they cant get a clear picture of the moon landing site, but I can zoom into earth on google maps and see people laying on a beach?...
I mean the pictures are amazing to see. But You would think they could shoot them in some detail... Even with a earth telescope, could you not get a pretty good image?
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The hires Google maps images (of people on a beach like you mention) are taken with aircraft, not satellites.
And an earth telescope would have to be massive to see that level of detail. And by massive I mean literally miles in diameter. A piece of glass like that would be nearly impossible to make.
they cant get a clear picture of the moon landing site, but I can zoom into earth on google maps and see people laying on a beach?...
I mean the pictures are amazing to see. But You would think they could shoot them in some detail... Even with a earth telescope, could you not get a pretty good image?
I have a 8" Schmidt Cassegrain telescope, which can resolve the red spot on jupiter, and the rings of saturn. The best it can do on terrain is resolving a nail on a fence post at about 1 km. So even if this thing is orbiting the moon at a few hundred miles, unless it had a mirror the size of Hubbles, no, you would not have the resolving power, to do that.
they cant get a clear picture of the moon landing site, but I can zoom into earth on google maps and see people laying on a beach?...
The moon is a lot further from the earth than an airplane taking the high-resolution Google maps shots are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drewboy12
I mean the pictures are amazing to see. But You would think they could shoot them in some detail... Even with a earth telescope, could you not get a pretty good image?
The Hubble couldn't even see a football field on the moon, let alone a lunar lander.
You'd need a telescope with a 100m mirror just to resolve the lunar lander as a dot.
I have a 8" Schmidt Cassegrain telescope, which can resolve the red spot on jupiter, and the rings of saturn. The best it can do on terrain is resolving a nail on a fence post at about 1 km. So even if this thing is orbiting the moon at a few hundred miles, unless it had a mirror the size of Hubbles, no, you would not have the resolving power, to do that.
The images were taken from a 25km orbit...what do you think your 8" could see at 25km? A car? Just curious, I have no idea what size optics this spacecraft has on it.
The images were taken from a 25km orbit...what do you think your 8" could see at 25km? A car? Just curious, I have no idea what size optics this spacecraft has on it.
Good question. Honestly, I can't answer that exactly, I don't know the exact formulas to use. I do know, when I have set up at the dog park by in Britannia, where the dog walk is, I can see the golfers over at Earl Grey. I think that is 2.5 kms.
It would be a combination of eyepiece, barlow, total useful resolving power, F-rating...etc.
I was just using an example, as I was using a fencepost in the distance this weekend to calibrate the star finder on my scope with a 12mm eyepiece, and noticed the nail sticking out of the top of the post which I thought was neat. So we just walked to the post, and used a GPS app to measure the distance which was 1050 metres.
Edit: wow, just looked at the specs, that scope is f 3.59, which is awesome. That is fast, and explains why they can get such good images. My scope is F10, which is pretty normal with most amateur stuff. I have a focal reducer that takes it down to F6 I believe, but you give up a lot of magnification.
Last edited by pylon; 09-06-2011 at 08:49 PM.
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I always though google maps where from a satellite. But thanks for clearing it up. I don't know optics.
Some of them are, but the high res stuff (where you can see people) is usually from airplanes.
I don't know the formulae to use either, but I've seen this kind of question before so I knew that our intuitive idea of what can be seen is incorrect.
I think that's one of the biggest things that moon conspiracy (and other CTers) get wrong, trusting their intuition on what's reasonable for things completely outside their realm of experience.
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The wide zoom from Google Maps is a satellite image. I'm talking about if you can see Calgary and Toronto in the same shot.
Looking at that last shot where they supposedly faked the moon landing by going into orbit- I see a couple of issues:
- If the spacecraft is in orbit it would pass from day into night; as most spacecraft (that carry humans) in Earth orbit complete an orbit in 70-120 minutes.
- I don't see an issue with them lining up the shot of the Earth. They had 3 days to travel each way with a lot of time to kill. If you had endless hours just before you were about to make history; I'm sure you would also take some time to make sure you recorded it right.
Last edited by ken0042; 09-06-2011 at 09:02 PM.
Reason: Added the "carrying humans" part before some CT corrects me in saying that most spacecraft are communications satellites
You could take the conspiracy theory nuts TO THE MOON and show them the landing sites and they would still claim that it was all rigged and that the sites were planted later.
As for the British show, watch the Mythbusters episode on the moon landing, they bust every claim the conspiracy theory makes. Not that Mythbusters is any proof but they pretty much destroy the so called proof against the landings.
You could take the conspiracy theory nuts TO THE MOON and show them the landing sites and they would still claim that it was all rigged and that the sites were planted later.
As for the British show, watch the Mythbusters episode on the moon landing, they bust every claim the conspiracy theory makes. Not that Mythbusters is any proof but they pretty much destroy the so called proof against the landings.
Mythbusters shot a laser beam at the moon, reflected it off of the mirror array that the Apollo astronauts left there, and recorded their same light beam returning to them. i don't know how any moon landing denier can argue against that, unless somehow the Mythbusters and the Discovery channel have been brought into the conspiracy
In 8th grade we were shown the 'Moon Landing was Faked' video in science class and the teacher told us she believed it. This was in a Las Vegas middle school. The whole class believed it, beyond myself and a few others. Although I couldn't argue it very well because I was 13 and no one was teaching me the science. All I had to go off of was the ridiculous notion that anything of the sort could be faked and the fact that they chose to fake it several times didn't make any sense. I haven't thought about that in years.
Wish I had been smarter and gotten that teacher fired.
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Burn this city makes the point I always make when faced with a landing denier - you could keep this secret from the US public, maybe as a long shot, but there is no way something of this magnitude could be kept secret from the Soviets. They had spies everywhere and significant motivation to uncover any weakness in the western world.
If it was fake the Soviets would have done everything possible to prove it and discredit the US.
The Soviets were in on it as well, for reasons I can't begin to explain.
Being serious, maybe I'm the only one but I feel a great sense of loss that humankind has not returned to the Moon since Apollo. NASA is being scaled back, there is no replacement for the Shuttle, why are we regressing?
The Soviets were in on it as well, for reasons I can't begin to explain.
Being serious, maybe I'm the only one but I feel a great sense of loss that humankind has not returned to the Moon since Apollo. NASA is being scaled back, there is no replacement for the Shuttle, why are we regressing?
Your far from the only one. There's actually been lots written about it.
Good question. Honestly, I can't answer that exactly, I don't know the exact formulas to use. I do know, when I have set up at the dog park by in Britannia, where the dog walk is, I can see the golfers over at Earl Grey. I think that is 2.5 kms.
It would be a combination of eyepiece, barlow, total useful resolving power, F-rating...etc.
I was just using an example, as I was using a fencepost in the distance this weekend to calibrate the star finder on my scope with a 12mm eyepiece, and noticed the nail sticking out of the top of the post which I thought was neat. So we just walked to the post, and used a GPS app to measure the distance which was 1050 metres.
Edit: wow, just looked at the specs, that scope is f 3.59, which is awesome. That is fast, and explains why they can get such good images. My scope is F10, which is pretty normal with most amateur stuff. I have a focal reducer that takes it down to F6 I believe, but you give up a lot of magnification.
I read this post and immediately made sure all of my blinds were completely closed
The Soviets were in on it as well, for reasons I can't begin to explain.
Being serious, maybe I'm the only one but I feel a great sense of loss that humankind has not returned to the Moon since Apollo. NASA is being scaled back, there is no replacement for the Shuttle, why are we regressing?
On this topic, this is a very poignant video
Last edited by oilyfan; 09-07-2011 at 08:43 AM.
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