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Is it possible to view moon landing sites?

JohnDenim

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Doc

Doc

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It is possible to view the area where they landed, maybe pin point it to an area 5 mile square by using the maps supplied on the web. It is not however possible to view the actual landing sites, these are way to small.

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jgs001

jgs001

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I did read a calculation, that you would need a telescope with a diameter of about 250m to be able to see the flag, well assuming you didn't have issues with the atmosphere...

As for the ISS, yes that's a recurrent and frequent visitor, flashing across the skies. You can get predictions for passes from Heavens-Above Home Page, sign up for a free account, and you can get them customised for your location.

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Gerontius

Gerontius

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If you're lucky (i.e. looking the the right time) you may just see the ISS and a Shuttle moving across the sky in tandem when they are about to dock or have just undocked. That is an remarkable sight.

Pity the shuttle is going out of commission.

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nemesis

nemesis

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If you're lucky (i.e. looking the the right time) you may just see the ISS and a Shuttle moving across the sky in tandem when they are about to dock or have just undocked. That is an remarkable sight.

Pity the shuttle is going out of commission.

I've been fortunate enough too see that, i had been following the shuttle mission from take-off and just before i left work i'd checked on Heavens-above and noticed that the ISS was due to fly over just after i'd get home.

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Lurker

Lurker

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I did read a calculation, that you would need a telescope with a diameter of about 250m to be able to see the flag, well assuming you didn't have issues with the atmosphere...

As for the ISS, yes that's a recurrent and frequent visitor, flashing across the skies. You can get predictions for passes from Heavens-Above Home Page, sign up for a free account, and you can get them customised for your location.

Correct

Unfortunately the answer to this question is no. Not even the most powerful telescopes ever made are able to see these objects. The flag on the moon is 125cm (4 feet) long. You would require a telescope around 200 meters in diameter to see it. The largest telescope now is the Keck Telescope in Hawaii at 10meters in diameter. Even the Hubble Space telescope is only 2.4 meters in diameter. Resolving the lunar rover, which is 3.1 meters in length, would require a telescope 75 meters in diameter. So our backyard 6 inch and 8 inch telescopes are not even going to come close!
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Carbon Brush

Carbon Brush

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At least one of the Apollo sites was seen last year sometime. First sighting for almost 40 years. Sorry I can't remember the details. But I'm sure someone else will.

A new lunar orbiter was taking hi res images and deliberately targetted a late Apollo site. You could see definite tyre tracks from the rover. Also collections of pixels that were the LM descent stage & the rover. Or so we are told. Opening there for the conspiracy theorists!

David.

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JohnDenim

JohnDenim

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I have caught the ISS with my 10" newt.:)

Wow, this is great!

Iv'e joined Heavens above, but can't navigate the site too well.

Where do I look to see when the ISS is near me?

And, the answer then to my question is simply, No. Shame.

I have read a topic (not found until I posted mine, sorry) on here about this, and there was mention of the mirror which is placed on the moon for distance purposes.

I suppose that is far too small?

And I bet the location of this is top, top secret!

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John

John

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The smallest details we can resolve on the moon with our scopes are a few hundred metres to a couple of km across. The largest bits equipment left by the Apollo and other missions are around the size of a large car.

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John

John

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They were probably naive enough to think that bringing back a few hundred pounds of rocks, taking thousands of pictures and hours of movies and masses of data would be enough to demonstrate that they had been there :)

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tomw28

tomw28

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I have read a topic on here about this, and there was mention of the mirror which is placed on the moon for distance purposes.

I suppose that is far too small?

And I bet the location of this is top, top secret!

The retro reflector they left, as you say is way to small to be seen. I think I remember seeing on TV somewhere that of the billions of photons that are pumped by a hugely powerful laser towards the location of the reflector, they get 3 or 4 hundred back for each pulse they send.

As for the location, I don't think the location is a secret, as the astronauts wouldn't have been able to take it far from the landing site even with the Lunar Rover. As far as I know the locations of all the landings are public knowledge, so the whereabouts of the reflectors should also be pretty easy to find. I can't see any reason they would keep it a secret either, it's not doing anyone any harm just sitting there so why would anyone be that bothered by it?

Hope that helps,

Tom

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