 This activity deals with the resolution of the eye and of your telescope. As a little background, your finger, held at arm's length, covers about one degree of sky. A 2020 eye generally has a best resolution of about one art minute, one sixtieth of a degree. The apparent thickness of an unfolded paperclip from about eight feet away from you. Our telescopes generally have a best resolution of about one arc second, one sixtieth of an art minute, or that paperclip about 60 times farther, almost 500 feet away, about two city blocks. However, to keep your presentation simple, this activity avoids the use of terms like arc minute and arc second. There's more on the basics of resolution in the background information section in the tool kit manual. Now, to anticipate the question of whether our telescopes can see the flag or footprints or any other artifacts on the moon, this little activity might help handle that question. We'll use the flashlight and star mask that you just made. Will I be able to see the flag on the moon? Well, it's a question of resolution. Let me show you what I mean. How many stars can you see? I can see three, I think. Okay. Now how many stars can you see? Oh, there's many more. Okay, okay, good. Well, just like our eyes have a limit to how much detail they can resolve at a particular distance, telescopes do too. The flag on the moon is about three feet by about five feet. So at the distance of the moon, the smallest feature your eye alone can resolve is about 60 miles across. Can you see the flag with just your eyes? No, definitely not. Well, backyard telescopes can generally see about 30 to 60 times more detail than your eye. This scope generally gets 60 times better resolution. So at the distance of the moon, the smallest feature that this telescope could resolve would be about how big? About a mile. That's right, yeah. Sure. And how big was the flag? Three by five. Right. So would we be able to see the flag on the moon with this telescope? No, definitely not. No, of course not. Now, even a larger telescope would, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, which is out in space, it can see about 1,200 times better more detail than our eyes. At the distance of the moon, that's about the length of a football field. So would the Hubble be able to see the flag? No, it would be too small. That's right. Well, we can't see the flag with this telescope, but do take a look and tell me what you can see. Oh, that's gorgeous. That's beautiful. Oh, good. If you've got a cloudy night, you can still show your visitors the power of the telescope using the flashlight and star mask. Place it about 60 feet away and focus your telescope on it. Then, pointing to the flashlight, ask your visitors, see that light over there? It represents a field of stars. How many stars do you see? From here, your visitor maybe will see two or three. Let's see how many more stars the telescope can allow you to see. Then, let them look in the scope and ask them, how many stars do you see now? Yeah. Since the scope can see about 60 times more detail than your eye can at 60 feet away, you're seeing in the telescope what your eye would see from one foot away from the flashlight and star mask. Try it with your own telescope. Once again, at the distance of the moon, the smallest feature your eye alone can resolve is about 60 miles across. So the smallest feature this telescope could resolve would be about one mile across. We can't see a three foot by five foot flag on the moon with this telescope. We would need a telescope that could see 60,000 times more detail than our eyes to see something as small as the flag on the moon. That would have to be a telescope with a diameter of over 150 yards, roughly the length of one-and-a-half football fields. And to achieve that kind of resolution, it would have to be out in space above the interference of our atmosphere.