If a space telescope comparable to Hubble was built, but focused differently could it see the moon lander?

Question

or Pluto in great detail?

I'm not to familiar with optics =(

Hubble can see galaxies on the other side of the universe but images of Pluto are still only a couple of pixels and the moon lander is no where near visible enough despite being so close. So, if a telescope was built for those specific distances and about the same size as Hubble would it be able to make them out? If it would have to be bigger how much bigger do you think?

Answer 1

Sure, anything is possible, but why?  We already know what the LMs from the moon missions look like.  If this is to convince those noodleheads who think we were never there, they will just find some new, farfetched way to discredit the images.

Answer 2

The HST has been used to take images of the Moon.  They're not very good.  The reason that the HST does not take pictures of the Moon is that it is not designed to track the Moon.  HST needs to focus on stars using it's Fine Guidance Sensors for tracking.  There are no stars on the Moon to track.  Tracking stars near the Moon won't help either.

So why has HST taken images at all?  It turns out that the Moon is a good place to point to if you want to calibrate an infrared camera.  HST did not need to track the Moon for this purpose.  But while HST's IR cameras were getting calibrated, someone got the idea to get a few images at visual wavelengths.  Instead of tracking, they told HST to slew using their best guess direction and rate.  The results were disappointing.

There are claims that a 4 inch back yard telescope with a good CCD camera can do better.  You take lots of very short pictures (which is easy, since the Moon is so bright), and pick the best ones.  You're looking for when the Earth's atmosphere is at it's most still.

There are two space craft in lunar orbit.  Apparently, they don't have the resolution to image the landers.  The best bet is the VLT, on the ground in Chile.  With interferometry, these telescopes may be able to produce an image.  It will be technically very difficult.  I'm not sure they've got interferometry working yet.  They'll have the same problem with not having a guide star.

Answer 3

Hubble has already photograghed the moon landers.

Answer 4

The way to get better resolution is to increase the size of the telescope.

Hubble is a modest 2.4meter diameter telescope and the smallest thing it can see on the moon is 200m.

So to get down to the resolution needed to see say 1m (which is what we'd need), the telescope would have to be 200 times larger or about 500m across.

We can't build optical telescopes on Earth that big (yet).

And the cost would be, well, astronomical (yes - pun intended).

Why not just go back and check....

Answer 5

Hubble has an aperture of 2.4 m (94 inches).  Aperture is the usable diameter of the main mirror.  It is the measurement that determines the resolution (smallest possible object).

Dawes limit in visible light = 0.116/Aperture

This angle will be in seconds of arc if the aperture is given in metres.

0.116/2.4 = 0.04833" = 0.000013426... degree

Sin(0.000013426 degree) = 2.3433x 10^-7

Moon's surface distance (at best) from Hubble = 340,000 km

Smallest resolvable object=

340,000 km * Sin = 0.08 km = 80 m

(and that would be as a single "blob" -- if you want to see any shape or detail, then it has to be at the very least two or three times bigger, say around 200 m).

The Lunar module was only 4 metres wide.

A telescope on a low Earth orbit would need to have 50 times Hubble's aperture.