Find out about the array of corner cubes placed on the moon...
Modern surveying equipment uses total stations, which have electro-
optical range (distance) finders. The rod ("pole") at the other spot
has a corner cube on top. When you see, you can look into the corner
cube from some distance away, and move your hand to temporarily block
your line of sight; just don't drive the surveyors buggy!
Modern corner reflectors tend to have extremely tight specs on
parallelism between the incoming and outgoing beams, probably
fractions of a second of arc, for the best ones.
Some "serious" corner reflectors use precision first-surface* mirrors
precisely positioned; others use glass blocks. (*first-surface:
reflective coating on the surface closer to you; don't touch;
protective coating over it...)
Nicholas Bodley |@| Waltham, Mass.
Please reply to nbodley@alumni.princeton.edu
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Autodidact and polymath to some extent
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