Has anyone seen a photo taken from earth of the Apollo moon landing site?

Question

You would think that it would be pretty easy to spot with a strong telescope, and that NASA would show it around, but I've never seen a photo of the U.S. flag up there taken from Earth. Can anyone direct me to a pic?

Answer 1

is this some new definition of "think"? the apollo hardware is far too small to see with any earth-based telesscope. this is well known.

i have seen the landing sites in telesscopes, but the smallest craters i can see are about 1.5 km across.

Answer 2

Some descent modules can be seen on the Moon in  images taken from recent satellites in low Moon orbit.

Answer 3

6 times Apollo modules landed on the moon.

No telescope can see a small object like that.

Answer 4

This question reeks of the sheer ignorance of the Apollo space program:

“…the Apollo moon landing site…”

There were 6 landing sites, my friend.  Go to the NASA site and learn the real story, you are obviously way off the mark.  

Answer 5

I certainly hope not, since that sort of resolution isn't available from any telescope.  Even the Hubble.  The moon is very large and the lander component is rather small.  This question gets asked frequently.  The answer isn't going to change.  

Answer 6

No, no telescope on Earth or in Earth orbit is powerful enough to see the equipment left behind by Apollo.  The largest object on the lunar surface that can be imaged by the HST is just under 90 meters in size.

Answer 7

What the others have said above is correct: our telescopes can't resolve anything that small on the Moon.  We are, however, sending a probe soon that will be able to photograph them.  As it turns out, an astronomer just blogged about this question the other day: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badast...

Answer 8

They have been photographed.  Any photo of the full moon shows all 6 of them quite clearly, but not clearly enough to see the spacecraft (because of the optical limitations pointed out by others.

At least one (Apollo 11) left a laser rangefinder on the moon, and it has been used to determine very closely the distance to the moon.  It is probable that the reflections of the laser tests have been photographed (the reflection of a laser beam sent from the Earth to the Moon, that is).

But....what about glints of the sun off the 'descent modules'?  Isn't it possible that, with Hubble technology, perfect timing, and perfect sun angle, to image the glint of the sun off the descent modules?  We can't resolve the surfaces of stars, yet we can see them because they are an extremely bright point source of light.  I suggest that the descent modules just might reflect enough light to image the 'glint' off their surface, without a need to be able to resolve the modules themselves.

Answer 9

There are many photos of them, but none of them will show you something as small as the flag.

Even Hubble can only see objects about 280 ft or 80m large. The problem are optical phenomena, which limit the resolution of telescopes. The LRO, which will get launched next year, will be able to make photos of the landing sites, where you can see lunar module and rover, maybe even the ALSEP packages.  

Answer 10

You would think that only if you had no knowledge of optics. There is no telescope on Earth or in orbit with sufficient resolving power to see anything smaller than about 200 meters at the moon's distance. A telescope big enough to see the Apollo landers, rovers, etc., would have to be the size of like, Vermont.

Answer 11

No--first, the moon is too far away to take a picture of an object tha tsmal.  Second, powerful telescopes are expensive and far too valuable for scientists to wast the time and money for such nonsense even if you could take such a photograph.

Answer 12

Firstly, there are six sites, not one. Six missions landed between 1969 and 1972.

And secondly, you may think it is pretty easy to spot, but it is not. The landers are about 12 feet across. The Moon is 250 *thousand* miles away. There is no telescope currently in existence that can spot something that small that far away. It would be like trying to see an ant five miles away using a pair of binoculars. It's just not going to happen.