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I've tried to search for some basic resources as I'm certain this is not a novel question but as I've learned in previous questions my Google skills require some work. My question is the following.

Suppose I have two objects of which I can resolve their size (for the sake of the question let's say my angular resolution is 1 degree and these objects are 5 degrees). These objects are different colours (say red and blue). As I bring these objects closer together, what happens as the distance between the edges of the objects becomes less than my angular resolution?

I expect that up to the amount that these objects reach the part unresolved will become a combination of the two wavelengths of light (magenta) that will transition into the original colours (red and blue). Further, my main confusion seems to be that regularly I have objects around me of different colours that overlap or touch, but I have never experienced any "mixing" of colours at the edges.

Thanks,

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I might have found something interesting for you. Concerning the diffraction pattern of a circular pupil (the Airy disk), Rayleigh described a resolution criteria that states that the angular radius $\theta$ of this diffraction pattern is proportional to $\lambda$.

In the article below (figure 3), they use two laser sources of different wavelength and watch the superposition of their diffraction patterns :

https://spie.org/etop/1997/296_1.pdf

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  • $\begingroup$ I think this is satisfactory. It's enough of a paper that I can build off of and find further citations. Thank you. I may add to your answer as I learn more. Cheers. I'll award bounty in another day or so unless someone has some other treasure trove of info. $\endgroup$
    – akozi
    Commented Feb 21 at 20:22

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