Why can't we see the equipment we left on the moon with the high powered telascopes?

Answer 1

We all know that hubble is very powerful and that too its in space .That means very closer to moon .If we can't see the equipments even after using hubble,there is only reason which can explain this.No one has ever gone to moon it's all fake and this the reason.

Answer 2

The very best, most powerful telescope we have today is the Hubble. It is the best despite having a smaller mirror than some land-based telescopes because it doesn't have to look through the Earth's atmosphere, which distorts the images.

Given that, the angular resolution of the Hubble is 0.01 arc-seconds -- that's the size of a single pixel on the CCD cameras used to capture the stunning pictures of deep space that Hubble gets regularly. At the distance to the moon, near ¼ million miles, that 0.01 arc-seconds translates to a spot 15 meters in diameter.

In order to be able to resolve -- "see" -- something in a Hubble picture, it must cover more than a single pixel. Since the pixel spot of the Hubble is more than twice the size of the largest piece of debris we left behind (the bottom portion of the lander), there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to be able to see any object at this time. Any light reflected off the lander to the Hubble optics would be averaged with the reflection off the surface of the moon! And to think that it could spot the flag, which is less than one meter, is even more absurd.

So, we'll just have to wait until we either put a bigger telescope in orbit, or we send an orbiter to the moon that can take photos of the landing sites.

Of course, the conspiracy theory nutjobs will claim that those photos are faked, too . . . There is just no way to speak truth to those who refuse to listen.

Answer 3

The largest objects that the American astronauts left on the moon are the rovers and the descent stages of the lunar landers. Neither of them is more than about 14 feet across. The moon is about 240,000 miles away. At that distance, those objects are not even one pixel wide.

If the Hubble Space Telescope were 10 times larger than it is, we might be able to see descent stages of the lunar landers. Of course, if the HST were 10 times larger, we could never have launched it.

Answer 4

As correctly pointed out several times above, the most powerful telescopes on Earth can, at best, resolve something the size of a football field on the moon.

There are, however, objects that were left behind that are observed every day, even though they are small. These are the retroreflector mirrors. If you shine a laser on them with a moderate-sized (1 meter) telescope, you will get a reflection back a few seconds later.

Answer 5

Go here to see what Hubble can see of the Apollo sites:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/hubble_moon.html

With enough magnification and light, we should be able to see anything visible. But the degree of scale is deceptive. We can see gigantic stars millions of light years away, but not their planets. We can see galaxies billions of light years away, but not their individual stars. From a hundred miles up, the finest spy satellites can resolve images down to about a half meter, despite what movies and television dramas tell you. The Moon is a quarter of a million miles away and a LEM is maybe 8 meters wide. There is a limit to optical resolution at that distance.

Answer 6

To resolve things that are about 10 feet wide on the moon which is a quarter of a million miles away, you'd need a telescope with about a 70 foot mirror. Nothing that big exists.

Answer 7

The resolving power of a telescope depends on its diameter. It is limited by diffraction. To see something the size of the lunar rover from Earth needs a telescope about 60 metres across. Our largest telescope is less than 12 metres across.

Answer 8

It's like having a camera for regular things, a camera for zooming in on things at large distances, and having a camera for VERY close pictures. You can't substitute one for another; they're all designed for different purposes.
Hubble is designed to see tiny objects at far away distances, like a camera for long distances, not for looking at something close. It can't 'zoom in' on the moon like people seem to think it can. The moon would need a telescope that is equivalent to a short-range camera.
Apparently some people have gotten images of the equipment, according to people answering here, but it would be a very special design of telescope. A very expensive one.

Answer 9

Imagine u had a very powerfull telescope with high resolution it is hard to locate equip in moon coz their size is very small compared to the area of view and hard to locate provided earths weather is fine and any way it is waste of time.

Answer 10

Because the highest powered telescopes aren't powerful enough to see stuff that small from this far away... not the Hubble, not the largest ground-based telescope, either.