Sensor capability TOS

[knightgrace]

Just had a thought...

The British Interplanetary Society design study for the Daedalus probe, used as their expected benchmark, a one megapixel imagining array. The TOS Enterprise is expected to detect something at least 100,000(160,934.4 kilometers), this leads to a conclusion 5.5575^2 times that level of resolution for her standard imaging sensors.

 

[blssdwlf]

The TOS Enterprise's sensors can be pretty good. From the "Gamesters of Triskelion"

MCCOY: Then what the devil is happening? Does that mean their atoms are just floating around out there?​

SPOCK: No, Doctor. Even that would show up on our sensors.​

SCOTT: Where are they then?​

SPOCK: The only answers are negative. No magnetic storms, no ionic interference, no breakdown in your equipment.​

MCCOY: A negative attitude is no good to us. We can't just leave them out there, wherever they are.​

SPOCK: We shall continue sensor scans, Doctor. At the moment, that is all we can do, except hope for a rational explanation.​

...​

SPOCK: They are not within the confines of this solar system.​

MCCOY: It's been nearly an hour. Can people live that long as disassembled atoms in a transporter beam?​

and from "The Enterprise Incident"

SPOCK: Increasing sensor scan to one parsec. All scanners report clear. Nothing in our immediate vicinity.​

 

[knightgrace]

And what was the smallest resolution? Answer: one pixel, and one photon. If no photons then no signal generated. In the real world we have single photon detection.

I read a few months ago that they have proven that human eyes have single photon capability.

You achieve this is a completely dark room, and wait for the subject's eyes to adjust. Then generate a single photon at known intervals people can detect the single photon...

Also note that spectral analysis can detect light emitted by source, or generated by another source, such as a star...

So unless the Enterprise was using its space telescope as drawn by Franz Joseph, I question the author.

I have a problem with this.

 

[BillJ]

Sensor capabilities were whatever the writer needed them to be, for any given episode.

 

[knightgrace]

Too much so. Binoculars are only so good...in the real world.