Sir Gilligan Horry wrote:

Almost Anything Interesting ?

Why exactly don't the folks of NASA/Apollo want team KECK looking at
our moon?

Why wouldn't they bother to mask off 99% of each of those 36 primary
mirrors in order to sharpen their image by a good 100 fold, and then
utilizing their f40 secondary mirror as focused upon the 1.75 micron
CCD that has been available and having terrific DR that's still
somewhat better than most film, which actually isn't bad considering
the 1.75 micron cell density.

With some further reguard to those wussy NASA/Apollo retroreflectors,
that which they may in fact wish they had.

bz;  The reference Randy Poe gives shows that the number of extra photons is
rather small.  "the McDonald Laser Ranging Station (MLRS,[5]) at its very
best detects just over one photon per minute (600 laser shots)... MLRS, for
instance, reports receiving 120 photons in 41 minutes on the Apollo 15
reflector."

My dear bz,
That's all but three wussy extra photons/minute out of 600 laser shots,
and of supposedly those 3 being extra reflected photons that got
retroreflected instead of bounced off of anything else, that which the
natural surrounding terrain upon average (0.07 albedo) supposedly isn't
accomplishing.  Isn't that photon count a rather pathetic and iffy
situation at best?

It is the timing of the return photons that allow one to tell that they are
arriving from something on the moon.

That phrase of "arriving from something on the moon" isn't exactly
providing us with any hard-scientific proof that such photons were of
retroreflector derived, now is it?

A relatively large pile (actually we're talking several tonnes worth)
of somewhat shiny aluminum debris that's remaining after impact, that's
likely going to cover several humdred if not many thousands of square
meters, and most likely involving an impact zone change in albedo from
the norm of 0.07 to something capable of becoming greater than 0.7,
along with a few bits of their 0.9 stuff mixed in for good measure, as
offering at least several hundred if not a few thousand plus fold
greater worth of those available reflective surface square meters as to
reflect whatever photons off of, that which is every bit if not far
more likely to having been detected as such.

bz;  120 photons in 41 minutes is going to be lost in the background
of other photons in any imaging one might hope to do.

In those pathetic numbers I'd certainly have to agree.  But with our
more powerful modern lasers (multiple laser cannons if need be, or just
one of those nifty ABL shots in the dark is a wee bit over-kill) and
having somewhat better tracking these days is why there should become
thousands if not tens of thousands of those extra reflected photons to
work with per hour, especially with the more powerful green spectrum
laser and somewhat better laser spectrums of blue or even a violet
laser, along with the detection contrast or difference further improved
upon by way of KECK or other imaging using their narrow bandpass
filter.  Once having masked off 99% of each of the KECK primary
mirrors, and having the 1.75 micron CCD working off their f40 secondary
mirror, whereas it should actually be impossible for team KECK to not
detect within the limitations of their instrument resolution, as to
quite easily record such a highly reflective item that's otherwise
situated on such a nearly coal black surface that simply doesn't hardly
reflect but a few percent of green, far less of blue and nearly zilch
worth of violet.

You are probably right. It would take years to scan the entire surface of the
moon at the return rates (I didn't realize they were that low) currently
being observed. Of course, that means that without the corner reflectors, the
signal to noise ratio would be so poor as to be unable to see ANY return.

Sorry folks, as that's simply not a true statement, and you're still
acting/reacting as a born-again pagan liar because, firstly there's
obviously no need of scanning the entire moon, secondly is that such
laser photons have in fact been bounced off and subsequently detected
without their having targeted any stinking retroreflectors, especially
of the IR spectrum, by which that dark moon of ours reflect's IR quite
nicely.

bz;  The different distances to various features on the moon would spread
out any returns from those features so much in time as to make the signal
undetectable.

That's certainly another damn pagan lie, and otherwise another
brown-nosed and butt-licking butt-load of their usual crapolla and
subsequent damage control.  Why are you folks still covering NASA's
pagan butt that obviously can't seem to speak or otherwise contribute
about our moon or even Venus with any straight butt crack?

I don't suppose that you folks would care to realize and/or appreciate
that our moon has been and still is essentially representing itself as
a solid form of a Van Allen belt, whereas such it has been downright
nasty as all get out, especially extra hard-X-ray nasty by day, which
by the way has everything to do with whatever retroreflectors because,
of whomever put them items there had to have became quit dead soon
thereafter.

I'd asked;
: Besides, where exactly are those hard numbers of photons per detector

: pixel?

bz;  You have figures now.

You're obviously having to pretend that you haven't an honest clue as
to what I'm asking for, much less of forking over what's actually
necessary in order to prove squat on behalf of your NASA/Apollo koran.

With reguard to utilizing either KECK;

bz;  not enough, and unless restricted to small time windows,
the noise would be overwhelming.

Liar, liar, as in pants on fire.  As per expected, you've excluded as
to the simple modification of either KECK, then also having ignored
doing this via earthshine and using that narrow bandpass filter which
eliminates at least 99.9% of whatever noise (I'm thinking such methods
should be good for 99.99% or better elimination of photon noise).
Besides all of that, their latest CCD detectors can otherwise manage
quite nicely within a great deal of such noise, as well as
accommodating various spectrum saturation levels by way of their having
terrific dynamic range that'll outperform film by a good 10:1, if not
better.

bz;  Pulses would work much better than CW for laser ranging.

I agree, but that's not of what's otherwise doable, now is it?

Actually, instead of those microsecond pulses, if using lots of
millisecond pulses should work quite nicely on behalf of all sorts of
CCD imaging that'll be of good enough resolution as to taking notice of
any unusually reflective zone or item within that's being the least bit
more reflective than the typically dark terrain that's surrounding, as
well as on behalf of whatever timing and subsequent laser ranging in
the same effort.  Say per hour of having given 1,800,000 (30,000 per
minute or 500 per second) of those those nearly CW millisecond pulses
should become way more than sufficient as to image those results,
whereas the KECK or most any other narrow bandpass outfitted telescope
should not have any problem in recording the brighter than 0.07 typical
albedo worth of that reflective zone containing the supposed
retroreflector.

Obviously your mindset and the naysay mindset of most others is all
that actually matters, by which regardless of the replicated
hard-science and of other available evidence isn't ever going to alter
upon what you and your official naysay mindset intend to believe, no
matters what.  I chose to believe that folks like yourself have been
liars and much worse.  It obviously doesn't help matters if you folks
still can't prove a photon is actually derived from a retroreflector,
as opposed to reflected off an impact strewn pile of a lander debris
field of mostly aluminum.

 Nothing you've contributed nor otherwise pointed out is sharing of
anything more than the usual infomercial-science, that's 100% bought
and paid for such obtaining the results they intended to get.  It only
proves that something that's a bit unusually more reflective as opposed
to the 0.07 albedo of our moon is up there.  Change that natural area
or zone of albedo by 10% (say making it 0.077 instead of 0.07) and
you'll obviously get 10% more of those reflected photons unless there
some significant factors of angles involved.

In order to get a better (AKA honest) idea of whatever's encharge of
having reflected such photons, you'll need to get that image resolution
down a bit closer to being a meter per pixel, which I believe has been
doable by way of the modifications that I've previously stipulated, and
which you've ignored because it's the truth as much as the gamma and
hard-X-ray environment of our moon is God's truth that'll replicat as
fact and work entirely within the regular laws of physics.
-
Brad Guth