The resolution of the naked eye, under ideal conditions (within 2 degrees of the center of the eye with ideal lighting conditions), is about 1 arcminute according to the Active Visualization FAQ. For reasons I won't go into here, an outstanding question at the Splunk office is how many of Apple's phenomenally cool 30 inch Cinema Displays would be required in order for them to be visible from space. For the purposes of the discussion, let's take "space" to be about 100km. With a quick bit of trig, you get tan(1/60 of a degree) = .0002908 * 100,000m ~= 29.08m. Another quick bit of trig gives you that the 30" monitors are actually about 26.14" wide ~= 66.41cm. Which means it would take about 44 30" Apple monitors across. 44 squared gets you 1,936 monitors for a grand total cost of $5,808,000. Then you could set the monitors up on top of the Great Wall of China and make them transparent...
This used to be relative to geosync orbit. Suggestion to change to manned orbit height attributed to the the Quibbler
- Geosynchronous orbit, which is 35,786 kilometers above the earth's surface. .0002908 * 35,786,000m ~= 10,409m, cost of $47,021,533
- Where reentry begins (about 80km) = 23.264m or a little over 35 monitors.
- You're an astronaut if you've flown over 50 km up = 14.54m or 22 monitors...
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