[buffaloguy]

I am sure that all your points are correct. It also occurred to me that our observation sats are using long base optical interferometry to get images which are indistinguishable from an onsite slr.
Two sats seperated by a long distance feed the image into a processor which combines them. The net effect is very high resolution photographs.
The effective mirror size is the distance between the centers of each mirror.
We use this in optical and radio astronomy.

[generally]

Thanks for the science info. That is outside my area of knowledge. I expect that there is also hyperspectral imagery that may give us some info. That is on the margins of my area of knowledge.

[Wneighbor]

The effective mirror size is the distance between the centers of each mirror. We use this in optical and radio astronomy.

could this be part of why Q states "think mirror?"