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What is the resolution of sensors on board satellites?
The sensor on board the SPOT satellite has 10m resolution in the panchromatic band and 20m resolution in the spectral bands. The resolution of the sensors keeps improving. Even the sensors on board the minisatellites of Surrey University have 10m resolution now in the panchromatic band and 32m in the spectral bands, while it is expected that soon these limits will go down to 2.5m and 5m respectively. The images from the IKONOS satellite have 1m resolution. Fig 1 shows a typical "scene", artificially but carefully created to imitate reality. Each element of this "scene " corresponds to 1 meter. The height of the trees varies from 1-3 meters and the sun is on the right of the scene 45o above the horizon. |
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Figure 1 |
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Fig. 2 shows how this scene would look like if it were imaged with 20m 10m, 5m and 2m resolution sensors. |
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25m |
10m |
5m |
2m |
Figure 2 |
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