Have their been any photos of the lunar rovers or other space equipment?

Question

left behind since their last mission in 1972

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure the Clementine lunar orbiter photographed at least one of the landing sites.  As i recall, the image isn't very good, but you can kind of make out the shadow of the base of the Lunar Module.  Not nearly as good as the MRO images of the tracks from Spirit and Opportunity on Mars.  MRO has a really nice scope.

If you're worried about the NASA conspiracy, then the Clementine pictures won't convince you anyway.  The Navy is part of the US government, and you could just say they're in on it.

We currently have lunar orbiters flown by China and Japan in lunar orbit.  I'm hoping for some good shots by one or the other.

Also, the VLT - the Very Large Telescope (4 telescopes run by the European Union in Chile) may be able to get to that resolution once their interferometry is working.  On the one hand, they may not be able to use adaptive optics - the moon may wash out the artificial star, but they may be able to compensate by using a very, very short exposure.  The Moon is pretty bright, and the VLT scopes are over 8 meters in diameter (is that bigger than your house?) and you need two of them for interferometry.  Early on, they made noises about making the attempt.  You know, just to show off.

The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged the Moon.  It wasn't designed for it.  But the moon turns out to be a great place to point at to calibrate your infrared cameras.  They took some optical images while pointed that way.  The problem for HST is that it doesn't have software to track the Moon.  This made them guess, and the images weren't as sharp as one would like. Too bad, as the HST is at least partly run by the Europeans.

In fact, you can get better Moon images than HST did from the ground with a small back yard telescope, with excellent tracking, very short exposures and a modern CCD camera.  Throw out all but the very best images.  This is called "lucky imaging".  However, this isn't good enough to see Apollo hardware.

The Keck, twin 10 meter telescopes in Hawaii might be able to do this with interferometry.  They get US funding, i think.

My hopes go with the VLT or various non-US lunar orbiters.

Answer 2

No pictures can be taken by a telescope or even the hubble space telescope of the rover, flag or any other item left on the moon by nasa. the reasons for this is because when the rovers blasted off the moon it might have blown over the flag etc. etc. but the main reason is we just dont have the power in optics to view those items

Answer 3

no. no telesscope can resolve them from earth. they are too little and too far away.

only moon hoax idiots care anyway. are you a moon hoax idiot?

Answer 4

Yes. And the Mooninites are forwarding the fines and

clean-up charges to Washington and NASA for the mess.

                I didn't do it ! I only watched on tee vee,

                            SittingMoose,Shaman.

Answer 5

No.  No telescope made is capable of that resolution.  Those items are just too small.  And why would anyone bother?  We have perfectly good photographs of them taken when they were being used.  Telescope time on top quality machines is valuable.  You don't waste time with silly irrelevancies. That destroys careers.

Answer 6

Taken by an earth-based telescope?  No - as stated, no Earth-based telescope has the power to resolve any of the debris we left behind.  Even the Hubble telescope can't resolve anything much smaller than a football pitch.  And the japanese satellite currently orbiting the moon doesn't have a good enough camera, either.

However, there are plenty of photos taken **during** the missions available.  Go to NASA's website.