(A) Camera

I bet we are all aware that visible-light digital camera is used for taking
ordinary photos, but with new operational procedures it can measure the
photon energy in the X-ray wavelength region and therefore see chemical
elements. All light behaves just like that flashlight — it travels in a straight
line. But light also bounces off of objects, which is what allows us to see and
photograph objects. When light bounces off an object, it continues to travel
in a straight line, but it bounces back at the same angle that it comes in at.

That means light rays are essentially bouncing everywhere in all kinds of
different directions. The first camera was essentially a room with a small
hole on one side wall. Light would pass through that hole, and since it’s
reflected in straight lines, the image would be projected on the opposite
wall, upside down.

The sensor is the part of the camera that converts the light into an
electronic signal. Modern cameras use digital sensors, which are made up of
millions of tiny light-sensitive cells called pixels. Each pixel is capable of
detecting a certain amount of light, and when combined, they create the
final image.
(B) Magnifying glass
 A magnifying glass is a convex lens. Convex means curved outward, like the
underside of a spoon or the dome of a sports stadium. It is the opposite of
concave, or curved inward. A lens is something that allows light rays to pass
through it and bends, or refracts, them as they do so. A magnifying glass
uses a convex lens because these lenses cause light rays to converge, or
come together.

I firmly believe that magnifying glass plays an important role and serves as
the bridge or foundation to use the advantages of cameras or watch movies
or videos that we normally got entertained. 

A magnifying glass, in effect, tricks your eyes into seeing what isn't there.
Light rays from the object enter the glass in parallel but are refracted by
the lens so that they converge as they exit, and create a "virtual image" on
the retina of your eye. This image appears to be larger than the object
itself because of simple geometry: Your eyes trace the light rays back in
straight lines to the virtual image, which is farther from your eyes than the
object is and thus appears bigger.
(C) Telescope

The standard instrument that astronomers use to detect light is a

telescope, which collects the light and brings it to a focus, and a camera to
record the light from the object. The most important property is a
telescope's light gathering power. The larger the aperture (the opening at
the top of the telescope tube), the more light the telescope will gather. To
understand this, picture a telescope as a “light bucket.” If you want to
collect as much rain as possible in a short time, you would go out during a
storm with a wide-mouthed bucket instead of a drinking glass, because the
opening in the bucket will collect more raindrops than the glass in the same
amount of time. Telescopes work the same way. As photons “rain” down on
 Earth, a telescope with a bigger aperture will collect more of them than a
telescope with a smaller aperture. Thus, the light-gathering power (which
measures how bright an object appears, or, alternatively, how faint an object
is that is just barely detected) of a telescope is determined by the area of
the opening at the front of the tube. For this reason, astronomers have built
larger and larger telescopes since they were first invented four centuries
ago, through this we can view images outer space with a more clarity or
quality to look at.

In addition, Astronomers use telescopes that detect different parts of the

electromagnetic spectrum. Each type of telescope can only detect one part
of the electromagnetic spectrum. There are radio telescopes, infrared
telescopes, optical (visible light) telescopes and so on. We can’t see most of
the radiation detected, so computers turn data into images we can see. Many
of the images you see of space have amazing colours – these are called false
colours because computers have taken the data from wavelengths we can’t
see and presented them as colours we can see.
(D) Microscope

Light microscopes (also known as optical microscopes) are the original

microscopes. Light microscopes are the ones you’re most likely to find in the
classroom or school science lab. They use visible (white) light to illuminate
(light up) the object being looked at and focus the light using one or more
glass lenses. Two kinds of light microscope are common in the classroom: the
stereomicroscope (which looks at the surface of a sample) and the compound
microscope (which looks at a thin cross-section). In my experience. 
I had seen microscopes in the JHS's Science laboratory when I was still a
grade 7 student and the maximum resolution (and therefore magnification)
of light microscopes is quite limited compared to electron microscopes. They
can magnify up to approximately 2000 times.

The advantage of light microscopes (and stereomicroscopes in particular) is

that objects can be looked at with little or no preparation. This makes them
very useful for looking at living things, such as flower parts, insects,
earthworms and human skin.

In microscopy we take advantage of waveform properties of light. These

waves when produced at a particular source vibrate at right angles to the
line of propagation. Each wave has a peak and trough. The distance traveled
forward by the light ray is one wavelength (lambda). Wavelength varies with
the color and intensity of the source. The structures the light microscope is
called upon to resolve exert only a small influence on the light they transmit.
What is changed is the phase of momentary vibration. Conventional
brightfield illumination will lack contrast and the details of the sample
remain invisible. When the emerging waves have acquired a larger phase
difference due to changes in refractive index, greater contrast is produced.
This manifests itself by an edge effect (diffraction, refraction, and
reflection). Sample details may be resolved in a number of ways. When a
light passes through stained structures intensity is reduced selectively
depending on the color and density of the sample as the light is absorbed.
Selective absorption of wavelengths of white light produces colored light.
Refraction changes the direction of a light ray as it passes from one medium
to another. The shorter the wavelength, the greater the refractive angle.
Diffraction is the bending of light rays around objects with sharp edges. A
new wave front is created at this edge. Diffraction can be useful, but can
also reduce resolution. When light is dispersed it is separated into its
constituent wavelengths as a result of refraction on entering a transparent
medium. Contrast can be defined as a steep slope between bright and dark
image points. Adequate contrast MUST be achieved before the specimen can
be resolved.Some materials produce light when excited by short wavelengths
of radiation. This effect is called fluorescence or auto-fluorescence.
Specimens that do not fluoresce by themselves may be treated with
fluorochromes which produce a secondary florescence. By illuminating with a
high intensity mercury or xenon source and filtering out all but the desired
 excitation wave length to contact the specimen, the resulting longer (less
energetic) wavelengths of emission from the specimen its self-viewed.
(E) Fiber Optics

Optical fiber can be used for transmitting light from a source to a remote
location for illumination as well as communications. In fact, fibers are made
to not only transmit light but to glow along the fiber itself, so it resembles a
neon light tube. Applications for fiber optic lighting are many, generally
based on utilizing the special attributes of the fiber as well as its unique
characteristics. Fiber optic lighting uses optical fiber as a “light pipe,”
transmitting light from a source through the fiber to a remote location. The
light may be emitted from the end of the fiber creating a small spotlight
effect (also called “end glow”) or emitted from the outside of the fiber
along its length, looking like a neon or fluorescent tube (also called “side
glow”).

The light source is usually called a “fiber optic illuminator” and consists of a
bright light source and often some optics to efficiently focus light into the
fiber. Sources must be bright, so quartz halogen or xenon metal halide lights
are commonly used. Smaller fibers may also use LEDs which very efficiently
couple light into fibers but do not achieve the light levels of the other
lamps.
Optical fibers used for lighting are similar to fibers used in communications,
but optimized for transmitting light not high speed signals. The fibers
consist of a core that transmits the light and an optical cladding that traps
the light in the core of the fiber. Unlike communications fibers that use
small cores to maximize bandwidth, lighting fibers use large cores with thin
claddings to maximize coupling of the light from the illuminator into the
fiber. Side-emitting fibers have a rough interface between the core and the
cladding to scatter some of the light out of the core along the length of the
fiber to create a consistent lighted look similar to neon light tubes.

The light in a fiber-optic cable travels through the core (hallway) by

constantly bouncing from the cladding (mirror-lined walls), a principle called
total internal reflection. Because the cladding does not absorb any light
from the core, the light wave can travel great distances.

PREPARED BY:
ALLEN CURT Q. ANTONIO
April 5, 2023