Republic of the Philippines

BULACAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Sarmiento Campus
City of San Jose Del Monte Bulacan

Ruth M. Gumatay

BSED-PHYSICAL SCIENCE 3B

Engr. Elizabeth Lapig

 Optical Instruments
Optical instruments are the devices which process light wave to enhance an image
for the more clear view. You use an optical instrument usually to make things bigger and to
see fine details of objects with the help of something very simple like a magnifying glass or
any complicated device like microscope or telescope. To make things look bigger, you
should always use the converging lenses as diverging lenses always gets you smaller
images.

The Magnifying Glass

A magnifying glass is a convex lens that lets the observer see a larger image of the
object under observation. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle.

The magnification of a magnifying glass depends upon where the instrument is

placed between the user’s eye and the object being viewed and upon the total distance
between eye and object. The magnifying power is the ratio of the sizes of the images
formed on the user’s retina with and without the magnifying glass. When not using the lens,
the user would typically bring the object as close to the eye as possible without it becoming
blurry. (This point, known as the near point, varies with age. In a young child its distance
can be as short as five centimeters, while in an elderly person its distance may be as long as
one or two meters. ) Magnifiers are typically characterized using a “standard” value of
0.25m. Commented [1]:

Camera

A camera is a device that allows you to record images, either on film or

digitally. Cameras can record images as well as movies; movies themselves got their
name from moving pictures. The word camera comes from the Latin phrase camera
obscura, which means “dark chamber. ” The camera obscura was an early instrument
for projecting images from slides. The camera that you use today is an evolution of the
camera obscura.

A camera is usually comprised of an opening, or aperture, that allows light to

enter into a hollow area and a surface that records the light at the other end. In the
20th century, these images would be stored on photographic paper that then had to be
developed, but now most cameras store images digitally.

The Microscope

Microscopes are instruments that let the human eye see objects that would otherwise be
too small.
 Microscopes are instruments that let the human eye see objects that would otherwise be
too small. There are many types of microscopes: optical microscopes, transmission electron
microscopes, scanning electron microscopes and scanning probe microscopes.

The Compound Microscope

A compound microscope uses multiple lenses to magnify an image for an observer.

It is made of two convex lenses: the first, the ocular lens, is close to the eye; the second is
the objective lens.

Compound microscopes are much larger, heavier and more expensive than simple
microscopes because of the multiple lenses. The advantages of these microscopes, due to
the multiple lenses, are the reduced chromatic aberrations and exchangeable objective
lenses to adjust magnification.

The Telescope

The telescope aids in observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic

radiation, such as x-rays, visible light, infrared, and submillimeter rays. The first telescopes
were invented in the Netherlands in the 1600s and used glass lenses. Shortly after, people
began to build them using mirrors and called them reflecting telescopes.

The first telescope was a refracting telescope made by spectacle makers in the
Netherlands in 1608. In 1610, Galileo made his own improved design. After the refracting
telescope was invented, people began to explore the idea of a telescope that used mirrors.
The potential advantages of using mirrors instead of lenses were a reduction in spherical
aberrations and the elimination of chromatic aberrations. In 1668, Newton built the first
practical reflecting telescope. With the invention of achromatic lenses in 1733, color
aberrations were partially corrected, and shorter, more functional refracting telescopes could
be constructed. Reflecting telescopes were not practical because of the highly corrosive
metals used to make mirrors until the introduction of silver-coated glass mirrors in 1857.

Types of Telescope

Reflecting Telescopes

Reflecting telescopes, such as the one shown in, use either one or a combination of
curved mirrors that reflect light to form an image. They allow an observer to view objects
that have very large diameters and are the primary type of telescope used in astronomy. The
object being observed is reflected by a curved primary mirror onto the focal plane. (The
distance from the mirror to the focal plane is called the focal length. ) A sensor could be
located here to record the image, or a secondary mirror could be added to redirect the light
to an eyepiece.
 Catadioptric Telescopes

Catadioptric telescopes, such as the one shown in, combine mirrors and lenses to
form an image. This system has a greater degree of error correction than other types of
telescopes. The combination of reflective and refractive elements allows for each element to
correct the errors made by the other.

X-Ray Diffraction

The principle of diffraction is applied to record interference on a subatomic level in

the study of x-ray crystallography.

X-ray diffraction was discovered by Max von Laue, who won the Nobel Prize in
physics in 1914 for his mathematical evaluation of observed x-ray diffraction patterns.

Diffraction is the irregularities caused when waves encounter an object. You have
most likely observed the effects of diffraction when looking at the bottom of a CD or DVD.
The rainbow pattern that appears is a result of the light being interfered by the pits and lands
on the disc that hold the data. shows this effect. Diffraction can happen to any type of wave,
not just visible light waves.

X-Ray Imaging and CT Scans

Radiography uses x-rays to view material that cannot be seen by the human eye by
identifying areas of different density and composition.

X-ray imaging, or radiography, used x-rays to view material within the body that
cannot be seen by the human eye by identifying areas of different density and composition.
CT Scans use the assistance of a computer to take this information, and generate 3
dimensional images.

X-ray Imaging

X-ray radiographs are produced by projecting a beam of X-rays toward an object, in

medical cases, a part of the human body. Depending on the physical properties of the object
(density and composition), some of the X-rays can be partially absorbed. The portion of the
rays that are not absorbed then pass through the object and are recorded by either film or a
detector, like in a camera. This provides the observer with a 2 dimensional representation of
all the components of that object superimposed on each other. shows an image of a human
elbow.
 Tomography

Tomography refers to imaging by sections, or sectioning. demonstrates this concept.

The three-dimensional image is broken down into sections.

CT Scans

CT scans, or computed tomography scans use a combination of X-ray radiography

and tomography to produce slices of areas of the human body. Doctors can analyze the area,
and based on the ability of the material to block the X-ray beam, understand more about the
material. shows a CT Scan of a human brain. Doctors can cross reference the images with
known properties of the same material and determine if there are any inconsistencies or
problems. Although generally these scans are shown as in, the information recorded can be
used to create a 3 dimensional image of the area. shows a three dimensional image of a
brain that was made by compiling CT Scans.

Photography

The optics of photography involves both lenses and the medium in which the
electromagnetic radiation is recorded, whether it be a plate, film, or charge-coupled device.
Photographers must consider the reciprocity of the camera and the shot which is
summarized by the relation
Exposure ∝ ApertureArea × ExposureTime × SceneLuminance[88]

In other words, the smaller the aperture (giving greater depth of focus), the less light
coming in, so the length of time has to be increased (leading to possible blurriness if motion
occurs). An example of the use of the law of reciprocity is the Sunny 16 rule which gives a
rough estimate for the settings needed to estimate the proper exposure in daylight.[89]
A camera's aperture is measured by a unitless number called the f-number or f-

stop, f/#, often notated as , and given by

where is the focal length, and is the diameter of the entrance pupil. By
convention, "f/#" is treated as a single symbol, and specific values of f/# are written by
replacing the number sign with the value. The two ways to increase the f-stop are to either
decrease the diameter of the entrance pupil or change to a longer focal length (in the case of
a zoom lens, this can be done by simply adjusting the lens). Higher f-numbers also have a
larger depth of field due to the lens approaching the limit of a pinhole camera which is able
to focus all images perfectly, regardless of distance, but requires very long exposure
times.[90]
 The field of view that the lens will provide changes with the focal length of the lens.
There are three basic classifications based on the relationship to the diagonal size of the film
or sensor size of the camera to the focal length of the lens:[91]
1. Normal lens: angle of view of about 50° (called normal because this
angle considered roughly equivalent to human vision[91]) and a focal length
approximately equal to the diagonal of the film or sensor.[92]

2. Wide-angle lens: angle of view wider than 60° and focal length shorter
than a normal lens.[93]

3. Long focus lens: angle of view narrower than a normal lens. This is any
lens with a focal length longer than the diagonal measure of the film or
sensor.[94] The most common type of long focus lens is the telephoto lens, a design
that uses a special telephoto group to be physically shorter than its focal length.[95]

Modern zoom lenses may have some or all of these attributes.

The absolute value for the exposure time required depends on how sensitive to light
the medium being used is (measured by the film speed, or, for digital media, by
the quantum efficiency).[96] Early photography used media that had very low light
sensitivity, and so exposure times had to be long even for very bright shots. As technology
has improved, so has the sensitivity through film cameras and digital cameras.[97]
Other results from physical and geometrical optics apply to camera optics. For
example, the maximum resolution capability of a particular camera set-up is determined by
the diffraction limit associated with the pupil size and given, roughly, by the Rayleigh
criterion.[98]