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[sci.astro] General (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (2/9)
Section - B.20 Is it possible to see the Moon landing sites?

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It is possible to locate and observe the Apollo landing "sites," but
it is *not* possible with current equipment to see the hardware left
there, since their sizes are far too small to be resolved
successfully.  For example, a common backyard 6 inch aperture
telescope can only resolve craters on the moon which are about 1.5
miles or so across.  Even telescopes with a resolution comparable to
that of the Hubble Space Telescope can only resolve details about 100
meters across (the size of a football or soccer field).  Lasers fired
from Earth are bounced off special retro-reflectors left at these
sites by the astronauts, and the faint return pulse is then detected
by Earth-based telescopes equipped with special instruments to measure
the Earth-moon distance, but otherwise, we can't see any man-made
equipment left at the landing sites.  If you wish to see the sites
through a telescope for yourself, here are the approximate locations
of the Apollo landing sites (see the Project Apollo Web site,
<URL:http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo.html>, for more
exact locations and descriptions or
<URL:http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Edurda/Apollo/landing_sites.html> for
set of images of the landing sites at increasingly higher resolution):

APOLLO 11:  0.67 deg. N, 23.49 deg. E, near southwest edge of Mare
Tranquillatis a little northwest of the 6-mile wide crater Moltke.

APOLLO 12: 3.20 deg. S, 23.38 deg. W, in Oceanus Procellarum southeast
of the crater Lansberg (also the landing site of Surveyor 3).

APOLLO 14: 3.67 deg. S, 17.47 deg. W., in Fra Mauro highlands just north
of northwestern rim of large shallow Fra Mauro crater.

APOLLO 15: 26.10 deg.N., 3.65 deg. E., Next to Hadley Rille and
southwest of Mt. Hadley in the lunar Apennine Mountains.

APOLLO 16: 8.99 deg. S., 15.52 deg. E., higlands north of the ruined
crater Descartes and southeast of the double crater Dolland B/C.

APOLLO 17: 20.16 deg. N., 30.77 deg. E., in the southwestern Taurus
Mountains roughly between the craters Littrow and Vitruvius.

User Contributions:

1
Keith Phemister
Sep 13, 2024 @ 11:23 pm
Copied from above: If the Universe were infinitely old, infinite in extent, and filled
with stars, then every direction you looked would eventually end on
the surface of a star, and the whole sky would be as bright as the
surface of the Sun.
Why would anyone assume this? Certainly, we have directions where we look that are dark because something that does not emit light (is not a star) is between us and the light. A close example is in our own solar system. When we look at the Sun (a star) during a solar eclipse the Moon blocks the light. When we look at the inner planets of our solar system (Mercury and Venus) as they pass between us and the Sun, do we not get the same effect, i.e. in the direction of the planet we see no light from the Sun? Those planets simply look like dark spots on the Sun.
Olbers' paradox seems to assume that only stars exist in the universe, but what about the planets? Aren't there more planets than stars, thus more obstructions to light than sources of light?
What may be more interesting is why can we see certain stars seemingly continuously. Are there no planets or other obstructions between them and us? Or is the twinkle in stars just caused by the movement of obstructions across the path of light between the stars and us? I was always told the twinkle defines a star while the steady light reflected by our planets defines a planet. Is that because the planets of our solar system don't have the obstructions between Earth and them to cause a twinkle effect?
9-14-2024 KP

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Top Document: [sci.astro] General (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (2/9)
Previous Document: B.19 What was the Star of Bethlehem?
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