Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
In "Unification I" (TNG, Episode 5x07), Fleet Admiral Brackett shows Captain Picard a picture of Ambassador Spock taken on the planet Romulus by a Federation "long range scanner". How can they take such a clear picture of someone on Romulus from, I'm assuming, 3.62ly away. That's the distance from the Neutral Zone to Romulus.
Although Federation scanners have sufficient resolution to detect a ship at approximately 10 LY, this would obviously be insufficient to take a photo from outside the Romulan system.
In this case, the show script makes it clear that the "long-range scanner" Brackett is referring to is some kind of high resolution camera, presumably wielded by a Federation spy from some distance away:
A fuzzy, out-of-focus picture, with margins showing on screen, comes into frame -- something obviously taken on a very long lens. There are several blurred figures, none of them identifiable
ADMIRAL BRACKETT - Taken on Romulus, by long-range scanner. Computer, enhance image in section four-delta.
