Sorry for raising this old thread, it just made sense to post here. Yeah, I thought a bit about the average brightness before writing. It does seems to me that the object is so very much smaller that the radiance power has to be extreme. It is also possible that the EODAS is sensitive enough to pick it up, which would mean it could possibly detect an incoming burnt-out coasting missile from tens of miles away...
@wrightwing. No source. Had to go with some assumption to convey my question. Doesn't matter if the resolution is 512^2 or 2048^2, if the sensor is sensitive enough. Might help on discrimination, though.