Federation Commander

Rule (5L4a) (2) states that a [raiding] ship must come within 4 (or 2) hexes of the Q-ship in order to reveal it as such.

My question is, at what point in the impulse does this recognition occur? Specifically, can an investigating ship move into - and then out of the required range in the same impulse, and still have that approach counted for Q-ship revealing purposes, or does the raider have to end the movement portion of the impulse within the required range? You can see why this might be a good idea and therefore why this might be a loophole....

Since the rules for labs in general work on the principle of "closest approach", I have to say that the opposing ship may indeed move to four (or two) hexes and back out by the end of the impulse and still qualify to identify the Q-ship. Seeing as you can only move four hexes each turn, this isn't going to give anyone a tremendous advantage. Especially as the Q-ship is going to have plenty of power with which to control its own movement.