Moon landings back then and views in telescope

I am wondering...we went to the moon some time ago.
I know that no telescope on earth can see the landers we left there.
At that "older" time, could anyone with a telescope actually "see" the ship,
say, pehaps half way out there or so?
Or, maybe half way (or so) back from the moon?
I know the telescope technology was poor back then, would we be able to see
new ships out in space, on the way to their destination, with any "new"
scope?
John

"John" wrote in message
...
|
| I know the telescope technology was poor back then, would
| we be able to see new ships out in space, on the way to their
| destination, with any "new" scope?

For their brief sojourns in earth orbit, the Apollo spacecraft was visible
to the naked eye. Inhabitants of Australia were treated to the TLI burn.
Several telescope photographs exist of Apollo spacecraft enroute -- not that
they are recognizable as such, but there's a bright moving dot. In the case
of Apollo 13 it became a bright moving dot surrounded by a cloud of oxygen.

--
|
The universe is not required to conform | Jay Windley
to the expectations of the ignorant. | webmaster @ clavius.org

Hi there. You posted:

At that "older" time, could anyone with a telescope actually "see" the ship,
say, pehaps half way out there or so?
Or, maybe half way (or so) back from the moon?

Yes, some amateurs with larger telescopes did manage to follow the Apollo
spacecraft out to around 2/3rds of the way from the Earth to the moon. I
recall watching one tape of a flight which used an image intensifier on the
telescope coupled to a TV camera. It showed the slowly moving faint dot of
the spacecraft along with occasional "flashes" from the slowly tumbling SLA
panels which were jettisoned earlier in the flight. A friend of mine was
watching Apollo 13 with his 10 inch Newtonian when he noticed a cloud
developing around it. A little later at an Astronomy Club meeting, he found
out that this was the venting from the liquid oxygen tank which had ruptured,
preventing a moon landing attempt and putting the astronauts' lives in
jeopardy. Clear skies to you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

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