If a Apollo type Moon mission happened today would we be able to see it transit in Lunar orbit? I know we can't see the Landing sites of the Apollo but could we see the Command Module and its shadow orbiting the moon?
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1$\begingroup$ The Apollo CSM is not large enough to see from Earth, see space.stackexchange.com/questions/27831/… $\endgroup$– HobbesCommented Jul 18, 2018 at 14:13
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$\begingroup$ I knew apollo wasnt big enough to see on the surface but wasnt sure about when its away from the glare of the surface and the fact it has a Shiny surface itself. Hopefully next moon mission has a bigger CSM :) Thanks for the answers $\endgroup$– Jake McGarveyCommented Jul 18, 2018 at 14:53
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Let's assume you are not only looking with your eyes, but Hubble Space Telescope. HST has a resolution of about 0.05 arcseconds, or 2.424068e-7 radians. The Moon is about 384,400 km. That comes to be about 100m, just to see it as a resolved dot.
Now, one could theoretically see an unresolved dot that is smaller, but it would be extremely difficult with a noisy background like the Moon present.
What would be more likely is if a major propulsive event happened that wasn't behind the moon, it might be able to be seen. Still, that isn't very likely.
answered Jul 18, 2018 at 14:19
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1$\begingroup$ This certainly doesn't change your conclusion a lot, but the VLT is doing amazing things these days: gizmodo.com/… (I've just asked How did VLT's adaptive optics obtain this resolution for Neptune? Is it really working in visible wavelengths?) $\endgroup$– uhohCommented Jul 18, 2018 at 16:45