A collimator is described which has residual chromatic and spherical aberration similar in magnitude to that of the human eye. The collimator can be used in experimental measurements of the MTF of telescopes and binoculars in order to assess the overall performance of eye plus instrument. The collimator can also be used as the basis for theoretical studies of the effect of eye aberrations on the performance of visual instruments. Examples are given of the effect which the optics of the eye can produce on the MTF of a well corrected telescope. The paper also considers some of the predictions about the visual system which can be made from a study of the through-focus MTF curves of the collimator, such as the magnitude of night myopia.

Date Published: 16 June 1983
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 0369, Max Born Centenary Conf, (16 June 1983); doi: 10.1117/12.934349

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0369:
Max Born Centenary Conf
M. John Colles; D. William Swift, Editor(s)