From: tenentelui@gmail.com   
      
   Hey, folks.    
      
   Lemme ask ya something. Yall kinda agreed IR detection, in space, has much   
   greater range than visible light (i'm talking passive sensors). However, I   
   assume IR scopes follow the same principles as visible light scopes - it's all   
   EM. When dealing with a    
   visible light telescope, if the angular resolution can't resolve the target   
   size as 1 pixel, it's out of range, right?    
      
   The same principle should apply to IR sensors, except visible light wavelength   
   averages at 500nm and near-IR at 5000. Since angular resolution =   
   wavelength/diameter of aperture, angular resolution of IR sensors of the same   
   diameter should be 10 times    
   bigger (10 times worse) than visible light systems. Why doesn't the range drop   
   too?    
      
   I know, I'm not considering the amount of light picked up (there are many more   
   IR photons than visible photons), which causes the thinned array curse. But   
   why does that affect the Dawes limit of the scope?   
      
   If the cause is indeed the amount of light picked up, I'm looking for a way to   
   put that in a range formula - one that takes angular resolution into account,   
   and preferably one that can be used to other wavelengths of the EM spectrum.    
      
   A universal EM passive range formula would be absurdly useful.   
      
   Thanks!   
      
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