Soundy | 01-02-2011 12:09 AM | Quote:
Originally Posted by JDął
(Post 7247948)
I saw that page after posing the question. Is NASA trying to tell us that they sent a satellite up there to take photos specifically of the lunar landing sites | No, they aren't. http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/EPO/LROC/lr...?pg=objectives Quote:
and all they came back with are photos as grainy and low-res as the ones the astronauts took from orbit 40+ years ago? With modern technology those photos are the best they got?
| http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/EPO/LROC/lr...specifications Yeah, did you actually read that? Quote:
Its primary mission is not to photograph old Apollo landing sites, but it will photograph them, many times, providing the first recognizable images of Apollo relics since 1972.
| Quote:
Originally Posted by JDął
(Post 724794)
And yet the Hubble telescope is able to get this image from an area of the night sky smaller than a 1mm by 1mm square of paper held 1m away from your eyes. Seems like a glorious contradiction to me. | Apples and oranges. Hubble is different technology, different optics, different design and mainly, different objectives.
Focal length on LROC's narrow-field cameras is 700mm (about equivalent to a high-end SLR camera lens). Hubble's is 57.6m - over 82X higher "zoom". LROC primary mirror diameter is 195mm... Hubble's is 2.4m (over 12X the diameter and over 150X the surface area).
I can't find any specs on the actual dimensions of the LROC orbiter, but Hubble is a beast - the whole thing weighs over 12 TONS.
Seriously, you're comparing a VGA-resolution cell-phone camera to a 35MP medium-format SLR here.
Or more in keeping with the site: a bicycle with a little gas chainsaw motor on the back wheel, vs. a Veyron. Not really a fair comparison. |