Discussion on question by Di Duei: Would a balloon telescope observe the moon landing easily?

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17:34

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Q: Would a balloon telescope observe the moon landing easily?

Most of the objections resolve around atmospheric problems. Would a cheap amatuer Balloon operating in UV or Xray rather than visual light (there have been several) be able to see the landings? There is a specific camera model (PICO Edge 4.2) that costs 20k, can be combined with a \$1000 telescop...

apollo-program

Organic Marble

There is no such unicorn as a cheap amateur balloonborne X-ray telescope.

I have no intention of reading some link to see what point you're trying to make. Also, what is "the moon landing"? There have been a few.

user51674

There are amateur x rays, balloons and telescopes, you just put them together.

Uwe

What is an amateur x ray? Wavelength?

Jon Custer

"There are amateur x rays, balloons and telescopes, you just put them together" - that is like saying that with enough Estes rocket motors and a large enough cardboard tube one should be able to visit the Moon landing sites.

user51674

You don't need x-rays. Just uv.

GdD

17:34

Cheap, amateur, balloonborne, x-ray/uv telescope. You can have any two of those you like.

user51674

Then amatuer balloonborne uv telesocpe for 20k.

Community

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

user51674

Will stack exchange observe my experiment?

notovny

Powering, stabilizing, pointing (to sub-arcsecond accuracy) and retrieving data from a balloon-borne telescope dozens of kilometers away are all non-trivial problems.

user51674

I would like more specific objections, it doesn't seem that hard.

Christopher James Huff

17:34

"There is zero power, just the camera battery.": That's truly zero power, as the camera you linked doesn't have a battery. It's also only designed for down to 300 nm, barely into the UV. So, where exactly can you get a 12-meter diameter near-UV telescope for \$1k, and a balloon capable of lofting it for \$10?

user51674

Aluminum lenses are cheap and are transparent to x rays. And the ballon is cheap too, see googleadservices.com/pagead/…

Christopher James Huff

"spectral range 300 nm ... 1100 nm"

user51674

I cited the spectrum.

Organic Marble

Thanks for including the internet archive link in your question, thus solidly confirming that you are a Moon-hoaxer. You must have really worked hard to dig that one up, and what an utterly pathetic bit of support for your cause it is. Surely you have better things to do than tilt at the Moon-hoaxing windmill on this site.

antlersoft

@DiDuei - Among other problems developing your proposed hard-UV telescope, you are ignoring that to get satisfactory images optical surfaces must be smooth to 1/4 wavelength. For UV imaging, this sort of precision does not come cheap.

Christopher James Huff

17:34

You cited the spectrum for the pco.edge 4.2 bi XU, which is not the camera you cited. And likely costs a bit more than $20k. And still relies on an external computer and power system (and coolant loop, which may be needed at altitudes sufficient for x-ray astronomy). Never mind the little question of sensitivity...

user51674

Anything available on the internet is less than 20k. This is 50x better than a Walmart telescope.