Why no Photo of USA flag on the Moon, taken from earth?

Question

Conspiracy theory’s aside: Why have I never seen a photo taken from earth of the US Flag planted on the moon or the ‘jeep’ that was left behind. We have telescopes that capture images from distant planets, but why hasn’t anyone taken pictures of the objects left on the moon?

Conspiracy theory: We never landed on the moon and it was a cold war era propaganda stunt.

***Photo taken on ‘moon’ of US Flag with earth behind it: http://www.mcmahanphoto.com/ns506.html

Answer 1

cosmo is correct ... even the Hubble telescope doesn't have the resolving power to zoom in on something the size of the lunar rover, much less a meter-foot long flag (from directly overhead). An object the size of a football field would occupy one or two pixels in an image.

The power of these telescopes isn't just in their resolution but in their ability to collect a lot of light while remaining focused on the target. That doesn't help much with trying to find a small object on the moon.

People who buy the conspiracy theory are *the* most gullible people on the planet.

Answer 2

The reason you have never seen such a photo is because it is impossible to take it. There is no optical instrument on Earth that is capable of resolving anything that small at that distance. For that matter, because of the laws of optics, nor is it even practical to construct a single instrument large enough to resolve something that small at that distance.

Images of distant planets taken from Earth-based telescopes may look detailed, but the smallest detail in those images tens or hundreds of miles across. Take an image of Jupiter from the Hubble space telescope as an example: Earth could be swallowed up with room to spare in the great red spot, so that gives you some idea of just how big the 'smallest' detail in the image really is.

Answer 3

Images from distant planets? Mars is the closest one from which any ground based astronomy can resolve any detail, and about all that is seen is a red-brown circular blur with white patches at the poles and a few darker areas. It was not until the 1970s with the probes orbiting the planet that any of the detail was seen and that was because the cameras were only hundreds to thousands of kilometres away.

As for extra-solar planets, 240 have been detected but only 20 have been "directly" observed. In most cases those 20 have been "seen" because their orbits take them directly between their parent stars and us, so the star's light dims slightly. And almost all of them have been very large planets, in one case larger than Jupiter. No surface features have been detected.

Galaxies can be seen because while they may be 4 million light years away they are often 200,000 light years across. Thus the diameters are typically a large fraction of the distance, like 1 part in 20

By contrast the flag, the rover and the lunar descent stages are a few thousands of a kilometer across and the Moon is 384,000 kilometres away, that is like one part in 100 million.

Answer 4

lets see... the moon is very large, and the flag that was planted on the moon is very small compared to the size of the moon. telescopes these days can take images of large objects such as the moon, but taking an image of something that's probably 4 feet long that's sitting upon the moon that's a couple thousand miles in diameter? not a chance.

Answer 5

"What about the Hubble Space Telescope? Could it see the Apollo landers on the moon? No. The best the Hubble Telescope can do is see things on the moon 20-30 meters across, about ten times too large to see the Apollo equipment. Of course, even if we could see the landers, conspiracy buffs would say that merely proved we had put landers on the moon. Even a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich inside the lander could be explained away. And of course the photos could always be doctored."

Answer 6

You'd need a telescope with a mirror about the size of a football field to see a 20'X20' section of the moon.

And, let me ask you this... if you don't trust the photos taken *by* the astronauts *on* the moon... why would you trust a hazy, grainy, very-long-distance shot taken by the same people...?

Answer 7

The smallest thing on the Moon that can be seen by the very best telescopes is about the size of a football field. It's just optics.

Answer 8

Our photos of distant planets are taken from satellites and explorers, not from earth.
Do you have any idea how much it costs to take ONE space photo? And you think it would be a good idea to take a picture of the American Flag and the lunar rover on the moon just to prove to the conspiracy theorists that the moon landing was for real? What makes you think they'd believe THAT photo?

Answer 9

We can take very large scale pictures of the moon, yes, but we do not have any telescopes capable of taking a picture of something on the moon that is as small as the flag.

Answer 10

they do no longer use general telescopes to seize photos of distant plant life. They use infared and all different varieties. they have under no circumstances actual "considered'' a planet exterior of our photograph voltaic gadget with their bare eyes even by way of a telescope.