PARTS OF THE HUMAN EYE

o Sclera - outermost layer of the eye.

o Cornea - a tough, five-layered membrane through which light is admitted to the interior of
the eye.
o Choriod - middle layer of the coating of the eye, a vascular layer lining the posterior threefifths of the eyeball.
o Aqueous Humor - a chamber filled with clear, watery fluid which separates the cornea from
the crystalline lens.
o Lens (crystalline lens) - a flattened sphere constructed of a large number of transparent fibers
arranged in layers.
o Suspensory Ligament - connective ligament that connect the Lens with the Ciliary Muscle.
o Ciliary Muscle - control the size of the Lens for focusing.
o Pupil - control the amount of light admitted to the eye.
o Iris the colored part of the eye.
o Vitreous Humor - is filled with a transparent, jellylike substance. The pressure of the vitreous
humor keeps the eyeball distended.
o Fovea Centralis - the area of greatest visual acuity of the eye.
o Optic Disc - Where the optic nerve enters the eyeball, below and slightly to the inner side of
the fovea, a small round area of the retina exists that has no light-sensitive cells. This optic
disk forms the blind spot of the eye.
o Retina - is a complex layer, composed largely of nerve cells. The light-sensitive receptor cells
lie on the outer surface of the retina in front of a pigmented tissue layer.
The Retina is made up of two types of cells: cones and rods.

Cones are nerve cells that are sensitive to light, detail, and color. Millions of cone cells
are packed into the macula, aiding it in providing the visual detail needed to scan the
letters on an eye chart, see a street sign, or read the words in a newspaper.
Cones also produce the sensation we call color. Cones contain three different pigments,
which respond either to blue, red, or green wavelengths of light. Cones mix the color
signals to produce the variety of colors we see. If a person is missing one or more of the
pigments, that person is said to be color-blind and has difficulty distinguishing between
certain colors, such as red from green.

Rods are designed for night vision and the detection of motion and objects. They also
provide peripheral vision, but they do not see as acutely as cones. Rods are insensitive to
color. When a person passes from a brightly lit place to one that is dimly illuminated,
such as entering a movie theater during the day, the interior seems very dark. After some
minutes this impression passes and vision becomes more distinct. In this period of
adaptation to the dark the eye becomes almost entirely dependent on the rods for vision,

which operate best at very low light levels. Since the rods do not distinguish color, vision
in dim light is almost colorless.

Common Eye Defects and their Corrections

Presbyopia - progressive form of farsightedness that affects most people by their
early 60s. Presbyopia occurs with age as the lens of the eye gradually loses its
elasticity (ability to spring back into shape). This reduces the ability of the lens to
focus for near vision. The first indication of presbyopia usually is difficulty with
reading. Large print appears clearly, but small print is difficult to read except at arms
length. Eventually the lenses of the eyes have little or no focusing ability.
Simple reading eyeglasses with convex lenses correct most cases of presbyopia.
Eyeglass prescriptions may need adjusting over the course of 10 to 20 years to correct
the progressive nature of the disorder.
Hyperopia ( farsightedness) - common name for a defect in vision in which a
person sees near objects with blurred vision, while distant objects appear in sharp
focus.
Farsightedness usually can be corrected with eyeglasses or contact lenses. The age at
which a person requires eyeglasses for this condition depends on its degree of
severity. However, almost everyone requires at least reading glasses by the time they
are in their 60s to help them see objects that are small but near.
Myopia ( nearsightedness) - common name for impaired vision in which a
person sees near objects clearly while distant objects appear blurred.
Nearsightedness can be corrected with eyeglasses or contact lenses that extend the
point at which light rays focus. Another option for some nearsighted people is laser
surgery. Doctors who specialize in disorders of the eye, called ophthalmologists, use
one of two forms of laser surgery to reshape the eye in order to reduce or correct
nearsightedness.
Astigmatism - Astigmatism, a defect in the outer curvature on the surface of the
eye that causes distorted vision. In the normal eye, light rays coming from a single
point are bent, or refracted, toward each other by the cornea. As the rays pass through
the inner parts of the eye, the lens bends the rays still further, focusing them to a point
on the retina. In a patient with an astigmatism, the cornea or sometimes the lens of the
eye is curved abnormally. This causes light rays to refract unevenly inside the eye.

While some light rays focus on the retina, other light rays focus in front of or behind
the retina, resulting in blurred vision.
In mild cases of astigmatism, the eye may adjust to the slight distortion without
correction. In more pronounced cases, an astigmatism may be corrected easily with
eyeglasses or contact lenses.
Other Eye Defects
Conjunctivitis, inflammation of the conjunctiva, a mucous membrane that lines the
inner surface of the eyelids and joins with the cornea of the eyeball. Conjunctivitis
may be caused by infection, allergy, or injury and is marked by redness and swelling,
accompanied by a feeling of roughness as the membrane passes over the exposed
surface of the eyeball. The eye may be sensitive to light; in more severe cases a
mucoid sticky fluid, or even pus, may be discharged, depending on the cause of the
infection.
Glaucoma, group of eye diseases characterized by increased pressure within the eye
and resulting loss of vision. Although the vision loss caused by glaucoma is
irreversible, medication or surgery can usually control the pressure within the eye and
slow or halt the progression of the disease. If glaucoma is diagnosed in its early
stages, it can be treated effectively, and vision can usually be preserved.
Cataract (vision), in medicine, opaque condition of the lens of the eye or of its
capsule. Its position behind the pupil readily distinguishes this condition from
opacities of the cornea. Cataract may affect the lens alone (lenticular), or the front or
back of the capsule of the lens (capsular), or both lens and capsule
(capsulolenticular). Cataract is painless and unaccompanied by inflammation. It
causes blindness by obstructing passage of light, but the patient can distinguish light
from darkness.
Macular Degeneration, leading cause of irreversible vision loss in the United States.
This incurable condition attacks the central portion of the retina, the part of the eye
that receives light patterns and transmits them to the brain. Macular degeneration
progressively damages or destroys the part of vision used for reading and seeing fine
details, while leaving the peripheral vision generally unaffected. People who have this
disorder develop an area of vision loss that increases in diameter until they are unable
to read or even see groups of two to three words at normal reading distance. Macular
degeneration usually develops in both eyes, with one eye generally more affected than
the other.
Trachoma, contagious infection of the eye caused by Chlamydia trachomatis, a
bacteria related to the organism that causes psittacosis. Infection is spread by the bite
of a host fly. Characterized by hard pustules or granular excrescences on the inner

surface of the eyelids, inflammation of the membrane, and subsequent involvement of

the cornea, trachoma is a major cause of blindness in some villages in northern
Africa. It most commonly occurs among populations living under poor sanitary
conditions.

Camera

Pinhole Camera - a basic form of camera with a tiny hole for the aperture, and no
Lens. Light passes through the hole to form an inverted image on the film emulsion.

Digital Camera

- camera using digital technology: a camera that records and stores

photographic images in digital form. The images can be viewed and manipulated by the camera,
loaded onto a computer, and printed as a photograph or e-mailed as an image.

A digital camera owner displays the back of a digital camera with its liquid crystal screen showing his
own image being captured. Once the shutter is snapped, images are stored on memory devices, such
as floppy disks or memory cards, so that users can review the photographs they have taken and
determine immediately if the image they captured is what they want.

Other Optical Devices

Telescope, device that permits distant and faint objects to be viewed as if they
were much brighter and closer to the observer. Telescopes are typically used to
observe the skies.
Refracting Telescope, telescope in which a lens gathers light and forms a real image
of an object. Refracting telescopes, or refractors, use a glass lens to bend, or refract,
starlight and bring it to a focus. The lens is convex, meaning that the center of the lens is
its thickest part, and the lens becomes thinner toward its edges. A convex lens bends light
at the edge of the lens to a greater angle than light coming through the center, so all of the
rays converge to a focus. The distance between the lens and the place where the rays
converge is called the focal length of the lens. A refracting telescopes light-gathering
power is proportional to the size of the objective, or main, lens and to the ratio of the
focal lengths of the objective lens and the eyepiece.
Refracting telescopes are typically hampered by chromatic aberration, which causes
different colors of light to come to a different focus because every color has its own
degree of refraction. Chromatic aberration causes the image of a star or planet to be
surrounded by circles of different colors.

A Reflecting telescope uses a precisely curved mirror instead of a lens to collect starlight.
The mirror is concavethat is, shaped like the inside of a disha shape that brings
reflected light waves to a focus at a point above the mirror. Reflecting telescopes are
especially useful for gathering light from dim objects. A reflecting telescopes light
sensitivity increases with the square of the diameter of the telescopes mirror, so doubling
the mirrors diameter increases light-gathering power by a factor of four.

Astronomers seek ever-larger mirrors to increase the power and efficiency of telescopes.
However, huge mirrors are expensive and difficult to make, and they are challenging to
move while tracking celestial targets. One particularly daunting problem is that a solid
glass mirror is heavy.