In optics, aberration is a property of optical systems, such as lenses, that causes light to be spread out over some region of space rather than focused to a point. Aberrations cause the image formed by a lens to be blurred or distorted, with the nature of the distortion depending on the type of aberration. Aberration can be defined as a departure of the performance of an optical system from the predictions of paraxial optics. In an imaging system, it occurs when light from one point of an object does not converge into (or does not diverge from) a single point after transmission through the system. Aberrations occur because the simple paraxial theory is not a completely accurate model of the effect of an optical system on light, rather than due to flaws in the optical elements.An image-forming optical system with aberration will produce an image which is not sharp. Makers of optical instruments need to correct optical systems to compensate for aberration.
Aberration can be analyzed with the techniques of geometrical optics. The articles on reflection, refraction and caustics discuss the general features of reflected and refracted rays.
Been reading about aberration and two explanations that diverge - classical and relativistic. at speeds much slower than c the angle is very small for either formulation. the stellar aberration that led Bradley to the explanation 300 years ago is less than a minute of arc. Has there been any...
Last month I asked here whether there's a consensus about Van Flandern's speculations about the speed of gravity. I quickly learned that he's not well-regarded. Fine. I was hoping to be able to get something out of Steve Carlip's explanation for how GR explains the apparent almost...
I'm interested in the prehistory of the history of relativity. In this
history the nature of light and the ether comes in. One phenomenon that
was debated in this context was stellar aberration: that the positions
of the stars in the sky change slightly, or, more precisely, the
perceived...
How does spherical aberration cause an image to appear when the object is placed at the focus?
In theory, when the object is placed at the focus, no image should appear but when i did an experiment with a concave mirror and a candle, image did appear. But the image was very very far away...
Concave mirror experiment
We did an experiment with a concave mirror
Concave mirror was placed on optics bench and a candle was placed at designated spots. A screen was used to see where the image was projected. But a strange thing happened. When the object was placed at the focal point, image...
I have been trying to determine the change in angle required for a telescope due to the aberration of starlight when it is filled with water. The empty telescope is easily done with the law of sines.
The starlight reaches Earth at an arbitrary angle of theta from the vertical with a speed of...
What is the approximate difference in the points of convergence between red and blue light when using a spherical lens? Is it negligible (i.e. less than a millimeter)? Is it a specific distance or is it a function of a separate variable?
Essentially, I'm curious as to why the focal length of a lens with red light is the closest to the focal length in white light.
MY ATTEMPTED ANSWER:
According to the lens-maker's equation, the focal length of a lens depends on the index of refraction of the lens material, which in turn is...
I was thinking of something and maybe somebody can explain...
If rain is coming straight down at a rate of 4 meters/second and I'm walking along at a rate of 3 meters/second then the rain is hitting me at an angle at a rate of 5 meters/second. So, then why doesn't the same sort of reasoning...