Lunar Observatories: Grand Plans vs. Clear Problems

> From: Lucio de Souza Coelho
> Satellite geographic positioning systems (like GPS) have error margins
> orders of magnitude larger than the wavelength of light,

Which is why the telescopes use lasers to constantly measure the distance
between. Or then again, they could do it that because line-of-sight
rangefinding is (as I understand it) the only way to build a vissible light
interferometry telescope. Good luck getting line of sight on the moon; it's
curved as I recall.

> From: Douglas May
> but the light gathering power is still only the
> sum total of each individual telescope.

Yes, but the light gathering capacity is equal to the sum total of each
individual telescope X time. Because the moon rotates there is a limit to
how long any theoretical lunar telescope can stare at one point in space. A
space based telescope has no such limitation.

And, um, isn't the moon's maximum baseline kinda limited to it's diameter?

John