I was gonna prove to my co-worker we did in fact land on the moon, but Looking up how to see the landing sites with a telescope said it is physically impossible (improbable). An explanation went with it but… Yeah… It’s why I’m here.
I know we have a lunar satellite that can show it, but I’m prepaid for inevitable ” computer graphics recording”
Edit. Maybe I’ll just ask for someone to explain “Dawes limit”
In: Physics
There’s a property with optics where the ability to resolve two points a given distance apart is dependent on:
1. The distance apart the objects are (or in the case of a single object how wide it is).
2. The distance away the object is.
3. The width of the telescope aperture (opening)
4. The wavelength of light being observed
If the distance is too large for the telescope diameter when using visible light the path of the light waves gets bent by the process of passing though the telescope opening, and that bend is so much the light from one object overlaps the light from the other, making them appear as a single blurry object.
The further the object is away the bigger the telescope you need to avoid this effect.
For the moon landers – the their size combined with their distance you’d need a telescope hundreds of feet across. This is significantly larger than any telescope ever constructed and would be an absurd engineering effort. Look up the giant Magellan telescope project – a fraction of the size of the one required to see the moon landers – for an idea of the effort required to build a telescope big enough.
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