" should be spelled "there"...as a for instance, in your initial question.  But with all the watered down
courses of today, compared to our days of the fifties and sixties,  are they really smarter, or do they just think that they are smarter?   Hmmmm.....I really wonder. The students of today can't
even do basic simple arithmetic in their heads, as we were taught to do.  Just ask for correct change at some 'fast-food' restaurant without the aid of a computer or calculator, and you'll see an eye-opener for our students' "abilities"...or lack of them!  And don't even bother to bring up square roots to them...they just stare at you like you are some kind of alien...who's he?  He must be
a teacher to know all that stuff, they say.  But everyone in our
day was taught square roots, and even how to find a square root by longhand- not with a calculator!  Yes, there is a way to do it.

{Of course, don't forget that even when we do have lunar orbiter
equipment to take those pictures, the 'conspirators' can still say...
FAKE PICTURES.  Yeah, of course...all SIX lunar landing missions!
Fake me out once or twice, but SIX times?  And, for what purpose? That would border on...insanity.}
(Did YOU even know that we went - 6 times, not counting Apollo 13
that had to abort enroute?)

Oh, another side problem is....Hubble's camera detectors are set
up to record extremely dim celestial objects, probably dimmer than 10
th magnitude. The sunlit lunar surface would be blindingly bright
at -9th magnitude, and would probably swamp (and possibly destroy)
Hubble's detector equipment. It's not worth the risk to such a
sensitive piece of equipment.
Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie PA