How do magnified optics work in SW?

[Naaman]

In real life, optics use a series of glass lenses to focus light and magnify an image. There are limits on how much magnification (or how much range of magnification, for variable power optics) tied to the physical dimensions of the optic (bigger allows for better/more versatility).

Is this how it works in SW (using glass or glass-like material)?

I can think of one other way to do it by shooting a conical laser (functioning like radar) which "maps" out the field of view and bounces the data back to an image processor, which renders the view in real time.

Which sounds more appropriate for SW tech for binoculars, telescopes, rifle scopes, etc?
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All About Lightsabers: Designing, Building, and Fighting

[Raven Redstar]

Most magnification looks to me like a combination of glass optics and electronic magnification/enhancement. Kind of like zooming in the camera on your cell phone, when you get outside the range of the lens it starts getting grainy and pixelated just like we see with a lot of zoomed in scopes/macrobinoculars.
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[Naaman]

I guess that could be a cheap way to do it.

The cell phone zoom, I believe, is little more than a size change (at the expense of resolution), whereas the glass/lens zoom is a change in the focusing of the light.

Maybe the good stuff could be fully glass ("artisan" optics) while the electronic ones could be "utility" optics.
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[CRMcNeill]

This being the SWU, you could do something high-tech with the lenses, like making them a liquid or semi-solid held in a tensor field, with the tensor field being used to alter the shape of the liquid lens as part of the magnification process.

Or even dispense with material lenses altogether and have them be energy-only, such that the angle of light waves is subtly altered as it passes through the energy barrier.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Dredwulf60]

DUNE uses oil lenses.

oil held in static tension by an enclosing force field within a viewing tube as part of a magnifying or other light-manipulation system.
Since each oil lens element can be manipulated one micron at a time, these systems were considered the finest available for the manipulation of visible light (in the novel).

[Naaman]

[MrNexx]

I would say that Luke's on Tattooine look to be electronic enhancements, rather than lenses.
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[CRMcNeill]

[Mamatried]

My initial take would be to reduce the difficulties for long range shots.

simply allow lower difficultu out to longer range.

a miper using enhanced opics shoot with the the sla difficulty from sort all through long. he usues the difficulty for medium for his extrme range shots

[CRMcNeill]

[Dredwulf60]

[Naaman]

I've been prepping for a deer hunt later this year, and have been researching scopes and binoculars.

One of the interesting limitations on optics is the balance between magnification and image clarity.

The more magnification you ask for, the less clarity/light transmission you get. Optics tend to be clearest at some setting below their maximum magnification power.

Also, there are limits on magnification range. Back in the day, the maximum power used to be triple the minimum power. Eventually, they got it to quadruple. Currently, the maximum magnification seems to be 6 times the minimum magnification, with some "low power" scopes having a range from "true" 1x to 8x (there is one I've heard of that has a range of 1x to 10x). The limiting factor with these scopes seems to be objective lens size. The largest I've heard of is 28mm (not that great for 8x zoom).

The other side of that coin is that, if you want to be able to zoom way in, you have to give up the ability to zoom way out (the higher the max power you want, the higher the minimum power you have to accept).

I spent a lot of time trying to decide between a 2.5-15x42 and a 3-18x44. I ultimately went with the 3-18x, which meant making a compromise on weight (it's heavier) for being able to get a clearer/brighter picture in the upper ranges of magnification (the scope capable of 18-power will look clearer at 12x or 15x than the 15-power scope dialed to the same magnification, since it's closer to the "smaller" scope's limit).

Where I hit the dead end in terms of SW is whether such trade-offs should matter for a sci-fi RPG (I think that if the campaign or adventure involves lots of long range searching/intelligence operations, hunting or other forms of stalking/observing, then the nuances should probably matter).

I also wonder how limited the tech should be. Should tech be advanced enough to where a cheap device can render crystal clear details of a bug a mile away? Or should the intervening atmospheric phenomena limit how far and how detailed an image can be achieved?
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SpecForce Combat Elements
All About Lightsabers: Designing, Building, and Fighting