Way, way ...waaay OT: curious optical effect

Jun 27, 2017 4 Replies

I was at the bench, trying to repair a pair of sunglasses. One of its lens was on the bench and in it was reflected an overhead magnifier and its LED's. The MOST curious effect was that the image of the magnifier and LED's appeared to be above the lens, about 1-1/2". I.e., floating. One's impulse was to try to touch it, as one would for a virtual reality image.



The effect was 3 dimensional: if I moved my head around, the image was still above the lens in proper perspective. The reflection of the ceiling-high florescents was normal, i.e., "on" the lens.



It doesn't happen in the picture, but it sets the scene:

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I suppose that it can be explained by the curvature of the lens focusing the image etc etc ... "explainable" doesn't matter - it was really weird.



Bob


Common visual effect with a curved mirror like surface. Was used in a video game back in 1991 called Time Traveler by Sega.

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John :-#)#

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It's called a "real image". I gather you didn't take physics in high school . ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Nor owned one of those "flying saucer" Mirascope opto toys from Edmund sci.

Point binoculars at a bright window, then look at the glowing disks hovering outside the eyepieces. I think I discovered this when I was seven. "Aerial" images.

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