Contributions of the cornea and the lens to the aberrations of the human eye

The relative contributions of optical aberrations of the cornea and the crystalline lens to the final image quality of the human eye were studied. The aberrations of the entire eye were obtained from pairs of double-pass retinal images, and the aberrations of the cornea were obtained from videokeratographic data. Third-order spherical aberration and coma were significantly larger for the cornea than for the complete eye, indicating a significant role of the lens in compensating for corneal aberrations. In a second experiment retinal images were recorded in an eye before and after we neutralized the aberrations of the cornea by having the subjects wear swimming goggles filled with saline water, providing a direct estimate of the optical performance of the crystalline lens.