Do starships have traditional optical cameras?

[Gingerbread Demon]

Just wondering having done a rewatch of Discovery season 1 in the very first episode they used a telescope on the bridge to see an object in space, thanks to Georgiou but why doesn't the ship have a long range optical camera that doesn't need some technobabble to work?

Wouldn't something like that come in handy for some situations?

Just seems like something really obvious that they overlooked. The telescope did the job their fancy tech couldn't.

 

[Galaxy]

Discovery uses optical cameras to photograph the surface of an asteroid in the season 2 opener "Brother" when the sensors do not work.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Discovery uses optical cameras to photograph the surface of an asteroid in the season 2 opener "Brother" when the sensors do not work.

Oh ok I'll have to watch it again. Mind you watching Discovery isn't a chore.

 

[Qonundrum]

Just wondering having done a rewatch of Discovery season 1 in the very first episode they used a telescope on the bridge to see an object in space, thanks to Georgiou but why doesn't the ship have a long range optical camera that doesn't need some technobabble to work?

Wouldn't something like that come in handy for some situations?

Just seems like something really obvious that they overlooked. The telescope did the job their fancy tech couldn't.

How far is said distance? Look at optical telescopic cameras of today - the lenses and mirrors are, shall we say, huge. (I'm not going to piddle with a big 5000 megapixel camera with DSLR lens (which would still be big) to detail a planetary surface from 300 miles or more above the surface - even on Earth, a properly sized lens to capture a blackcap warbler from 100 feet away is a couple feet long, weighs quite a bit to lug around, costs a couple thousand dollars and more with ease, and you don't want to drop it because of all the mirrors and lenses inside needed to reflect the item being photographed while retaining any worthwhile detail. Even digital zoom (aka "cropping" so it's not really zooming in on anything the way optical zoom does as such) Oops - I just realized I obviously did piddle with describing the basics of a DSLR, my bad!)

https://www.space.com/20765-hubble-space-telescope-infographic.html

To take utility-driven technology like a space telescope out of storage, go out to rig even one up and point it in various directions, in a zero-g environment, is definitely a contingency plan at best. Never mind that what is being captured across the galaxy took place at different times in the past (read "centuries" or more, depending on distance and speed of light and other inane fluffy bunny stuff like that. Worse, if TOS was cognizant of this in "The Squire of Gothos" some 53 years ago and knew when to keep the fantasy elements from breaking suspension of disbelief, there's no way in this genre a modern writer should ever get such a detail wrong in a current show (oops, too late but DSC became such a chore for me that I don't need to watch it and am glad others found things to like... we've all been on both sides at one time or another.)) This isn't taking out trashy toddler tech like a smartphone and thinking anything approaching usable quality from it would be achieved given real life limitations. If DSC really did try something like that I'd be laughing until I got a stomach ache. But most of this hipster pseudo-sci-fi thankfully aren't nerds and geeks.

 

[Timo]

Why the Klingon jamming worked against the Shenzhou is not established in detail. But supposedly the jamming would affect the ship, or something within the ship, while light from the Light of Kahless would travel freely all the way to the ship (and fall on Georgiou's telescope etc.). It would seem that the cameras of "Brother" would suffer from the jamming as well, then - the signal from the cameras to the viewscreen would be the thing corrupted by the Klingon jammer.

Whether traditional lens- or mirror-based collectors of light are relevant primary visual sensors, or merely an antiquated backup that may see use when the more futuristic doodads fail, we don't know yet. We've never quite heard of a specific technology that would give the heroes visuals without the benefit of lenses and the like, but we have seen visuals that seem to come from a POV where there demonstrably is no lens (and indeed no machinery of any sort). Then again, such imagery is likely to be synthetic - but the basis for the synthesis could still be lens-based imaging, just augmented by computer guesswork to give the all-new POV.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GNDN18]

 

[The Old Mixer]

^ Liked for properly capturing his shoutiness in the caption.

 

[Farscape One]

Deep Space 9 has cameras all across the station. Just look at Odo's monitors now and then.

 

[X24actor]

Probably off topic, but I was just thinking about the Doctors holo imager. Looked like an oversized Polaroid camera met an 80's cell phone, but without the phone. It is the single most outdated looking piece of Treknology.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Probably off topic, but I was just thinking about the Doctors holo imager. Looked like an oversized Polaroid camera met an 80's cell phone, but without the phone. It is the single most outdated looking piece of Treknology.

It does look clunky, but I've always assumed it projects a full-scale holographic environment as well. Which means it must have a large battery and memory bank.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Hey in trek they have discovered perpetual free energy. According to the TNG technical manual tricorders use self charging batteries. So they never need a recharge externally.

 

[uniderth]

Probably off topic, but I was just thinking about the Doctors holo imager. Looked like an oversized Polaroid camera met an 80's cell phone, but without the phone. It is the single most outdated looking piece of Treknology.

It's a freaking holo imager. Of course it's going to be huge compared to a modern camera. It's got to be able to capture all aspects of whatever it's imaging; enough to recreate the subject in full holographic glory, complete with all the details, and interactivity.

 

[Tenacity]

Probably off topic, but I was just thinking about the Doctors holo imager. Looked like an oversized Polaroid camera met an 80's cell phone, but without the phone. It is the single most outdated looking piece of Treknology.

Spock: "I know if your taste for antiques."

 

[Timo]

Spock: "I know if you taste of antiques."

Corrected Spock's typo for you. Yes, he would know.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

They probably could replicate one in seconds, if they'd ever needed one for some reason, so I'm not sure it would be part of the standard ship's inventory.

 

[DanGussin]

IMO - Ships have optical cameras located all along their hulls that provide 360 degree coverage of surrounding space. We see many examples of the main bridge view screen being focused on an area of interest as well as magnification settings. We also see a section of the ship itself in some cases.

With both advanced tech for lenses and resolution combined with multiple cameras working together we get the images we see on screen.

I also would assume that a ships sensors would be capable of picking up the entire EM spectrum and route the visual data to the view screens while other data was sent to appropriate systems to be processed and presented to the crew in a coherent way.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I'd love a starship though to have an actual telescope or observatory. That would be kind of cool and a good backup

 

[DanGussin]

I'd love a starship though to have an actual telescope or observatory. That would be kind of cool and a good backup

The closest we get in Trek is what we see in "Voyager" with Astrometrics and to an extent in "Generations" with stellar cartography

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The closest we get in Trek is what we see in "Voyager" with Astrometrics and to an extent in "Generations" with stellar cartography

I know but I'm picturing a ship with a dome somewhere on top and a telescope pointing out to the stars under that dome.

 

[Henoch]

I image that the Enterprise's sensors include only a digital optical camera suite. Of course, the quality would be magnitudes better than even our current spy satellites. Reading license plates in bad weather would be child's play. Like our satellites, they would be able to see in adjustable infrared through ultraviolet wavelengths, have bifocal vision for 3D presentation, and laser distance determination to high accuracy. For greater space ranges of lightyears and FTL movements, a technobabble sensor suite would be needed to peak into and through the subspace realm.

I guess they put windows on the ship in case all technology fails you. Then you use the old Mark One Eyeball.