License Plate Camera
2009
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A spy camera is said to be able to read the numbers on a car's license plate.?
If the numbers on the plate are 5.5 cm apart, and the spy satellite is at an altitude of 170km , what must be the diameter of the camera's aperture? (Assume light with a wavelength of 590 .)
i don't even know where to begin. what equations to use and wad numbers go where, i will attempt this problem, can you let me know wad answers u got so i can compare? thanks
this is a physics problem.im askin for help. so please dnt sey useless things. if u have nothing help out. dnt be rude.
oldpilot. sorry. wrong answer.
mark v, this is a physics hw problem. im not askin bout anything else...*sigh*
I've actually been involved in a number of these projects. I cannot tell you what our current satellites can do. But consider this. Our old commercial imaging satellites can very easily resolve a baseball from any number of altitudes and orbits. 20 years ago, we were already reading license plates. You don't even need clear skies to do it. Angle is not usually a problem, and if it happens to be for one satellite, then we have another satellite coming two minutes behind it to grab a better angle.
As far as aperture, that really isn't as important as the use of adaptive optics, which allows the satellite (and air-breathing reconnaissance UAVs such as the Global Hawk and Predator) to "clean up" the atmosphere, so that it's essentially perfectly clear. No thermal, humidity, or any other layers to deal with. It's really, really neat.
This is an "open secret" that in the US, we do have the optics (as a general word) and software to look at a person's face from orbit, run it through a database, and spit out the person's identity in a very short amount of time, as in usually easily under a minute (as long as we have a face - just a flat black and white photograph is good enough).
That was about ten years ago, when I moved on to another job and out of that industry.
If advancements have kept moving along the lines that were being researched at the time, then there's a good chance that we can read your novel along with you.
You don't even have to be on the patio - sitting on your cough in the living room is just fine. 20 years ago we were looking through walls as if they just weren't there, able to take full-color photos of whatever we wanted, limited at the time only by the technology, which is obviously far, far ahead at this point.
So - there is no real answer to your question, because there are many things that go into those optical/CCD spy satellites, such as adaptive optical technology.
The link below doesn't have even 5% of the real information, but it's a place to start.
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