Zeroing in on the Eagle

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Hey everyone,

I was looking at the moon through my telescope the other night & I had an idea. Even though the Apollo 11 LM descent stage is obviously not going to be a viable target for a telescope, just how close could an Earth based observer get to pinpointing the actual landing site in a telescope?

The reason I wonder this is because every depiction of the Apollo 11 landing Ive seen seems to include a fair sized crater (2-3 km across maybe?) that Armstrong & Aldrin flew over before landing, not wanting to risk setting down in its floor. I recall it very distinctly being shown in From the Earth to the Moon, in Andrew Chaikens book about Apollo, and it also seems to make an appearance in this addon

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=5205"]http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=5205[/ame]

(Look at the bottom right of the screenshot to see what I mean)

Ive wondered whether that crater would be big enough to pick out from Earth, 2-3 km being quite small by lunar crater standards, but not impossible (I think).

So, what do you think?

 

[Screamer7]

In reality that crater which Neil Armstrong flew over was much smaller. I think it measured about 100 meters from rim to rim.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

In reality that crater which Neil Armstrong flew over was much smaller. I think it measured about 100 meters from rim to rim.

Oh, thats a shame. 100m is pretty small to pick out on the moon unless you have something like an observatory at your disposal. Im going to continue looking into this though. I would like to be able to pick out the nearest visible landmark to the Eagle descent stage in my telescope.

 

[MattBaker]

I don't know how good your telescope is, but the nearest big craters are Sabine, Ritter and Dionysius. Especially Dionysius should be relatively easy to spot.

 

[GeneralRipper]

That crater they flew over just before landing is Little West Crater. It's only about 30 meters in diameter, so a home telescope won't be able to resolve it. the LRO has some pretty neat images of it here
You can clearly make out the crater, the descent stage, and even the tracks of their footprints.