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The ability of a lens to resolve detail is usually determined by the quality of the lens, but is ultimately limited by diffraction.Light coming from a point source in the object diffracts through the lens aperture such that it forms a diffraction pattern in the image, which has a central spot and surrounding bright rings, separated by dark nulls; this pattern is known as an Airy pattern, and ...
For example, in the case of yellow light with a wavelength of 580 nm, for a resolution of 0.1 arc second, we need D=1.2 m. Sources larger than the angular resolution are called extended sources or diffuse sources, and smaller sources are called point sources.
where λ is the wavelength of the waves that are focused for imaging, D the entrance pupil diameter of the imaging system, in the same units, and the angular resolution δ is in radians. As with other diffraction patterns, the pattern scales in proportion to wavelength, so shorter wavelengths can lead to higher resolution.
Wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, whatever medium they are traveling through, are usually quoted in terms of the vacuum wavelength, although this is not always explicitly stated. Generally, electromagnetic radiation is classified by wavelength into radio wave, microwave, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. The ...
The resolution of a good optical microscope is mainly determined by the numerical aperture (A Num) of its objective lens. The numerical aperture in turn is determined by the refractive index n of the medium filling the space between the sample and the lens and the half collection angle of light θ according to Carlsson (2007): [ 46 ] : 6 A N u ...
This chart shows the most common display resolutions, with the color of each resolution type indicating the display ratio (e.g., red indicates a 4:3 ratio). This article lists computer monitor, television, digital film, and other graphics display resolutions that are in common use. Most of them use certain preferred numbers.
The spectral resolution of a spectrograph, or, more generally, of a frequency spectrum, is a measure of its ability to resolve features in the electromagnetic spectrum.It is usually denoted by , and is closely related to the resolving power of the spectrograph, defined as =, where is the smallest difference in wavelengths that can be distinguished at a wavelength of .
Visible wavelengths pass largely unattenuated through the Earth's atmosphere via the "optical window" region of the electromagnetic spectrum. An example of this phenomenon is when clean air scatters blue light more than red light, and so the midday sky appears blue (apart from the area around the Sun which appears white because the light is not ...