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To: babygene
The moon is in an elliptical orbit ranging from 220,000 to about 252,000 miles from Earth. Only ten times the distance, and you don't have to contend with our atmosphere.

You are WAY off here. The size of a telescope's mirror limits it's resolution. I copied this off this webiste:

    The wavelength of visible light is around 550x10^-9m.

    The diameter of Hubble's mirror is 2.4m.

    Highest ever physically possible resolution = 1.4 x 550 x 10^-9 /2.4 m = 3.2 x 10^-7 radians

    At a distance of 350,000km this works out as about 124 metres.

Ever use a slide rule?

Yep, many "moons" ago. Ever do orbital mechanics?

49 posted on 11/07/2002 3:35:51 PM PST by TomB
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To: TomB
" Yep, many "moons" ago. Ever do orbital mechanics?"

That was good, and no...

So you think it would be trivial to do such caclucations with the equipment avaviable at the time?
53 posted on 11/07/2002 3:51:48 PM PST by babygene
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