telescope on the moon

[Vince1963]

Hi SGL fans. I have been thinking about this lately and just wondered if anyone as any thoughts on it. Why hasn't anyone put a telescope on the moon?. surly the images would be very good from there, I know they've got Hubble but you know the saying the more the merrier. I would have thought it would be a good place to monitor our planet too, you know the climate and what have you.

[JB80]

They have thought of it at least.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/09oct_liquidmirror/

I'm guessing for the most part it's probably the same reason they haven't done a great deal of anything on the Moon recently, it's far easier and cheaper to put scopes in orbit.

Maybe they can pull it off.

[Vince1963]

Thanks for that Pibbles.. But surely an orbital scope as disadvantages over a tera based scope, they could build a super massive array. I didn't know they'd already thought of it. I shall read on. Cheers

[Vince1963]

Very interesting read.... never heard it before but it took the words right out of my mouth. the liquid mirror is very interesting stuff. I would never have known that

[jonathan]

Early artist's impression...

[skywatcher250]

haha jonathan - brilliant !

[PorkyB]

If there was a telescope on the moon we would need a manned space program to go there and service it ... what a brilliant idea

[Moonshane]

It's mainly due to ridiculous delivery charges.

[iwatkins]

... but to be fair, Fed Ex are usually pretty good

[ronin]

The payload is large, then comes getting it on to the moon. No atmosphere so the large payload has to be lowered by a large rocket, which increases the payload that takes off from earth.

Then it needs people to set it up. A day or three inside an apollo lander is bearable but 6 months to set up a scope means something more substantial. That all needs taking to the moon, and the oxygen and water and food for the people.

There is nothing on the moon, you cannot construct anything there, it has to be constructed here and taken there and then assembled.

Try making steel on the moon, how do you heat the ore? Here we burn materials, only made possible by the atmosphere with oxygen in it. Places like Norway use hyrdoelectric but last time you looked at the moon how many flowing rivers did you see that could be dammed?

You cannot walk outside on the moon. There is no inside to walk from, you have to take the inside up there first:eek:. You cannot take a breath and think how do I do this, you have to take your atmosphere there as well.

[jflowers]

I wonder what FLO would charge for next day delivery? Certainly hope it wouldnt be Yodel doing the delivery!

[decomo50]

Even if you overcame all those little techninal hitches, you still have one major one - the moons albedo is too much to allow good views with an optical telescope - you would probably get a better view from Trafalger Square on christmas eve...

[Vince1963]

PorkB...only the same as Hubble

[Vince1963]

Nice one Jonathan... You must have seen my pic.

[Vince1963]

Ronin...That sounds over complicated to me, I'm sure science would find away, they built Hubble down here and sent it up there. AND THEY COULD USE A SMALL SCOPES LINKED TOGETHER TO MAKE AN ARRAY....iN SCIENCE EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE TO SOMEONE WITH IMAGINATION AND THE KNOWLEDGE.

I.S.S another:icon_scratch:

[661-pete]

I think the cost of getting the payload down to luna firma is the biggest factor. And astronauts to set it up (assuming it can't be done entirely by robots).

You would have the advantage of a 15-earth-day-long lunar night, and very low temperatures (good for IR). But the moon is still rotating - albeit 30 times slower than Earth - so you'd need a driven mount and guiding, just like on Earth.

The moon's albedo would only be an issue if you were using the 'scope in the moon's daytime. It would have to be shielded from direct and reflected sunlight.

The low gravity means that a large mirror would flex much less than on Earth, but it would still flex a bit - so adaptive optics might be a 'must'.

Apart from all these caveats - go for it! So who's putting up a down payment???

[pete_l]

part from all these caveats

I think the biggest caveat is dust. The Apollo astronauts kicked up a lot of it, and it stuck to pretty much everything. It was a big problem then and would be for a Moon based telescope. Not just on the optics, but getting into the mechanics as well.

The dust "problem" would also mean that anyone or thing that visited the telescope would have to land quite a distance away and then travel across the surface, to make as little disturbance as possible. That would make any service visits even more tricky.

In fact, it seems to me that there are no obvious advantages to locating a telescope on the surface of the Moon, or on any other planetary/asteroidal surface. The disadvantages are the extra complications and cost of landing it, the fact that at any one time half the sky (the half under the telescope) is inaccessible and the additioanl mechanical stresses due to the body's gravity.

Orbit (around something) seems far more logical and desirable.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Imagine if they put a telescope on the Moon. The astronauts come back to earth only to discover they left the lens cap on.

Ouch !!!!

[Vince1963]

good points 661-Pete, one that i didn't think about DOH!!!.. the direct sunlight, maybe its sounding like too much expense

[Vince1963]

Yeah Pete_l, its sounding like a no no to me too, sometimes i think i should really think things through before putting a post up lol.

[Vince1963]

nice one Lukeskywatcher, :D:D

[Earl]

Guaranteed it would be of of collimation...

[pete_l]

Yeah Pete_l, its sounding like a no no to me too, sometimes i think i should really think things through before putting a post up lol.

Hey, don't worry about it.

It's a worthy question. It's inspiring a good debate. That's exactly the sort of thing this forum is for.

[Vince1963]

Thanks Pete for your kind words:icon_salut: