alt Hacker NewsThe diffraction limit (under 1.22 h* lambda/d) of a 1m optic at 250km in visible light is about 17cm. How can you achieve 10cm resolution?
The diffraction limit (under 1.22 h* lambda/d) of a 1m optic at 250km in visible light is about 17cm. How can you achieve 10cm resolution?
Clarity is designed for a GSD (ground sample distance) of 10 cm. Generally the industry uses resolution<>GSD interchangeably. Agree it's not the true definition of resolution. But I'd argue the diffraction limit is an incomplete metric as well, like how spatial sampling is balanced with other MTF contributors (e.g. jitter/smear). For complete metrics, we like 1) NIIRS or 2) % contrast for a given object size on the ground (i.e. system MTF translated to ground units, not image-space units).
The main performance goal for us was NIIRS 7, and we decomposed GSD/MTF/SNR contributors optimized for affordability when we architected the system