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Comment by jjeaff | Hacker News Reader

There was a guy on a TV documentary once that had worked for the government in some capacity. He was explaining that the satellite maps provided to the public are extremely zoomed out compared to what the government is able to see.

He said that the government had photography so detailed, that they could find a golf ball on a golf course, and even tell you what brand of golf ball it is.

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There's always some dude on TV bragging, but I'd be skeptical.

https://www.quora.com/How-powerful-are-the-cameras-on-modern...

TL;DR is that satellites have a 9 cm resolution at best. That's not enough to see a golf ball (4 cm diameter), and far away from discovering a producer's imprint on it.

With drones you can get an order of magnitude better, but that's still only barely enough to find said golf ball, and not enough to read fine print.

Who said it has to a be a satellite?

jjeaff did.

> He was explaining that the satellite maps provided to the public

> compared to what the government is able to see.

That does not imply satellite maps.

I guess you can read it that way if you try. But neither I or the other commenter got that meaning.

> if you try

Please refrain from baseless accusations. Thank you.

Probably right. But my guess is that the actual ability of current satellite photography is highly classified.

These pictures are from 3D flyovers, not satellite. They usually flyover every year, mostly municipial, not by country.

the government's spy satellites have very high resolution, but that claim was just bogus.

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