I always wondered where the ground based telescope pics of the landing site were/are??
Are there any?
“I always wondered where the ground based telescope pics of the landing site were/are??
Are there any?”
The moon is a quarter million miles away. Even without the atmosphere in the way, the optics don’t exist (and probably can’t) that can resolve anything as small as the landing site and the artifacts (and tracks, etc) left behind from that distance.
It’s impossible for any Earth-based telescope, now matter how high its magnification, to photograph details that small at the distance of the moon. It has nothing to do with the power of the telescope, but rather is a limitation driven by the physics of light. Even the orbiting Hubble telescope can’t see them.
I don’t recall the full explanation, but essentially it has to do with the physically-limited maximum resolution of any telescope and how that translates into an angular limitation on its ability to resolve anything at a given distance. The resolution of a telescope lens or mirror at the focal plane may be a few hundredths of an inch, but when expanded out to the distance of the moon the smallest objects that can be resolved at that distance are in the hundreds of feet. Even the Hubble, at lunar distance, can only resolve objects that are no smaller than 141 feet in diameter.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, however, WAS able to take photos of the Apollo landing sites and the artifacts left behind, because it orbits the moon at a distance of only 31 miles from the surface. It even took photos of the tire tracks left behind by the lunar rovers used on several missions.
So short answer: Basic physics makes it impossible to see the Apollo sites from the Earth.
There’s not a telescope in existence powerful to see objects that small on the moon from Earth, or even from Earth orbit. The Chinese, however, put a satellite into moon orbit which did capture images of the Apollo landing sites.