Front Row Seats To NASA's Lunar Impact

itwbennett writes "Tomorrow morning at 7:30 EDT, NASA is going to crash a probe into the moon as part of its LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission, the main purpose of which is to discover if there's any water on the moon. 'If you happen to have a 10-12" telescope (or larger) then you might be able to see the plume from your backyard,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'For the rest of us, the impact will be streamed live over the web in a few places. NASA will have a feed, beginning at 6:15 EDT. The NASA feed includes live footage from the spacecraft itself as well as expert commentary and other goodies. Astronomy service SLOOH is offering a double-shot of earth-bound feeds, with one feed from New Hampshire and the other from Arizona. The SLOOH feeds start at 6:30 am EDT.'" Update: Matt_dk adds a link to a viewing guide to the impact, writing that "Amateur astronomers need a 10-inch or bigger telescope to make observations."

Comments

I object

[cmdotter]

Call me kooky, call me a greenie. I can't see how this can even be regarded as a 'scientific' experiment. I'd put it under the same banner as: "Lets fire a bullet at someone's head to see if there's a brain in there".
Surely a little lunar robot with drilling capabilities is less drastic than "Let's blow this fucker up and see what we can see"?

I invoke the chewbacca defence: It just doesn't make sense...