Friday, February 03, 2006

Abberation - Definition - Optics and Astronomy

Definition: Optics: A system of optics, failing to produce the true image. Types of aberration:

Spherical: the error introduced into far off axis beams by exactly spherical lenses (lenses should of hyperbolic shape)

Chromatic: Colored fringes, due to the differences in refraction of different wavelength light

Coma: distortion of off axis points

Astigmatism: Failure to focus point sources to a point image (Cause of shortsightedness in people)

Distortion: a square object is imaged with either concave (barrel)or convex (pincushion) lines.

Astronomy: Apparent displacement of a star due to the earth’s motion. Light appears from a point at an angle a = v/c in the direction of motion, where v is the velocity of the earth and c is the speed of light.

Also Known As: Distortion, Spherical Aberration, Astigmatism, Coma, Chromatic aberration

Common Misspellings: Abberation Aberation Abberration

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