Could you see men on the Moon with a telescope bought at the mall?
ron9baseball asked:
If there were men on the Moon, on a night with ideal meteorological conditions - could you see those men with a relatively inexpensive amateur telescope?
Wow, I figured at worst someone would say we’d need to go to that telescope in Hawaii or something.
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If there were men on the Moon, on a night with ideal meteorological conditions - could you see those men with a relatively inexpensive amateur telescope?
Wow, I figured at worst someone would say we’d need to go to that telescope in Hawaii or something.
At what distance between the Earth’s outer atmosphere and the Moon would a land based telescope lose sight of Moon bound space craft? 25% of the way? 5% of the way?
February 1st, 2009 at 11:40 pm
No. Even the most advanced telescopes can’t provide resolution great enough to see that much detail on something 400,000 kilometers away.
February 3rd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
No. No current telescope is capable of resolving such a small target from so great a distance. Even Hubble, working above the atmosphere, cannot resolve anything smaller then about a football field.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Nope. The smallest feature a typical telescope can resolve is something like a mile across.
February 6th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Humans on the moon would be far too small.
The Hubble Space Telescope can resolve features on the moon that are about the size of a football field. (That’s a single pixel).
I’m not going to do the math, but I’d imagine an earthbound telescope would have to have a lens diameter of a few milometers to resolve something the size of a human at the distance of the moon….
They don’t sell those at any of the malls in my neighborhood.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
no, you would need the Hubble Space Telescope to see something that small 240,000 miles away.
February 10th, 2009 at 2:07 am
the Moon subtends a half a degree and is 2000 miles wide.
thats like seeing every tiny one horse town from LA to NYC on a fold-out map 3 ft wide.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:41 am
we need the hawaii or hubble space telescope. they announced last week they will send spitzer to take photos of what the men left behind in a year.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
haha unfortunatly . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes. And i say unfortunately because there are no men on the moon
lol
February 18th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I’m assuming you’re going to try and spot moving objects on the moon..? Well, I’d like to try that out sometime too.
Unfortunately, No, Even our advanced telescopes which you Can’t buy at the mall won’t provide us with a detailed image. The only way to do what you’re trying to is by hovering above the moon itself, because only from there will you be able to see people walking around (with advanced telescopes - distances are still great).
February 20th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
You would have to have quite a powerful telescope to see a person standing a 1/4 of a million miles away. I heard last week of one person who used his telescope to see the Japanese & Chinese satellites that are now orbiting the Moon so we must assume that it would be possible.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:02 am
it depends on your definition on inexpensive
according to my definition, it is not possible to see men on the moon