A3 1 The Riders of Rohan are approaching

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate whether Legolas the Elf could resolve the width of a spear pole
from 24 km away. At this distance, the pole subtends an angle of approximately 1.3 rad. Using
the Rayleigh criterion, we calculated that resolving the pole would require a pupil diameter of
approximately 50 cm, far exceeding any pupil diameter recorded in an animal to date.