[Laser] Laser moon bounce

[James Whitfield]

 I had the opportunity to read the abstract of a paper published by the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific that was titled: The Apache Point
Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation: Instrument Description and First
Detection.  I thought the members of this list would like to know that the
3.5 meter telescope at the observatory in southern New Mexico has achieved 1
mm range precision to the Moon.

If my memory serves me correctly, a previous instrument used for LLR was a
one meter telescope that put a spot on the Moon about 2,000 meters across.
I think there is a rule of thumb used by amateur astronomers about resolving
power that can be applied to the spot size, which would give an area less
than 575 meters across.  Or said another way, if they use similar lasers and
pulse rates, which gave a return of about ten seconds per photon, this will
result in about 15 photons per second.

James
 n5gui