Newsgroups: sci.space.science
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Clementine Photos of Apollo Hardware on Lunar surface?
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 23:17:33 GMT

In article <3a4c0d5d.14853977@news.mtx.net.au>, Ed <ed@dove.net.au> wrote:
>a job for some 'spare' time on Hubble - surely make some poster sales
>too for all us space enthusiasts

Nope.  Hubble has nowhere near the resolution required.

The diffraction limit on the performance of optical instruments is not
rocket science, guys. :-)  To a crude first approximation, it's simply
range*wavelength = resolution*diameter.  So at 400,000km, using (say)
500nm light, achieving 1m resolution -- enough to show the rough shape
of something like the LM -- requires a telescope 200m in diameter, two
orders of magnitude larger than Hubble.
--
When failure is not an option, success  |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
can get expensive.   -- Peter Stibrany  |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)