Oops, managed to overlook this post.
 
I trying to see how big an explosion would have to be for someone to spot the nuclear detonation on the Moon from Earth with the unaided eye and recognize what they were observing was a nuclear detonation, assuming they were right there to see it and knew enough to identify it - as oppose to some rock that got caught in the Moon's gravity well and made a violent landing on the lunar surface.
C.T.
> On Sat, May 19, 2018 at 12:40 AM, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net> wrote:
> > On Fri, May 18, 2018 at 11:26:17PM -0400, Cheng Tseng wrote:
> >> Now back to determining how powerful a nuclear weapon has to be so
> >> that the detonation on the Moon (And any after effects.) can be seen
> >> from Earth...
> >
> > The first part is trivial.  Pretty much any nuclear detonation above
> > the surface on the near side will be visible from Earth by anyone
> > looking in the right direction at night.  A large one would likely be
> > visible during the day.  It would require an enormously larger weapon
> > than anything we have now to leave a crater visible from Earth with
> > even good telescopes, though.  Perhaps one detonating well above the
> > surface might discolour it over a wide enough area to be visible.
> >
>
> I wonder what would happen if you had some Claymore-mine style thing
> on the front of a drone heading at the Moon at 12KPS...
> Set the mine off several miles above the surface, and spread the
> pellets over a larger area, then let them hit and churn up the dust.
>
> Would the churned up area be large enough to be noticed?