Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-2-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019-resit/6/solution

Treat the given orbital separation as the projected separation on the sky. The small angular separation is
For an ideal circular telescope aperture of diameter , the Rayleigh criterion requires . Therefore
This is the diffraction limit, assuming comparable image brightness and adequate sampling. Atmospheric image blurring can require correction or space-based observing. A smaller actual projected separation of the binary star would require a larger aperture.

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