Photographing the Apollo LMs
Phillip Rhodes
Despite watching Sky @ Night for over 30 years, I'm not that
knowledgeable when it comes to telescopes.
As most of you will know there is a conspiracy that states that NASA
didn't land man on the moon. Now I'm not going to details the facts
or non facts, but there is one method of verification which will
settle the matter once and for all.
Question: is there a telescope powerful enough to photograph the lower
base of each LM? I watched Sky @ Night the other day and was
interested to hear that when the new VLT is fully operational it will
be able to photograph a man standing on the moon. I'm not sure what
the resolution will be but it would appear to be around one metre?
The thing is that these LM bases (with adjoining shadow) should be
around 6 metres in size, so is there any other telescopes in operation
that could be able to pick up these remnants of the Apollo Missions?
I appreciated that amateur telescopes cannot pick up anything smaller
than a few hundred meters, but surely there must be at least one
telescope out there that can photograph something as small as a LM.
Accordingly, can anyone recommend a website that detail photographing
the moon in detail using large telescopes?
Kind Regards
Phillip Rhodes
Mark Dunn
time. On the Moon.
Mark Dunn <markr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:31u3tvF...@individual.net...
> Using the largest scopes on Earth to pander to a few crazies would be a
> shocking waste of observing effort. There is already a 'method of
> verification' already. Look at the photographs. And the miles of film. And
> the books. And the millions of words written in studies of the half a ton
of
> lunar material returned by Apollo. Just don't expect professional
> astronomers to join the game.
> Phillip Rhodes <ra...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:a60937e4.04121...@posting.google.com...
Mark Dunn
shocking waste of observing effort. There is already a 'method of
verification' already. Look at the photographs. And the miles of film. And
the books. And the millions of words written in studies of the half a ton of
lunar material returned by Apollo. Just don't expect professional
astronomers to join the game.
Phillip Rhodes <ra...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
news:a60937e4.04121...@posting.google.com...
Jonathan Silverlight
>They would just say that these photographs where faked too but I think
>a photograph would be interesting.
Exactly. We aren't talking about the 10% at the bottom of the bell curve
who believe in this, but the rest of us :-)
There's a thread on alt.astronomy ("Very Large Telescope VLT") on this
topic, and if you do the sums you find you need a telescope over 200
meters across. No single telescope is ever likely to be this big, and an
interferometer will probably have problems with the lack of contrast in
the image. Be worth trying, though.
Dr John Stockton
dated Fri, 10 Dec 2004 04:04:26, seen in news:uk.sci.astronomy, Phillip
Rhodes <ra...@lycos.co.uk> posted :
>
>The thing is that these LM bases (with adjoining shadow) should be
>around 6 metres in size, so is there any other telescopes in operation
>that could be able to pick up these remnants of the Apollo Missions?
According to <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/astro3.htm#Pllx>, 6 m at
400000 km subtends 0.003 arcseconds, which is rather small (1.5e-8
radians).
But that performance would prove nothing; there must be many boulders
about that big on the front of the Moon, and six of them could have been
chosen as "landing locations". To recognise an LM base as baselike but
not boulderlike would need a resolution at least three times better, I'd
think.
A 1 metre telescope observing at 500 nm should have a resolution of 500
nr, give or take small factors; that's 5e-7 r.
The FAQ appears not to contain "1.22" or "1.2"; perhaps it has a missing
question? It could be given a section on formulae that one should not
have forgotten.
--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME. ©
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links;
some Astro stuff via astro.htm, gravity0.htm; quotes.htm; pascal.htm; &c, &c.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.
Mike Dworetsky
It would be a complete waste of valuable telescope time. Imagine that I had
applied to do some astronomy, but found out that I got turned down because
they needed the VLT time to prove that NASA astronauts actually landed on
the Moon.
And then conspiracy wonks will claim that the VLT photos were fakes, of
course.
Why bother doing this? All you need to do is pester some elderly guy who
was an astronaut who walked on the Moon to swear on a Bible that he did it.
That's all the evidence some of these people will believe. Ask Bart Sibrel.
Though I believe a punch in the face carries more authority when Buzz Aldrin
does it. Proof enough for me. Anyone got a video (maybe a Quicktime Clip)
of that great moment in astronautics?
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)
Jonathan Silverlight
<plati...@pants.btinternet.com> writes
>"Phillip Rhodes" <ra...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:a60937e4.04121...@posting.google.com...
>> Hello
>>
>> Despite watching Sky @ Night for over 30 years, I'm not that
>> knowledgeable when it comes to telescopes.
>>
>> As most of you will know there is a conspiracy that states that NASA
>> didn't land man on the moon. Now I'm not going to details the facts
>> or non facts, but there is one method of verification which will
>> settle the matter once and for all.
>>
>> Question: is there a telescope powerful enough to photograph the lower
>> base of each LM? I watched Sky @ Night the other day and was
>> interested to hear that when the new VLT is fully operational it will
>> be able to photograph a man standing on the moon. I'm not sure what
>> the resolution will be but it would appear to be around one metre?
>
>applied to do some astronomy, but found out that I got turned down because
>they needed the VLT time to prove that NASA astronauts actually landed on
>the Moon.
OTOH, the VLT has _already_ been used to produce the sharpest
ground-based image of the Moon yet
<http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2002/phot-19-02.html>,
presumably as a test of the technique. A picture of Tranquillity Base
would be an even better demonstration, and a superb PR image.
Tim Auton
[snip]
>It would be a complete waste of valuable telescope time. Imagine that I had
>applied to do some astronomy, but found out that I got turned down because
>they needed the VLT time to prove that NASA astronauts actually landed on
>the Moon.
Don't they have to test the kit before they do real science with it?
Or do they try to do real science while testing? They've not done
interferometry with all the scopes at the VLT combined yet, so they
have to test that some time.
Tim
--
This is not my signature.
Martin Brown
They will test it against progressively more difficult equal brightness
close double stars initially to establish that the thing functions
correctly. They are about the easiest targets to use for fault finding.
Seeing a object against a glaring huge white disk is incredibly
difficult even if you have the theoretical instrumental resolution. Try
looking for dead flies on your headlamps with main beam on and you will
understand why. All the scattered light from the extended emission turns
the contrast to mush.
By comparison separating a couple of unresolved point sources against a
black sky is easy given a big enough instrument. There are additional
technical limitations to the field of view for optical interferometry
that will scupper using it to image the moon.
Pointing the thing at the moon is a waste of time and money. I vote we
ship some of the Apollo program doubters on one way tickets to the moon
instead.
Regards,
Martin Brown
Mark Dunn
that...GRRR!
Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:cpfbmf$758$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
adam bootle
retroreflectors on the surface for the purpose of being able to measure the
true distance of the moon from Earth. They still work, simple fire a strong
enough laser beam at them and enough is reflected to measure the earth-moon
distance.
I think this is still done every few years or so.
Adam
--
"I got the farts again Charlie."
John Young, while in the confined space of the lunar module with Charlie
Duke on the moon:
Fleetie
> No need to take images of the LM descent stages, the astronauts left retroreflectors on the surface for the purpose of being
> able to measure the true distance of the moon from Earth. They still work, simple fire a strong enough laser beam at them and
> enough is reflected to measure the earth-moon distance.
>
> I think this is still done every few years or so.
>
> Adam
On average, less than one photon is detected in the return from each pulse.
The amount of expensive equipment required to perform the measurement
precludes your average moon-hoax bonehead from believing it's what you're
telling him it is.
Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk
adam bootle
>
> On average, less than one photon is detected in the return from each
> pulse.
>
> The amount of expensive equipment required to perform the measurement
> precludes your average moon-hoax bonehead from believing it's what you're
> telling him it is.
>
>
I was rather hoping to encounter the above average bonehead rather than the
common variety ! You know the kind, they can actually sit and listen and
reason for themselves other than depend on arguments they have seen on the
television !
Amazes me when you ask if it was a fake why didn't the USSR blow the whistle
on it, and they actually turn around and say that the USSR was in on it, lol
!
Anyway, time for me to back outside and cloudwatch !
Adam
Jonathan Silverlight
<fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> writes
>"adam bootle" <ad...@BEGONEbootle32.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:cpkv7q$kk3$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
>> No need to take images of the LM descent stages, the astronauts left
>>retroreflectors on the surface for the purpose of being
>> able to measure the true distance of the moon from Earth. They still
>>work, simple fire a strong enough laser beam at them and
>> enough is reflected to measure the earth-moon distance.
>>
>> I think this is still done every few years or so.
>>
>> Adam
>
>On average, less than one photon is detected in the return from each pulse.
>
>The amount of expensive equipment required to perform the measurement
>precludes your average moon-hoax bonehead from believing it's what you're
>telling him it is.
The boneheads and the people making money claim that unmanned probes
could have landed the reflectors, and that the pictures taken of
reflectors on the moon by the astronauts show they were set up wrongly.
But is it really impossible for a well-equipped amateur to get a signal
from a reflector? Given the availability of large telescopes, lasers on
the surplus market, narrow-band filters, and CCDs to isolate the signal
I'm surprised no-one's tried.
--
What have they got to hide? Release the ESA Beagle 2 report.
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.
Fleetie
> The boneheads and the people making money claim that unmanned probes could have landed the reflectors, and that the pictures
> taken of reflectors on the moon by the astronauts show they were set up wrongly.
> But is it really impossible for a well-equipped amateur to get a signal from a reflector? Given the availability of large
> telescopes, lasers on the surplus market, narrow-band filters, and CCDs to isolate the signal I'm surprised no-one's tried.
I believe they use a ONE METRE telescope both for transmission and reception
of the pulse. (The same telescope, IIRC.) And they still get less than one
photon per pulse.
Actually, I just found this link:
http://home.austin.rr.com/broadb/chris/Using_Lunar_Retroreflectors.html
This link says the scope they use is ~0.75m diameter. It also says that
each laser pulse has a power of 7.5 GIGAWATTS. You don't get that kind
of laser cheap, especially with such a short pulse (only ~200ps).
Unless your amateur has won the lottery, I doubt they'd see much.
Apparently they are going to upgrade their equipment:
http://optics.org/articles/news/8/1/23
They hope to get 5 to 10 photons per pulse with a 3.5 METRE telescope.
Dr John Stockton
Dec 2004 00:15:37, seen in news:uk.sci.astronomy, Fleetie
<fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> posted :
>"Jonathan Silverlight"
>> The boneheads and the people making money claim that unmanned probes could
>have landed the reflectors, and that the pictures
>> taken of reflectors on the moon by the astronauts show they were set up
>wrongly.
>> But is it really impossible for a well-equipped amateur to get a signal from a
>reflector? Given the availability of large
>> telescopes, lasers on the surplus market, narrow-band filters, and CCDs to
>isolate the signal I'm surprised no-one's tried.
>
>I believe they use a ONE METRE telescope both for transmission and reception
>of the pulse. (The same telescope, IIRC.) And they still get less than one
>photon per pulse.
>
>Actually, I just found this link:
>
>http://home.austin.rr.com/broadb/chris/Using_Lunar_Retroreflectors.html
>
>This link says the scope they use is ~0.75m diameter. It also says that
>each laser pulse has a power of 7.5 GIGAWATTS. You don't get that kind
>of laser cheap, especially with such a short pulse (only ~200ps).
Agreed. But if it were one pulse per second, it would only be 1.5 watts
average, which sounds much more reasonable. High peak powers are easier
than high continuous powers.
One might modulate the 1.5W laser with a pseudo-random data stream, and
correlate what the telescope thinks it sees with a 2.5-second delayed
version of the modulation, thus rejecting on average most noise, and
getting a range resolution of a bit-length or so.
The return 'beam' would be reasonably wide, so sender and receiver could
be well-separated; or transmit for 2 seconds, wait half a second, watch
for 2 seconds, wait, ... .
Best not done in the visible, to avoid alarming the neighbours.
In order to detect the reflectors convincingly, one must also look
elsewhere on the Moon, to show that nothing is found there.
--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk / ??.Stoc...@physics.org ©
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Correct <= 4-line sig. separator as above, a line precisely "-- " (SoRFC1036)
Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with ">" or "> " (SoRFC1036)
Jonathan Silverlight
<fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> writes
>"Jonathan Silverlight"
>> The boneheads and the people making money claim that unmanned probes
>>could have landed the reflectors, and that the pictures
>> taken of reflectors on the moon by the astronauts show they were set
>>up wrongly.
>> But is it really impossible for a well-equipped amateur to get a
>>signal from a reflector? Given the availability of large
>> telescopes, lasers on the surplus market, narrow-band filters, and
>>CCDs to isolate the signal I'm surprised no-one's tried.
>
>I believe they use a ONE METRE telescope both for transmission and reception
>of the pulse. (The same telescope, IIRC.) And they still get less than one
>photon per pulse.
>
>Actually, I just found this link:
>
>http://home.austin.rr.com/broadb/chris/Using_Lunar_Retroreflectors.html
>
>This link says the scope they use is ~0.75m diameter. It also says that
>each laser pulse has a power of 7.5 GIGAWATTS. You don't get that kind
>of laser cheap, especially with such a short pulse (only ~200ps).
The pulse power is 7.5x10^9 watts, but the average power is only 15
watts. Do you need very short pulses to get the required accuracy? And 1
meter _is_ bigger than the biggest amateur telescope, AFAIK. But I
suspect the biggest problem is safety and legislation. That sort of
power output is used in surgery, and you don't want it pointing up into
the sky without extreme precautions.
Martin Brown
The reason they use a 1m (or larger) aperture is to make sure the energy
density in the outgoing beam is lower than the threshold for serious eye
damage. Blink reflex doesn't help much with a sub microsecond length
pulse. The maximum peak envelope power may sound alarming but the mean
power is much more reasonable. A bit like grotty Dixons "hifi" gear.
The short pulse (or at least sharp switch on/off transition) is because
the whole object of the excercise is to measure the distance to the moon
to high accuracy. Light travels rather fast so the timing has to be
very very precise.
Regards,
Martin Brown
Fleetie
> The pulse power is 7.5x10^9 watts, but the average power is only 15 watts.
Irrelevant really. I said "per pulse". They could send only 1 pulse
and they'd still get the same <1 photon back per pulse.
But yes, they need such short pulses (which drives that power figure
higher) to get the temporal/spatial resolution, as you say:
> Do you need very short pulses to get the required accuracy? And 1 meter _is_ bigger than the biggest amateur telescope, AFAIK.
> But I suspect the biggest problem is safety and legislation. That sort of power output is used in surgery, and you don't want it
> pointing up into the sky without extreme precautions.
Also true!
Naah, as I said, IMNSHO, it's out of reach of "normal amateurs" for many
reasons.
No point aiming your green laser pointer up there and expecting to see a
little twinkle from the moon a few seconds later!
Fleetie
> The reason they use a 1m (or larger) aperture is to make sure the energy density in the outgoing beam is lower than the
> threshold for serious eye damage.
Simply not true.
They use a large beam because divergence is inversely proportional to
beam diameter. They NEED as small a spot size as possible on the moon,
to increase the fraction of the laser power that hits the retroreflectors.
> Blink reflex doesn't help much with a sub microsecond length pulse. The maximum peak envelope power may sound alarming but the
> mean power is much more reasonable. A bit like grotty Dixons "hifi" gear.
Nuh-uhh. They arrange it so that there aren't going to be any aircraft
flying in the beam path when the measurements are done. Eye-safe is
irrelevant here. (Though even still, ISTR they STILL have extra safeguards
to cut off the pulse train if an early return is detected, but I am speaking
from memory here.)
> The short pulse (or at least sharp switch on/off transition) is because the whole object of the excercise is to measure the
> distance to the moon to high accuracy. Light travels rather fast so the timing has to be very very precise.
Yeah.
I noticed that the according to the URLs I cited yesterday, the new system
will have a pulse width of 100ps, while the older one uses 200ps.
Hmm, in 100ps, light travels about 100E-12 * 3E8 = 0.03 m = 3cm in vacuo.
Course, you could probably do better than that if you can detect the arrival
time of the rising edge of the pulse rather than just the pulse as a whole.
Martin Frey
wrote:
>The pulse power is 7.5x10^9 watts, but the average power is only 15
>watts. Do you need very short pulses to get the required accuracy? And 1
>meter _is_ bigger than the biggest amateur telescope, AFAIK. But I
>suspect the biggest problem is safety and legislation. That sort of
>power output is used in surgery, and you don't want it pointing up into
>the sky without extreme precautions.
It's been a couple of years but I visited the Satellite Laser Ranger
at Herstmonceux and remember distinctly they use a pulse length of
around 3-5 inches: which is a damn short pulse time at 300,000 km/sec.
I know the distance to satellites is minute compared to the Moon but
they reckon they can pick which reflector to hit at on a typical
satellite, normally equipped with reflectors 2-3 inches in diameter at
front back and middle. Mind blowing accuracy.
(They are also highly competitive with the other stations round the
world and were, at that time, the best, though I understand they have
had some problems with the mount recently. But nice to be good at
something despite a temporary glitch.)
-----------------------------
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 01 52.2 E 0 47 21.1
-----------------------------
Dr John Stockton
2004 20:22:57, seen in news:uk.sci.astronomy, Martin Brown <|||newspam||
|@nezumi.demon.co.uk> posted :
>
>The short pulse (or at least sharp switch on/off transition) is because
>the whole object of the excercise is to measure the distance to the moon
>to high accuracy. Light travels rather fast so the timing has to be
>very very precise.
One cannot thus measure the distance to the moon; only the distance to
the Moon and back. So a nanosecond error corresponds to around half a
foot.
The pulses don't have to be very short or sharp, by the standards of
recent electronics, to be good enough for a demonstration measurement
(as opposed, say, to measuring the annual outwards drift); ISTR getting,
twenty years or so ago, pulses sharp on a 100 ns scale using an off-the-
shelf LED and no great effort in driving it. It was an HP LED unit
driving fibre-optics, at about 1 kp, not one of your 5 p indicator LEDs.
But the change-rate of the signal must be good enough for the distance
resolution wanted.
The Apollo reflectors are scattered around the middle of the Moon's
disc, and presumably pointed either upwards or towards the Earth's
apparent path.
Is their off-axis performance good enough to be able to be "seen" when
both the observer on Earth and the reflector are in (solar) darkness and
the Moon is reasonably well above the horizon, such as now?
--
Jonathan Silverlight
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>
>> The pulse power is 7.5x10^9 watts, but the average power is only 15
>>watts. Do you need very short pulses to get the required accuracy? And
>>1 meter _is_ bigger than the biggest amateur telescope, AFAIK. But I
>>suspect the biggest problem is safety and legislation. That sort of
>>power output is used in surgery, and you don't want it pointing up
>>into the sky without extreme precautions.
>
>
>the whole object of the excercise is to measure the distance to the
>moon to high accuracy. Light travels rather fast so the timing has to
>be very very precise.
How do they know the photons coming back are from the pulse that left
2.6746985730 (for instance) seconds ago? Pseudo-random coding of the
pulses, as is done for planetary radar?
Fleetie
> coding of the pulses, as is done for planetary radar?
LOL!
The rep rate is only about 10Hz! The moon ain't gonna move by c/10 ~= 3E7 m
any time soon!
Jonathan Silverlight
<sp...@merlyn.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>Agreed. But if it were one pulse per second, it would only be 1.5 watts
>average, which sounds much more reasonable. High peak powers are easier
>than high continuous powers.
>
>One might modulate the 1.5W laser with a pseudo-random data stream, and
>correlate what the telescope thinks it sees with a 2.5-second delayed
>version of the modulation, thus rejecting on average most noise, and
>getting a range resolution of a bit-length or so.
>
>The return 'beam' would be reasonably wide, so sender and receiver could
>be well-separated; or transmit for 2 seconds, wait half a second, watch
>for 2 seconds, wait, ... .
>
>Best not done in the visible, to avoid alarming the neighbours.
>
The page about Apache Point says a "Nd:YAG laser operating at 532 nm
will send out 100 ps pulses at 115 mJ per pulse at a rate of 20 Hz."
That's green light, IIRC. Would the beam be visible as it left the
telescope?
Fleetie
> The page about Apache Point says a "Nd:YAG laser operating at 532 nm will send out 100 ps pulses at 115 mJ per pulse at a rate
> of 20 Hz." That's green light, IIRC. Would the beam be visible as it left the telescope?
Yes.
I'm sure I've seen this on a TV programme.
Jonathan Silverlight
<fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> writes
>"Jonathan Silverlight" <jsilve...@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid> wrote
>> The page about Apache Point says a "Nd:YAG laser operating at 532 nm
>>will send out 100 ps pulses at 115 mJ per pulse at a rate
>> of 20 Hz." That's green light, IIRC. Would the beam be visible as it
>>left the telescope?
>
>Yes.
>
<http://www.csr.utexas.edu/mlrs/mlrs.html>.
I'm sorry you found my comment about pseudorandom coding amusing.
Actually, a French group _does_ use four pulses a few nanoseconds apart
in a temporal code
<http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/aas/pdf/1998/11/ds1427.pdf>. Given
that they are getting less than one photon per pulse on average, I don't
see how they can do any measurements _without_ some averaging method.
Fleetie
> nanoseconds apart in a temporal code <http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/aas/pdf/1998/11/ds1427.pdf>. Given that they are
> getting less than one photon per pulse on average, I don't see how they can do any measurements _without_ some averaging method.
I'm sorry (!) you didn't see the funny side, because I don't see how at
20Hz there could be any confusion about which pulse the return comes from.
Still, takes all sorts.
Dr John Stockton
Dec 2004 19:04:57, seen in news:uk.sci.astronomy, Jonathan Silverlight
<jsilve...@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid> posted :
>
>The page about Apache Point says a "Nd:YAG laser operating at 532 nm
>will send out 100 ps pulses at 115 mJ per pulse at a rate of 20 Hz."
>That's green light, IIRC. Would the beam be visible as it left the
>telescope?
Well, 115 mJ @ 20 Hz is 2.3 W average. I think that's of the same order
as the visible from a domestic 100 W incandescent bulb, more or less.
I'm not familiar with scattering numbers; but that would surely be
visible in fog, might be visible reflected from cloud, and might not be
visible on a nice clear night. Bear in mind that the Moon will
necessarily be up, and either the Sun will be not far down or the Moon
will be well lit.
There may be no objection to the beam being visible; but one should not
scare the neighbours.
--
Peter Hayes
<...>
> Question: is there a telescope powerful enough to photograph the lower
> base of each LM? I watched Sky @ Night the other day and was
> interested to hear that when the new VLT is fully operational it will
> be able to photograph a man standing on the moon. I'm not sure what
> the resolution will be but it would appear to be around one metre?
Surely all that's needed is a half decent picture of the moon and the
software used on CSI (Crime Scene Investigation - Channel 5) that can
extract a pristine image of the bad guy from one pixel of a grainy
webcam frame.
:)
--
Peter
garr...@efn.org
Aldrin
does it. Proof enough for me. Anyone got a video (maybe a Quicktime
Clip)
of that great moment in astronautics?
It can be found at:
http://www.csicop.org/articles/20021018-aldrin/buzz-aldrin-punch-video.mpg
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
spewed:
>Using the largest scopes on Earth to pander to a few crazies would be a
>shocking waste of observing effort. There is already a 'method of
>verification' already. Look at the photographs. And the miles of film. And
>the books. And the millions of words written in studies of the half a ton of
>lunar material returned by Apollo. Just don't expect professional
>astronomers to join the game.
BUZZZZZ, wrong answer.
Besides, since it's the people who PAY for all those observatories, etc.,
if they want proof they ought to get it. Especially, if it's such a
miniscule expenditure as tasking a damn telescope for while!
Plus, the film and photo's COULD have all been faked.
I don't personally believe they could have been at that time, but they
certainly could have now.
Anyway, that's what all the conspiracy theorist USE as their evidence that
it WAS faked.
Hardly any use to dissuade anybody.
>Phillip Rhodes <ra...@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:a60937e4.04121...@posting.google.com...
>> Hello
>>
>> Despite watching Sky @ Night for over 30 years, I'm not that
>> knowledgeable when it comes to telescopes.
>>
>> As most of you will know there is a conspiracy that states that NASA
>> didn't land man on the moon. Now I'm not going to details the facts
>> or non facts, but there is one method of verification which will
>> settle the matter once and for all.
>>
>> Question: is there a telescope powerful enough to photograph the lower
>> base of each LM? I watched Sky @ Night the other day and was
>> interested to hear that when the new VLT is fully operational it will
>> be able to photograph a man standing on the moon. I'm not sure what
>> the resolution will be but it would appear to be around one metre?
>>
>> The thing is that these LM bases (with adjoining shadow) should be
>> around 6 metres in size, so is there any other telescopes in operation
>> that could be able to pick up these remnants of the Apollo Missions?
>>
>> I appreciated that amateur telescopes cannot pick up anything smaller
>> than a few hundred meters, but surely there must be at least one
>> telescope out there that can photograph something as small as a LM.
>>
>> Accordingly, can anyone recommend a website that detail photographing
>> the moon in detail using large telescopes?
>>
>> Kind Regards
>>
>> Phillip Rhodes
>
--
_____________________________________________________
For email response, or CC, please mailto:see.my.sig.4.addr(at)bigfoot.com.
Yeah, it's really a real address :)
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
>They would just say that these photographs where faked too but I think
>a photograph would be interesting.
Exactly.
That's why it's got to be observable now, post "conspiracy era" for any to
believe it who currently don't.
All you'd have to do is get the biggest proponent of the theory to
whatever observatory, I'm sure he could take up donations for the trip,
and let him friggin look at it for a min.
The fact that this HASN'T happened is the biggest evidence they have of a
conspiracy IMO.
Since it costs them nothing, they could even allow some amt. of these
people there monthly, or yearly, whatever, until people are satisfied that
that many couldn't have been bought off.
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
<plati...@pants.btinternet.com> spewed:
>It would be a complete waste of valuable telescope time. Imagine that I had
>applied to do some astronomy, but found out that I got turned down because
>they needed the VLT time to prove that NASA astronauts actually landed on
>the Moon.
>
>And then conspiracy wonks will claim that the VLT photos were fakes, of
>course.
>
True, so my other idea. See other post.
>Why bother doing this? All you need to do is pester some elderly guy who
>was an astronaut who walked on the Moon to swear on a Bible that he did it.
>That's all the evidence some of these people will believe. Ask Bart Sibrel.
>
I'm neutral on the issue myself. You could call me a Lunar Agnostic :)
But "sworn" testimony would be about as reliable and believable as it is
in any court case.
That'd be the last thing I'd believe one way or the other.
>Though I believe a punch in the face carries more authority when Buzz Aldrin
>does it. Proof enough for me. Anyone got a video (maybe a Quicktime Clip)
>of that great moment in astronautics?
So that was true?! Did't that happen to the Daily Show guy or somebody?
I don't think that proves anything either way though.
I'd think it'd point more to the conspiracy in fact.
If I was him I'd just say "pfff, whatever" and not talk to him.
You know, the saying "thou doth protest too much", hehhh.
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> spewed:
>They will test it against progressively more difficult equal brightness
>close double stars initially to establish that the thing functions
>correctly. They are about the easiest targets to use for fault finding.
>
>Seeing a object against a glaring huge white disk is incredibly
>difficult even if you have the theoretical instrumental resolution. Try
>looking for dead flies on your headlamps with main beam on and you will
>understand why. All the scattered light from the extended emission turns
>the contrast to mush.
>
>By comparison separating a couple of unresolved point sources against a
>black sky is easy given a big enough instrument. There are additional
>technical limitations to the field of view for optical interferometry
>that will scupper using it to image the moon.
>
>Pointing the thing at the moon is a waste of time and money. I vote we
>ship some of the Apollo program doubters on one way tickets to the moon
>instead.
>
Well, you almost made it thru without diatribe :(
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
spewed:
>No need to take photographs of the LEMs on the surface. It was done at the
>time. On the Moon.
BZZZT, another useless answer.
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
<ad...@BEGONEbootle32.freeserve.co.uk> spewed:
>No need to take images of the LM descent stages, the astronauts left
>retroreflectors on the surface for the purpose of being able to measure the
>true distance of the moon from Earth. They still work, simple fire a strong
>enough laser beam at them and enough is reflected to measure the earth-moon
>distance.
>
>I think this is still done every few years or so.
>
> Adam
Damn, about time some real info!
Still, I dont' know it'd satisfy any bonafide conspiracy theorist.
I mean, we got a lander on Mars! We could sure have gotten a crappy
mirror on the moon robotically.
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
<jsilve...@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid> spewed:
>>> Despite watching Sky @ Night for over 30 years, I'm not that
>>> knowledgeable when it comes to telescopes.
>>>
>>> As most of you will know there is a conspiracy that states that NASA
>>> didn't land man on the moon. Now I'm not going to details the facts
>>> or non facts, but there is one method of verification which will
>>> settle the matter once and for all.
>>>
>>> Question: is there a telescope powerful enough to photograph the lower
>>> base of each LM? I watched Sky @ Night the other day and was
>>> interested to hear that when the new VLT is fully operational it will
>>> be able to photograph a man standing on the moon. I'm not sure what
>>> the resolution will be but it would appear to be around one metre?
>>
>>applied to do some astronomy, but found out that I got turned down because
>>they needed the VLT time to prove that NASA astronauts actually landed on
>>the Moon.
>
>ground-based image of the Moon yet
><http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2002/phot-19-02.html>,
>presumably as a test of the technique. A picture of Tranquillity Base
>would be an even better demonstration, and a superb PR image.
Wait, is this thing in existence yet or not?
Can it "photograph a man standing on the moon" or not?
Where is this thing, is it also referred to by another name, i.e. Palomar
Observatory, etc.?
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
<jsilve...@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid> spewed:
>>They would just say that these photographs where faked too but I think
>>a photograph would be interesting.
>
>who believe in this, but the rest of us :-)
>There's a thread on alt.astronomy ("Very Large Telescope VLT") on this
>topic, and if you do the sums you find you need a telescope over 200
>meters across. No single telescope is ever likely to be this big, and an
>interferometer will probably have problems with the lack of contrast in
>the image. Be worth trying, though.
This is interesting. Can anybody explain?
I don't get how it would have to be that big.
If satellites can read a friggin licence plate, how come a huge existing
telescope can't see a whole lander base.. or maybe the buggies.
Is it the brightness that makes it harder?
I wonder if the proposed Hubble replacement, a network of smaller
telescopes, could do it. They'll have much greater total combined mirror
area than Hubble. Neat idea actually.
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
<ad...@BEGONEbootle32.freeserve.co.uk> spewed:
>> On average, less than one photon is detected in the return from each
>> pulse.
>>
>> The amount of expensive equipment required to perform the measurement
>> precludes your average moon-hoax bonehead from believing it's what you're
>> telling him it is.
>>
>>
>I was rather hoping to encounter the above average bonehead rather than the
>common variety ! You know the kind, they can actually sit and listen and
>reason for themselves other than depend on arguments they have seen on the
>television !
>
>Amazes me when you ask if it was a fake why didn't the USSR blow the whistle
>on it, and they actually turn around and say that the USSR was in on it, lol
>!
Now THAT is total BS. That's a real moron!
Their whole premise is that it was done to appear to have beaten the USSR
to it. Jeez, not even a real conspiracy theorist!
If it was a hoax fooling the USSR would be the whole point!
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid
spewed:
>"adam bootle" <ad...@BEGONEbootle32.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message news:cpkv7q$kk3$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
>> No need to take images of the LM descent stages, the astronauts left retroreflectors on the surface for the purpose of being
>> able to measure the true distance of the moon from Earth. They still work, simple fire a strong enough laser beam at them and
>> enough is reflected to measure the earth-moon distance.
>>
>> I think this is still done every few years or so.
>>
>> Adam
>
>
>The amount of expensive equipment required to perform the measurement
>precludes your average moon-hoax bonehead from believing it's what you're
>telling him it is.
>
I guess a laser traveling that distance would diffuse and the beam would
widen too much?
Jim
> This is interesting. Can anybody explain?
> I don't get how it would have to be that big.
> If satellites can read a friggin licence plate, how come a huge existing
> telescope can't see a whole lander base.. or maybe the buggies.
> Is it the brightness that makes it harder?
Partly.
Mostly it's because the satellites are much, much closer to their
targets - 800km (give or take) versus 384,000km (mean). It all comes
down to resolution - to photograph an objects n meters wide, y km away,
you need an aperture of z meters or greater.
Jim
--
Find me at http://www.ursaminorbeta.co.uk AIM/iChatAV: JCAndrew2
Lost: Stack Pointer. Small reward offered if found.
Jim
> >I was rather hoping to encounter the above average bonehead rather than the
> >common variety ! You know the kind, they can actually sit and listen and
> >reason for themselves other than depend on arguments they have seen on the
> >television !
> >
> >Amazes me when you ask if it was a fake why didn't the USSR blow the whistle
> >on it, and they actually turn around and say that the USSR was in on it, lol
> >!
> Now THAT is total BS. That's a real moron!
> Their whole premise is that it was done to appear to have beaten the USSR
> to it. Jeez, not even a real conspiracy theorist!
>
> If it was a hoax fooling the USSR would be the whole point!
Remember that you're talking about a country that had one of the most
extensive spy networks under the known sky. It simply wouldn't have been
possible to hide the truth from them for very long. Something would have
leaked, sooner or later, and then the whole thing would have blown wide
open.
FWIW though, I think it would be rather cool to put some sort of terrain
mapping sat into lunar orbit. If nothing else it would provide useful
info for any possible future base there. I guess the money simply isn't
available yet, though.
Jonathan Silverlight
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid writes
>On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:17:55 +0000 (UTC), "Mike Dworetsky"
><plati...@pants.btinternet.com> spewed:
>>It would be a complete waste of valuable telescope time. Imagine that I had
>>applied to do some astronomy, but found out that I got turned down because
>>they needed the VLT time to prove that NASA astronauts actually landed on
>>the Moon.
>>
>Uh, because the public paid for it?
>
>>And then conspiracy wonks will claim that the VLT photos were fakes, of
>>course.
>>
>True, so my other idea. See other post.
>
>>Why bother doing this? All you need to do is pester some elderly guy who
>>was an astronaut who walked on the Moon to swear on a Bible that he did it.
>>That's all the evidence some of these people will believe. Ask Bart Sibrel.
>>
>I'm neutral on the issue myself.
No you aren't. You're far too emphatic.
The Moon Hoax idea is a total non-issue, being pushed by a handful of
deadbeats trying to get out of their trailer parks and supported by the
more stupid journalists.
But despite what Mike says, I think the VLT staff are actually quite
keen to try imaging the Apollo landing sites. It would be a nice
demonstration of their technology and good PR. It would probably be done
during the commissioning and testing of a new instrument, before the
astronomers get their hands on it :-)
--
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.
Martin Brown
> On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 21:37:11 +0000, Jonathan Silverlight
> <jsilve...@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid> spewed:
>
>>>They would just say that these photographs where faked too but I think
>>>a photograph would be interesting.
>>
>>Exactly. We aren't talking about the 10% at the bottom of the bell curve
>>who believe in this, but the rest of us :-)
>>There's a thread on alt.astronomy ("Very Large Telescope VLT") on this
>>topic, and if you do the sums you find you need a telescope over 200
>>meters across. No single telescope is ever likely to be this big, and an
>>interferometer will probably have problems with the lack of contrast in
>>the image. Be worth trying, though.
>
> This is interesting. Can anybody explain?
> I don't get how it would have to be that big.
Angular resolution is 1.22D/lambda
> If satellites can read a friggin licence plate, how come a huge existing
> telescope can't see a whole lander base.. or maybe the buggies.
The moon is a hell of a lot further away than the satellites that can
read a ground based number plate.
> Is it the brightness that makes it harder?
Low contrast and bright extended objects like the moon are extremely
hard for interferometers to handle. And filled aperture scopes are
limited from the Earth by the seeing to 0.1" if you are lucky.
> I wonder if the proposed Hubble replacement, a network of smaller
> telescopes, could do it. They'll have much greater total combined mirror
> area than Hubble. Neat idea actually.
It isn't the mirror area that matters - there is plenty of light. The
problem is in getting sufficient angular resolution.
Regards,
Martin Brown
Martin
"Jonathan Silverlight" <jsilve...@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid> wrote
in message news:9hTvrnAZ...@merseia.fsnet.co.uk...
But you know that the inbreds in trailer parks will simply state that the
NASA have put them there since!!!!
Martin
Fleetie
>>precludes your average moon-hoax bonehead from believing it's what you're
>>telling him it is.
>>
> Huh, how come?
> I guess a laser traveling that distance would diffuse and the beam would
> widen too much?
It does, almost.
Apparently from each laser pulse that they send up, on average, they get
less than one photon returned and detected.
I did hear that they were planning to build a more powerful pulsed laser,
and it may be in service now, but apparently, for a long time, the above
was true, and it may still be.
Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=fleetie
Fleetie
Not a car plate on earth, from orbit (hundreds of km), they can't.
Where on Earth (or otherwise) did you get that idea from?
You're spouting.
Mark McIntyre
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid wrote:
>On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 21:37:11 +0000, Jonathan Silverlight
><jsilve...@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid> spewed:
>>topic, and if you do the sums you find you need a telescope over 200
>>meters across. No single telescope is ever likely to be this big, and an
>I don't get how it would have to be that big.
>If satellites can read a friggin licence plate, how come a huge existing
>telescope can't see a whole lander base..
Er, distance. Satellites are 200 miles away, the moon is 250,000 miles
away. Assuming a satellite could just make out a number plate, for
the same satellite to detect a number plate on the moon, it'd have to
be around 1000 feet high.
>I wonder if the proposed Hubble replacement, a network of smaller
>telescopes, could do it. They'll have much greater total combined mirror
>area than Hubble. Neat idea actually.
There's a trivial piece of maths that will tell you the theoretical
resolving power of a telescope, and another that will tell you how big
an object will appear at a given distance. Given those sums, you can
easily calculate the minimum size a telescope would have to be. Its
too large for me to write the sums in this margin though.
--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ <http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>
CLC readme: <http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt>
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
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Mark McIntyre
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid wrote:
>On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:17:55 +0000 (UTC), "Mike Dworetsky"
><plati...@pants.btinternet.com> spewed:
>>It would be a complete waste of valuable telescope time. Imagine that I had
>>applied to do some astronomy, but found out that I got turned down because
>>they needed the VLT time to prove that NASA astronauts actually landed on
>>the Moon.
>>
>Uh, because the public paid for it?
And this would be a more worth while thing to do than say watching for
asteroids, or doing research into the origins of GRBs.
Mark McIntyre
see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:07:43 -0000, "adam bootle"
><ad...@BEGONEbootle32.freeserve.co.uk> spewed:
>>
>>Amazes me when you ask if it was a fake why didn't the USSR blow the whistle
>>on it, and they actually turn around and say that the USSR was in on it, lol
>>!
>
>If it was a hoax fooling the USSR would be the whole point!
The point is that the conspiracy theorists claim that the USSR was in
on the hoax, ie part of it. Thats so ludicrous its funny.
Anthony Frost
"Fleetie" <fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > If satellites can read a friggin licence plate
>
> Not a car plate on earth, from orbit (hundreds of km), they can't.
> Where on Earth (or otherwise) did you get that idea from?
Last time somthing like this came up on one of the sci.space groups I
think the answer was that, under ideal conditions, you should be able to
see how many characters there were on a standard UK style number plate,
but you stood no chance of telling what each blob was. Under real
conditions, such as there being an atmosphere in the way and the number
plate being vertical instead of horizontal, you could say "Yup, that's
a car. And it's blue". On a clear winters day you could probably tell
if it was an estate or a saloon model.
Anthony
Martin Brown
> see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid wrote:
>> This is interesting. Can anybody explain?
>> I don't get how it would have to be that big.
>
> Angular resolution is 1.22D/lambda
Oops. I meant 1.22 lambda/D
Regards,
Martin Brown
Peter Hayes
All you need do then is to apply the imaging software used by the CSI
(Crime Scene Investigaton) team, as seen on Channel 5, and you'll be
able to read said number plate and even see who the car dealer was...
--
Peter
Peter Hayes
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:
>
> > >I was rather hoping to encounter the above average bonehead rather than the
> > >common variety ! You know the kind, they can actually sit and listen and
> > >reason for themselves other than depend on arguments they have seen on the
> > >television !
> > >
> > >Amazes me when you ask if it was a fake why didn't the USSR blow the
> > >whistle on it, and they actually turn around and say that the USSR was
> > >in on it, lol !
> > Now THAT is total BS. That's a real moron!
> > Their whole premise is that it was done to appear to have beaten the USSR
> > to it. Jeez, not even a real conspiracy theorist!
> >
> > If it was a hoax fooling the USSR would be the whole point!
>
> Remember that you're talking about a country that had one of the most
> extensive spy networks under the known sky. It simply wouldn't have been
> possible to hide the truth from them for very long. Something would have
> leaked, sooner or later, and then the whole thing would have blown wide
> open.
Any newspaper would have paid millions for an exclusive proving the moon
mission was a hoax.
The fact that no one out of the tens of thousands of Apollo workers has
come forward suggests there is no scoop out there.
--
Peter
Hils
>> Last time somthing like this came up on one of the sci.space groups I
>> think the answer was that, under ideal conditions, you should be able to
>> see how many characters there were on a standard UK style number plate,
>> but you stood no chance of telling what each blob was. Under real
>> conditions, such as there being an atmosphere in the way and the number
>> plate being vertical instead of horizontal, you could say "Yup, that's
>> a car. And it's blue". On a clear winters day you could probably tell
>> if it was an estate or a saloon model.
>
>All you need do then is to apply the imaging software used by the CSI
>(Crime Scene Investigaton) team, as seen on Channel 5, and you'll be
>able to read said number plate and even see who the car dealer was...
There are also a fair few people with an interest in not challenging
these claims: academics, law enforcement and other government agencies,
not to mention politicians, all stand to gain from seeming more clever
and/or powerful than they really are.
--
Hil
Peter Hayes
And I wouldn't be surprised to discover that some of them "leak" this
sort of disinformation for the reasons you state.
--
Peter
Martin
"Mark McIntyre" <markmc...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:95h3a1tmr3uhlvgnb...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 03 Jun 2005 22:44:50 -0700, in uk.sci.astronomy ,
> see.my.s...@nowhere.com.invalid wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:07:43 -0000, "adam bootle"
>><ad...@BEGONEbootle32.freeserve.co.uk> spewed:
>>>
>>>Amazes me when you ask if it was a fake why didn't the USSR blow the
>>>whistle
>>>on it, and they actually turn around and say that the USSR was in on it,
>>>lol
>>>!
>>
>>If it was a hoax fooling the USSR would be the whole point!
>
> The point is that the conspiracy theorists claim that the USSR was in
> on the hoax, ie part of it. Thats so ludicrous its funny.
> --
Thats the thing with the conspiracy idiots. Evertime someone pulls their
story apart, they just dream up some fantasy to explain it away. These
idiots will never give up so long as there are bigger idiots who believe
them (and money to be made)
Martin
Martin
"Martin Brown" <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:d7s67u$psd$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
But the landing sites have already been photographed form orbiting
satellites and have been published. The photo I saw clearly showed the first
stage of the lander sitting there on the surface. I don't see why there is
such a waste of time to image something that has already been done.
Martin
Steven
<nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
Don't get me wrong, the Apollo mission was not faked but just out of
interest.
Are these pictures on the net? I would like to see it. Thanks
Steven
Martin
"Steven" <p...@p.com> wrote in message news:050620051839396668%p...@p.com...
The one I saw appeared in Astronomy Now a couple of years ago, I 've seen
one or two in the NASA archives for the Apollo missions which show hi res
shots othe landing sites, although the resolution is not as good as the one
I saw in the magazine. Of course the nutters will simply say tohse are faked
as well, but the point is there is nothing to stop the nutters for raising
the funds to send a probe themseleves and photograph the landing sites to
see what's there.
Martin
Mike Collins
This is one image but it would be for a fanatic to say it was a fake
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020628.html
--
Mike Collins
UK
Mike&heather-at-oakwellmount-dot-freeserve-dot-co-dot-uk
Jonathan Silverlight
<nos...@nospam.com> writes
I'm astonished to see that this thread has been running for six months
(looking at my own contribution above :-) but I still think my point is
valid. It's a beautiful demonstration of the technology. If the VLT
doesn't or can't do it, I would expect one of the space-based
interferometers now being planned to try.
chr...@mail.dk
> I'm astonished to see that this thread has been running for six months
> (looking at my own contribution above :-) but I still think my point is
> valid. It's a beautiful demonstration of the technology. If the VLT
> doesn't or can't do it, I would expect one of the space-based
> interferometers now being planned to try.
What nobody has discussed so far is the distinct possibility of alien
interest in the first faltering steps of a fledgling space-travelling
race. They may have removed the human "litter" for further examination
and even swept away the footprints with a fallen branch from a nearby
Moomintree.
Chris.B.Moomintroll
Chris Taylor
<chr...@mail.dk> wrote in message
news:1118039005....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> What nobody has discussed so far is the distinct possibility of alien
> interest in the first faltering steps of a fledgling space-travelling
> race. They may have removed the human "litter" for further examination
> and even swept away the footprints with a fallen branch from a nearby
> Moomintree.
>
> Chris.B.Moomintroll
>
Lets not forget the clangers..
Martin Brown
> I'm astonished to see that this thread has been running for six months
> (looking at my own contribution above :-)
I think someone just resurrected it.
> but I still think my point is
> valid. It's a beautiful demonstration of the technology. If the VLT
> doesn't or can't do it, I would expect one of the space-based
> interferometers now being planned to try.
It is a nightmare for interferometers to image detail on bright extended
disks. You end up looking for miniscule differences superimposed on the
sum of all the light from the moon's disk. Everything in interferometry
is optimised for looking at isolated regions of fine bright detail on a
dark background.
Disks are extremely hard to do but VLA does sometimes look at the planets eg
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/vla/upgrade/node34.html
http://astron.berkeley.edu/~imke/RadioPage/radio.htm
And one extremely serious problem is that the Earth-moon-sun angle is
constantly changing so the standard assumption of basic aperture
synthesis is violated. The object will change it's apperance
significantly over the 12 hours it would take to get fringe measurements
that covered the U-V plane.
I wouldn't rule it out that someone might take a pot shot using
engineering time on the VLT, but I doubt they could ever be successful.
Certainly nothing like enough for making an image.
Regards,
Martin Brown
Jonathan Silverlight
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> writes
You're probably right, but I found this interesting interview with
Roberto Gilmozzi, director of the VLT :-)
In the world of big, powerful telescopes, there is one accomplishment
that none have been able to claim. It has no scientific value, really,
but it would thrill both astronomers and the general public and ensure a
lifetime of bragging rights to the first to do it.
Sitting in his office at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large
Telescope in northern Chile, overlooking an expanse of brown hills and
valleys leading to the Pacific Ocean five miles away, VLT director
Roberto Gilmozzi smiles as he edges toward the revelation. "When this
telescope is complete, it will have the angular resolution equivalent to
that of a telescope with a mirror 132 meters [433 feet] in diameter,"
Gilmozzi begins. "That means that we will, if we wanted to, be able to
resolve and photograph Apollo debris left on the moon."
Now, there are many, many other celestial targets that the ESO is much
more interested in-distant galaxies, dim nebulas, extrasolar planets-but
that would be a sensational stunt. Many thought it impossible, given how
minuscule even the largest Apollo remnant-something about the size of a
delivery van-would be from a quarter of a million miles away. But with
the giant leap that the ESO is about to take in Chile, this and a lot of
other accomplishments are indeed going to be possible. Gilmozzi is coy,
though, about whether the moon shots will actually make it into the
observing schedule. "It would certainly make for some good PR, wouldn't
it?" he asks.
It would. It would also prove Gilmozzi's point: that the VLT is an
exceptionally powerful instrument.
<http://www.airandspacemagazine.com/ASM/Mag/Index/2000/JJ/lite.html>
He's obviously very keen to try.
And this. Even if you don't read much German the meaning is obvious!
"Naht das Ende der Moon-Hoax-Legende?"
<http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/16/16713/1.html>.
Steven
Request urgent funding to shoot a bunch of crap at the moon so they
don't find us out"
NASA
:-)
Steven
In article <ZoS25HZY...@merseia.fsnet.co.uk>, Jonathan Silverlight
Martin Brown
> In message <d810cl$pmq$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>, Martin Brown
> <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>> It is a nightmare for interferometers to image detail on bright
>> extended disks. You end up looking for miniscule differences
>> superimposed on the sum of all the light from the moon's disk.
>> Everything in interferometry is optimised for looking at isolated
>> regions of fine bright detail on a dark background.
>> I wouldn't rule it out that someone might take a pot shot using
>> engineering time on the VLT, but I doubt they could ever be
>> successful. Certainly nothing like enough for making an image.
>
> You're probably right, but I found this interesting interview with
> Roberto Gilmozzi, director of the VLT :-)
>
> In the world of big, powerful telescopes, there is one accomplishment
> that none have been able to claim. It has no scientific value, really,
> but it would thrill both astronomers and the general public and ensure a
> lifetime of bragging rights to the first to do it.
> Sitting in his office at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large
> Telescope in northern Chile, overlooking an expanse of brown hills and
> valleys leading to the Pacific Ocean five miles away, VLT director
> Roberto Gilmozzi smiles as he edges toward the revelation. "When this
> telescope is complete, it will have the angular resolution equivalent to
> that of a telescope with a mirror 132 meters [433 feet] in diameter,"
> Gilmozzi begins. "That means that we will, if we wanted to, be able to
> resolve and photograph Apollo debris left on the moon."
I groaned when I saw that press release and I expect just about every
other practitioner with experience of aperture synthesis did too!
All he needs to make it work is a huge uniform screen of coherent
anti-photons to place in front of the telescopes so that black is white
and vice versa. And even then it would be incredibly tricky. Sorry but
it isn't going to happen even if their PR dept wants it to!
You can null an unresolved point source out well enough to look for any
planets in orbit around it but you can't null out extended objects like
the moon.
> He's obviously very keen to try.
Odd that he should have been so badly advised :(
PHB's and PR depts have a lot to answer for...
Regards,
Martin Brown
Brad Guth
Good grief folks. By far the best resolution that's out of this world
are those obtained from orbiting roughly 100 km off the lunar deck,
using the 500 mm lens on that Hasselblad camera somewhat improves upon
that. The only pesky problem is that out of all of their missions, each
having numerous passes sufficiently over their supposed landing
site(s), never once was there an image including a given landing zone,
but rather an extremely large and somewhat dark (3~5% albedo) impact
zones was the best they could manage from other satellite missions that
weren't orbiting anywhere as near.
BTFW; that's only 3,844 times closer than KECK-II.
Would you like a few hot links to those absolutely terrific images via
orbiting the moon?
~
GUTH Venus township, bridge and ET Park-n-Ride tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
A few testy topics by; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
ludwig von bludnock
told BT they could never get live video/films etc down the local loop.
Not withstanding of course that fact that they'd already done it.
Reading a car number plate from a military satellite is a piece of cake -
under reasonable weather conditions.
"Fleetie" <fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:hMhoe.6029$hT6....@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net...
Fleetie
> Spouting? you're beginning to remind me of the sceptics 10 years ago who
> told BT they could never get live video/films etc down the local loop.
> Not withstanding of course that fact that they'd already done it.
>
> Reading a car number plate from a military satellite is a piece of cake -
> under reasonable weather conditions.
Dog plop.
Prove me wrong.
ludwig von bludnock
Simple boy, I don't have to.
Just take a look at your website dipstick.
"Fleetie" <fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:khkte.27178$cN2....@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...
Jonathan Silverlight
<fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> writes
>"ludwig von bludnock" <dontb...@ntlworld.com> wrote
>> Spouting? you're beginning to remind me of the sceptics 10 years ago who
>> told BT they could never get live video/films etc down the local loop.
>> Not withstanding of course that fact that they'd already done it.
>>
>> Reading a car number plate from a military satellite is a piece of cake -
>> under reasonable weather conditions.
>
>Dog plop.
>
>Prove me wrong.
The theoretical resolution of an 8 meter mirror at a range of 800 km is
6.7 centimeters (assuming the same size as the original Next Generation
Space Telescope" with its segmented mirror, which they wouldn't have
considered if they didn't know it could be done, and allowing for
observing at a slant)
Remember they are using adaptive optics to get that theoretical
resolution despite atmospheric distortion.
The biggest acknowledged mirror is on the KH-11 (about 2 meters), but if
there isn't already something bigger, there soon will be.
--
Boycott whale killers - Japan, Iceland, Norway
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.
Tim Auton
>Spouting? you're beginning to remind me of the sceptics 10 years ago who
>told BT they could never get live video/films etc down the local loop.
>Not withstanding of course that fact that they'd already done it.
>
>Reading a car number plate from a military satellite is a piece of cake -
>under reasonable weather conditions.
How do they do it then? 20m mirrors? Optical interferometry?
Unless somebody has recently changed the laws of physics you need a
very large aperture to read a number plate from several hundred kms.
Tim
--
Don't tell me I'm still on that feckin' island!
Fleetie
> Next Generation Space Telescope" with its segmented mirror, which they wouldn't have considered if they didn't know it could be
> done, and allowing for observing at a slant)
You'd need a fair bit better than 6.7cm resolution to read a number plate.
I was thinking about this yesterday. Obviously in the fuzzy area between
"easily good enough" and "not good enough", there is a region in which
image enhancement, Bayesian methods, etc. may help, but would not yield
a result with 100% certainty.
But I concluded that WITHOUT resorting to such methods, and just relying
on the quality of image afforded by the resolution available, you'd probably
need a bit better than 1 inch resolution to reliably read a British number
plate.
Comments on that?
Quite apart from the above, if, as you say, the biggest mirror that we KNOW
to be up there is 2m, it's still nowhere near possible to read a number
plate from orbit. QED, IMO.
Martin
Martin Brown
>>The theoretical resolution of an 8 meter mirror at a range of 800 km is 6.7 centimeters (assuming the same size as the original
>>Next Generation Space Telescope" with its segmented mirror, which they wouldn't have considered if they didn't know it could be
>>done, and allowing for observing at a slant)
>
> You'd need a fair bit better than 6.7cm resolution to read a number plate.
It would be touch and go, but that is about on the dividing line where a
good deconvolution code combined with excellent signal to noise ratio
could hack it. A rough rule of thumb for high contrast targets is 3x
improvement in resolution and so at 2.2cm pixel scale you are in with a
fair chance of reading it. Even better than that if you know the font used.
>
> I was thinking about this yesterday. Obviously in the fuzzy area between
> "easily good enough" and "not good enough", there is a region in which
> image enhancement, Bayesian methods, etc. may help, but would not yield
> a result with 100% certainty.
>
> But I concluded that WITHOUT resorting to such methods, and just relying
> on the quality of image afforded by the resolution available, you'd probably
> need a bit better than 1 inch resolution to reliably read a British number
> plate.
>
> Comments on that?
I suspect that satellites that could read number plates require them to
be strapped to the roof of the car and would need to be at perigee much
closer than 800km to stand any chance at all.
>
> Quite apart from the above, if, as you say, the biggest mirror that we KNOW
> to be up there is 2m, it's still nowhere near possible to read a number
> plate from orbit. QED, IMO.
Depends how elliptical the orbit is. I doubt you can read a US number
plate reliably from orbit. UK ones might just be possible on a good day
with a 2m class system at under 200km.
You should be able to mock the problem up in PhotoShop for MaximDL or
one of the other deconvolution codes to try and solve...
Regards,
Martin Brown
Fleetie
>at 2.2cm pixel scale you are in with a fair chance of reading it. Even better than that if you know the font used.
I doubt this really. But I think now we're at a point where it's not
really enough to say "x cm resolution"; we need to define what we mean
by "resolution". Do we just mean an image consisting of square pixels,
each subtending x cm at the target distance, or do we mean some kind
of gaussian or other profile, where x cm is the FWHM, or what? It's not
something I'm very knowledgeable about, so I'm thinking out loud a bit
here.
Also, we need to decide at what height this 2m satellite orbits. Someone
ought to know that. Then we can nail down the height, so we can nail down
the actual diffraction-limited theoretical resolution.
I'm prepared to overlook the issue about number plates not being affixed
to the top of cars for now! I don't mind assuming they are, for the purposes
of this debate.
But I did ask the original guy who made the claim for PROOF, not supposition
or conjecture.
I'll accept solid numbers as "proof", though they're not really. Real proof
would be a satellite image of a number plate, that was legible.
I won't accept arguments along the lines of "computer enhancement can
increase effective resolution by 5 times" without some hard maths to back
such claims up.
I'm still pretty confident it can't be done by a satellite with a 2m mirror,
even on "a good day".
Jonathan Silverlight
<fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> writes
I started my reply in the expectation that it was possible, but soon had
severe doubts so I just posted the neutral facts. And I've done a bit
more work.
The dimensions of a Large Rear plate are 533mm x 152mm
<http://www.number-plates-car-registrations.co.uk/number_plate_dimensions
.html>. So you've got about 8 pixels across a number plate in my
example.
Now I don't think it can be done, and I've put my work on my web site at
<http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk/index.html>.
Roger Hamlett
"Jonathan Silverlight" <jsilve...@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid>
wrote in message news:yBqszlIpF1tCFwt$@merseia.fsnet.co.uk...
First, you have to decide what the limit of 'resolution' is. The normally
quoted figure, is based on the size of the Airy disk peaks, and distance
to the first 'trough', and comes where two identically sized peaks, have a
full 'dip' between them down to basically the baseline. This is referred
to as the limit for 'full resolution', and corresponds to being able to
have a pattern of white/black lines, and resolve them as white and black
lines. However for detecting something like a numberplate pattern, you can
accept a much lower limit. This is the point where it is _just_ possible
to detect a 'dip' in the light profile between the lines. This in
astronomical terms, corresponds to the Dawes criterion, and would mark the
point where there is something to 'resolve'.
Secondly, you can improve the effective resolution of a system, by working
at the blue end of the spectrum. While how far you can go here, is limited
by the atmosphere, a significant improvement is possible.
The highest resolution satellite images, were done using 'short term'
satellites. Usually a launch into a relatively low orbit, with a ship that
has a limited lifespan. This makes a huge difference to the distances
involved, but implies that this level of sensing can only be done on a
'need' basis, at a relatively high cost.
The numberplate 'claim', probably comes from a couple of claims made about
such platforms when the Cold War eased, when it was said on at least one
occasion, that the best imagers could 'read the headlines on a newspaper'.
Now using such a LEO imager, the sort of size being talked about, with a
paper lying flat on a table, this sort of resolution is just about
possible. However the numberplate is a much harder target, because of it's
orientation, and is probably unachievable. The Holywood systems, where a
satellite in a much higher orbit takes an image, that is marvellously
enhanced, and suddenly you can read number plates on moving vehicles, are
just 'fairy tales'...
Best Wishes
Fleetie
> I've done a bit more work.
> The dimensions of a Large Rear plate are 533mm x 152mm <http://www.number-plates-car-registrations.co.uk/number_plate_dimensions
> .html>. So you've got about 8 pixels across a number plate in my example.
> Now I don't think it can be done, and I've put my work on my web site at <http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk/index.html>.
Nice one. It agrees with what I thought intuitively you'd see at that
kind of resolution. It's "No way, Jose!".
Jonathan Silverlight
<fle...@fleetie.demon.co.uk> writes
>> I started my reply in the expectation that it was possible, but soon
>>had severe doubts so I just posted the neutral facts. And
>> I've done a bit more work.
>> The dimensions of a Large Rear plate are 533mm x 152mm
>><http://www.number-plates-car-registrations.co.uk/number_plate_dimensio>>ns
>> .html>. So you've got about 8 pixels across a number plate in my example.
>> Now I don't think it can be done, and I've put my work on my web site
>>at <http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk/index.html>.
>
>Nice one. It agrees with what I thought intuitively you'd see at that
>kind of resolution. It's "No way, Jose!".
Thanks.
I'll just note that although Martin Brown was appropriately scornful
when I mentioned interferometry I still wonder what the spooks are doing
with it. The Future Imagery Architecture program has $25 billion to
spend <http://cartome.org/nro-fia.htm>, and the NOSS system has been
flying formations for years <http://satobs.org/noss.html>.
Seems to me that the real question is "do they have a need for that
resolution ?" If so, they are going to get it. If not, they will aim for
other goals.