University of California, at Santa Cruz, has a big astronomy department. It has a center devoted to seeing more clearly. Called the "Center for Adaptive Optics." I stopped into the center and ask if there was a museum, or interpretive center.

The receptionist said nothing much was on display, but "wait a minute." She made a phone call and found a professor that invited me into his office.

We had a good talk.

I had learned some about Adaptive Optics in college astronomy classes. A fascinating topic. Sort of like looking through the bug screen of my motel's bathroom, astronomical telescopes get a blurry view of the universe as they look out through Earth's turbulent atmosphere.

Blurred view through the bug screen of my motel room.

Adaptive optics is a "space age" technology that clears up the blurry image and allows telescopes to see more clearly what's in the universe.

Interesting to note that this same technology can also be used to peer through the murkiness of the human eyeball.

Eye surgeons and optometrists can use it to get a clear view of the retina. Good for eye surgery and other things.

This may soon revolutionize optometry.

Here is a case where space research can help us with down to Earth problems, such as poor eyesight.

The professor explained quite a few things to me.

When large observatories, on Earth, look at the universe, they have to look through turbulence in Earth's atmosphere. This makes the images fuzzy.

To the rescue comes "ADAPTIVE OPTICS;" a "high tech" system for cleaning up the image.

Here is, sort of, how it works. At least what I think my blurry mind can remember.

A mirror inside the telescope quivers like, say, a blob of jelly?

Maybe it's more like a rubber blanket.

Wobbling and wiggling, the mirror contorts into various shapes.

Faster than blinks of an eye.

If you were to look at your face, in such a mirror, your face would look like it was quivering also.

What good does this do?

Well, the quivering mirror is precisely controlled, by computers, to compensate for turbulence in Earth's atmosphere.

This "cleans up" the image.

Specially designed quivers, in the mirror, can compensate for quivers in the atmosphere. This makes the image almost as sharp as if the telescope was located in space, where it would not have to peer out through the atmosphere.

The whole thing is kind of like a dance.

Wobbling air causes the image of a star to bulge in one direction. The mirror bends another direction to make it look like nothing happened.

Choreography at the finest level.

How does the mirror know which way to bend?

High speed computers.

Also the observatory shines a light (actually I think a laser beam) into the night sky. This light reflects off a layer of air creating a spot in the sky that looks like a star.

A small telescope, at the observatory, watches this artificial star like a hawk. Each time the star wiggles, quivers, twinkles or what ever, the telescope passes the information along to the computer.

Like a split second choreographer, the computer tells the quivering mirror which way to dance in order to clean up the image.

The mirror is like a rubber blanket with hundreds of little "actuators" (magnet controlled pistons) on its back side. The mirror dances, squirms or what ever it needs to do to keep a clear image.

Amazing.