CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE CORNEA AND THE LENS TO THE ABERRATIONS OF THE HUMAN EYE

The relative contributions of optical aberrations of the cornea and th e crystalline lens to the final image quality of the human eye were st udied. The aberrations of the entire eye were obtained from pairs of d ouble-pass retinal images, and the aberrations of the cornea were obta ined from videokeratographic data. Third-order spherical aberration an d coma were significantly larger for the cornea than for the complete eye, indicating a significant role of the lens in compensating for cor neal aberrations. In a second experiment retinal images were recorded in an eye before and after we neutralized the aberrations of the corne a by having the subjects wear swimming goggles filled with saline wate r, providing a direct estimate of the optical performance of the cryst alline lens. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.