VLT - Why No Apollo Landing Site Images?

[turbonium]

Are you talking about a telescope that can see the remains from Earth? If so, do you have any idea how big that telescope would have to be? You seem to think it is some simple chore to build such an instrument, but you are just making another assumption like you've been doing all along.

groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.malaysia/browse_thread/thread/58088074333b2e01/f78f9041deb9b382?lnk=st&q=v
The LM's descent stage is 4.3 m across, so you'd probably need at least 2 m resolution to be able to make it out in an image. Since the Moon is about 384,400 km away, you would need an angular resolution of about 0.00107 arcseconds. To obtain this theoretical resolution we need a telescope with a diameter of at least 108 meters. And to compensate for the blurring effects of the atmosphere we would need to either make it even bigger than this or place it in orbit. The largest ground-based telescope currently in existence is 10 m in diameter and the Hubble Space Telescope is only 2.4 m.

The above quotes were from the "41% say it's a hoax" thread. I thought it was best to extricate the telescope resolution discussion and start a separate thread on it.
The below text is from Nov.2002, and it is the announcement that the Apollo landing sites were soon to be imaged by the VLT....

groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.malaysia/browse_thread/thread/58088074333b2e01/f78f9041deb9b382?lnk=st&q=v
The Sunday Telegraph
11-25-2
Dr Richard West, an astronomer at the VLT, confirmed that his team was aiming to achieve "a high-resolution image of one of the Apollo landing sites".

The first attempt to spot the spacecraft will be made using only one of the VLT's four telescope mirrors, which are fitted with special "adaptive optics" to cancel the distorting effect of the Earth's atmosphere. A trial run of the equipment this summer produced the sharpest image of the Moon taken from the Earth, showing details 400ft across from a distance of 238,000 miles.

The VLT team hopes to improve on this, with the aim of detecting clear evidence for the presence of the landers. The base of the lunar modules measured about 10ft across, but would cast a much longer shadow under ideal conditions.

Dr West said that the challenge pushed the optical abilities of one VLT mirror to its limits: if this attempt failed, the team planned to use the power of all four mirrors. "They would most probably be sufficiently sharp to show something at the sites," he said.

The next article is from this year, and it describes the resolution capabilities of the VLT through the combined use of its telescopes...
www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/V/VLT.html

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), equivalent to a single instrument with a mirror 16 m in diameter, combines the light from the four big Unit Telescopes and from several moveable 1.8-m Auxiliary Telescopes, spaced across baselines of up to 200 m, by way of the Interferometric Tunnel. Inside this 130-m-long underground cavern, the light beams gathered by the telescopes are passed through delay lines to compensate for the slightly different path-lengths they have taken in reaching the instruments. The delay lines help to synchronize the beams, before redirecting them to a central laboratory. The interference fringes produced when the beams are finally recombined provide the information needed to reconstruct the original image in unprecedented detail, giving a picture as sharp as if it had come from a single telescope 200 m across. If there were cars on the Moon, the Very Large Telescope would be able to read their number plates.

In 2005, scientists using the VLT announced they had obtained the first direct photograph of an extrasolar planet—2M1207b, which orbits the star 2M1207 more than 200 light-years away in the constallation Hydra.

So, what happened to the Apollo landing site images? I emailed them for information, but as yet haven't had a response. The technical ability of the VLT is sufficient, and the Apollo site imaging was a confirmed project, to begin in 2002-2003. There has been silence on this from the ESO since the press release in Nov. 2002.

[papageno]

How reliable is the Sunday Telegraph as a source?
And why would astronomers try to take pictures of the Apollo landing sites, if they can observe extra-solar planets?
Astronomers accept the Apollo record, while HBs would dismiss the pictures anyway as fake.

[sts60]

But, turbonium - you don't believe the landings actually happened, right? Despite all the evidence.

So, if the VLT produced a picture of a featureless dot with a shadow, why would that change your mind?

[turbonium]

sts60 said:

But, turbonium - you don't believe the landings actually happened, right? Despite all the evidence.

So, if the VLT produced a picture of a featureless dot with a shadow, why would that change your mind?

Well, I see evidence to support the hoax, which is where we differ. But I want to see if I can be proven wrong - (sounds masochistic or something! )lol

I really hold no stake in my position on it - financially.or for pride, etc. I've always been one not concerned with status quo or what peers may think of my opinion. I go with how I see it, no more or less. I won't scream out that the VLT images are fake - or genuine - without an honest assessment. If they were real in my view, I certainly will say so, just as the opposite. That's the beauty of not having an agenda.

[sts60]

No agenda. Hmm.

Well, it doesn't look that VLTI will be attempting any such image soon, judging from a cursory look at their web site. The whole thing is a work in progress.

[PhantomWolf]

I was going to ask if the VLT had actully gotten fully up and running yet, I thought Kech was still the large operational scope(s). I know SA is building a big one as well, but I'm pretty sure that one is ready yet either.

[RAF]

turbonium said:

...I see evidence to support the hoax...snip...I want to see if I can be proven wrong...

It seems that a common characteristic of most "conspiracy theories" is this "backwards idea" that they must be proven wrong. As I am so fond of saying...that's not how science "works".

"modified" to add...of course it doesn't "hurt" when it can be shown that these "unusual theories" are wrong.

[turbonium]

raf said:

turbonium said:

...I see evidence to support the hoax...snip...I want to see if I can be proven wrong...

It seems that a common characteristic of most "conspiracy theories" is this "backwards idea" that they must be proven wrong. As I am so fond of saying...that's not how science "works".

"modified" to add...of course it doesn't "hurt" when it can be shown that these "unusual theories" are wrong.

Actually, it's not a "backward idea", it is anomalous objects that I have requested alternative explanations for that would corroborate with an actual moon landing . I don't claim "proof" of a hoax if I am not convinced by the explanations, but it also means I remain skeptical.

[turbonium]

sts60 said:

No agenda. Hmm.

Well, it doesn't look that VLTI will be attempting any such image soon, judging from a cursory look at their web site. The whole thing is a work in progress.

LOL! Well, I could do a "Sibrel"-type video and a book and make some money and........then I would have an agenda (not that it means it's false OR true info, just that I would be motivated to maintain my stance).

Which got me thinking - does anyone on this site have a particular motivation for their stance on these things?

Be honest now, if you can.....

[Bob B.]

turbonium said:

Which got me thinking - does anyone on this site have a particular motivation for their stance on these things?

Be honest now, if you can.....

My motivation is simply to educate myself about the science and technology of space flight. I love learning new things and space exploration is something I've been fascinated with ever since I was a child. About ten years ago I began a project to learn as much about it as I could.

Studying the "moon hoax" wasn't part of my original plan; I just happened to stumble into it after seeing that horrendous TV program on Fox several years ago. As part of my education process I began studying the hoax claims. I very quickly realized the claims were total nonsense resulting from an ignorance of physics and a lack of knowledge about the Apollo spacecraft and the Moon. I have found no reason to doubt the Apollo moon landings as all data relating to them is fully explainable and wholly consistent.

My Web page (linked to in my Sig) is part of my education project. The project is still ongoing though progress is slow because I have little time to devote to it.

[sts60]

Which got me thinking - does anyone on this site have a particular motivation for their stance on these things?

Be honest now, if you can.....

I don't have any problem being honest.

Like many people, I learned about Apollo as news when I was a little too young to remember much of it. Then I learned more about Skylab, Viking, the Shuttle, etc. And, yes, I watched "Star Trek" reruns aplenty.

My interest in space led me to become an engineer and I've worked on space projects ever since (civil, military, and commercial). I've met and had the privilege to work with a number of astronauts, including a couple who go back to the Apollo era. I've also worked for and with several engineers who go back to the Mercury days, and I've had the experience to evaluate their competence firsthand. And, yes, to learn a little bit about what kind of people they were, too.

I've spent a little time - nowhere near as much as Jay, BobB, and so on - looking at Apollo technology, and I have relevant experience in spacecraft construction, integration and test, operations, operator (including astronaut) training, and so on. I have degrees in physics (undergraduate), electrical, and systems enginering (both master's level), and a bit of on-the-job acquired understanding of materials. Which doesn't make me the smartest guy around, but it does qualify me to point out the uniformly terrible quality of the ignorant claims and outright lies of cheesy hucksters like Sibrel, Kaysing, Percy, White, and so on.

I've also learned, in my 41 years on this particular planet, a bit about how people like the chief HBs (and many of their minions) work. Innuendo, half-truths, selective evidence, appeals to ignorance, failure to acknowledge counterarguments, outright lies, and the always-attack-never-defend approach are all familiar to me. (Hey, I do live outside Washington, D.C., right?) These are the tools of the hoax believers. The one thing I have not seen them use is actual knowledge of how things work in the real world.

So, on the one hand, I have the mountains of evidence for Apollo, direct knowledge of a few of the people involved, and relevant experience which indicates that it all checks out. On the other hand, I have the Sibrels, Kaysings, and Whites trying to serve me horses**t and telling me it's roast beef.

I guess you could call that my motivation.

[Kiwi]

Well, I'm not a big poster here, but seeing that you're asking...

I too have no difficulty with honesty, and have often been told off for being too honest, but not for lying. To me, lying even includes not telling all the truth.

My main motivation for being here is the truth about Apollo. Secondly, I'm here to enjoy myself and to learn about Apollo , and I certainly do that.

[RAF]

turbonium said:

...it is anomalous objects that I have requested alternative explanations for...

See, that presents a problem. You see these "anomalies", I don't. It is therefore up to you to provide evidence that these supposed "anomalies" actually exist.

[Bob B.]

raf said:

See, that presents a problem. You see these "anomalies", I don't. It is therefore up to you to provide evidence that these supposed "anomalies" actually exist.

This is a very good point. We had a fellow around here a couple months ago, star I think, who insisted there were anomalies in the backgrounds of the lunar photos. But the problem was this person just couldn't get his mind around the idea of parallax, or how cropping and resizing photos made the background appear artificially larger, etc. The bottom line was the things he was seeing were simply not anomalous.

If you, turbonium, think you see an anomaly it is your responsibility to prove it really is anomalous. We are under no obligation to accept your interpretation that something is amiss. Your insistence that the anomaly is self-evident is just begging the question.

[sts60]

It could be worse. turbonium is rather engaging.

Do not speak too loudly the words lunar artifacts or speak the name P...r lest ye invoke the hideous presense of HWSNBN.