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Regarding visible spectrum observations, I've been waiting to see if anyone can come up with a way to develop a consumer-accessible instrument that can sample a

Regarding visible spectrum observations, I've been waiting to see if anyone can come up with a way to develop a consumer-accessible instrument that can sample a high enough resolution, to image all of the moon landing sites. For as long as I can remember, the same thing has been said about the surface of the moon, which is the primary fuel for hoax narratives. With all the buzz about high-resolution arrays being cobbled together from current-generation megapixel digital cameras, I'd love to see someone pull this off. It'd be pretty cool to know that for a budget of maybe tens of thousands of dollars, and some software skills, it'd be within the reach of hobbyists to snap some legit photos of the original moon landing artifacts as they exist.

jermaustin1 9y ago
Interesting read on the subject of capturing the lander sites: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/45-our-solar-system/the-moon/the-moon-landings/122-are-there-telescopes-that-can-see-the-flag-and-lunar-rover-on-the-moon-beginner http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/45-our-solar-syste...
- anonymous_iam 9y ago
  The conspiracy theorists who think we never went to the moon are mostly unaware of the retroreflectors we left behind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment
  - placebo 9y ago
    I think you underestimate the creativity of conspiracy theorists to explain away any contradicting fact :)
abruzzi 9y ago
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but my understanding is the real issue isn't the sensor, it's the lens you put in front of it. You essentially have two ways to see smaller things from a fixed vantage point--put a longer focal length in front of the existing sensor, or put a higher resolution sensor behind the existing focal length lens. The problem is longer focal length gets big and expensive very quick, and existing lenses would limit the ability of a high resolution sensor. In many cases, high end professional camera with 36mp or higher sensors are hampered by the lenses that can't resolve that much detail. Now, maybe in a few decades the CalTech lensless sensor will be commercially available and will work well enough that we won't have to worry about optics anymore, and it will all be silicon, but CalTech's sensor currently has something like 16 pixels total, so it has a long way to go.
- mjb 9y ago
  > we won't have to worry about optics anymore Right, if you have phase information you have a lot more options for (cheaply) making a synthetic aperture that's way bigger than your possible physical aperture.

jermaustin1 9y ago

Interesting read on the subject of capturing the lander sites: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/45-our-solar-system/the-moon/the-moon-landings/122-are-there-telescopes-that-can-see-the-flag-and-lunar-rover-on-the-moon-beginner http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/45-our-solar-syste...

anonymous_iam 9y ago
The conspiracy theorists who think we never went to the moon are mostly unaware of the retroreflectors we left behind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment
- placebo 9y ago
  I think you underestimate the creativity of conspiracy theorists to explain away any contradicting fact :)

abruzzi 9y ago

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but my understanding is the real issue isn't the sensor, it's the lens you put in front of it. You essentially have two ways to see smaller things from a fixed vantage point--put a longer focal length in front of the existing sensor, or put a higher resolution sensor behind the existing focal length lens. The problem is longer focal length gets big and expensive very quick, and existing lenses would limit the ability of a high resolution sensor. In many cases, high end professional camera with 36mp or higher sensors are hampered by the lenses that can't resolve that much detail. Now, maybe in a few decades the CalTech lensless sensor will be commercially available and will work well enough that we won't have to worry about optics anymore, and it will all be silicon, but CalTech's sensor currently has something like 16 pixels total, so it has a long way to go.

mjb 9y ago
> we won't have to worry about optics anymore Right, if you have phase information you have a lot more options for (cheaply) making a synthetic aperture that's way bigger than your possible physical aperture.