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This article describes the design, delivery, evaluation and impact of a CPD course for physics and chemistry teachers. A key aim of the course was to use the context of the James Webb Space Telescope project to inspire teachers and lead to enriched teaching of STEM subjects. (Contains 1 box and 3 figures.)

The camera obscura (Latin for "darkened room") is the earliest optical device and goes back over 2500 years. The small pinhole or lens at the front of the room allows light to enter and this is then "projected" onto a screen inside the room. This differs from a camera, which projects its image onto light-sensitive material. Originally images were projected through a small hole, but from around 1550 onwards, they began to use a lens, which focused the image more clearly. Creating a camera obscura is cheap and easy, and it can be used at all levels to introduce aspects of art, science, history and technology. In this article, the author illustrates how a 2500-year-old "gadget" can bring delight to children. (Contains 4 figures.)

The eyes are the most complex organs in the body. Children's eyes are still developing until they are around 8-9 years old; therefore it is important to check that they are working properly before it is too late to rectify any problems. So how do they work, and why do they sometimes go wrong? In this article, the author explains children's eye tests, and the science behind them. (Contains 5 figures.)

Discusses some basic physical ideas about light scattering and describes a simple Raman spectrometer, a single prism monochromator and a multiplier detector. This discussion is intended for British undergraduate physics students. (HM)

Literature and popular media in the past decade have served to introduce the broader public to the infra-red night vision developments of the Second World War, yet focus has primarily fallen upon those devices made and used by Germany and the USA. Through archival research this paper explores the British perspective, detailing the history and design of an infra-red weapon sight produced experimentally before the war's end, as well as the organisations and companies involved in the process. This is followed by an assessment of Britain's immediate post-war efforts in the field, showing why it was instead American equipment which was used in Britain's first martial deployments of infra-red weapon sights in the early 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares the vision studies conducted in early 19th-century Great Britain and Germany. It argues that vision studies differed in the east and west of the North Sea. Majority of the German investigators had a medical background and a firm grasp of contemporary philosophy. Vision studies in Great Britain emerged from the context of optics. The differences in vision studies manifested in the conceptual tools for the analysis of vision, deception and illusion.

The article focuses on the basic principles of intravital microscopy and various applications in Great Britain.. Intravital Microscopy allows one to visualize and capture images in a live animal. Fluorescence intravital video microscopy (FIVM) is the most widely used techniques. FIVM is used to monitor gene expression in the living animal using fluorescent protein tags. FIVM is suitable for many fields of biological research and therefore there are substantial benefits in having a multiuser unit.

Presents various activities and meetings related to microscopic issues in Great Britain.

Smart optics means much more than adaptive optics on telescopes: these new technologies are changing the way space instruments are built and operated and are bringing new technologies into everyday life in the form of cheaper, lighter and more robust optical systems. Steve Welch, Peter Doel, Alan Greenaway and Gordon Love summarize the work of the Smart Optics Faraday Partnership in the UK. Abstract The UK has several activities in the area of active and adaptive optics that have an excellent crossover with commercial applications. This article introduces some of the key areas of UK expertise – liquid crystal lenses, wavefront sensors and deformable mirrors – and shows how the need to develop these is closing the virtuous circle, with academic developments leading to commercial potential, and commercial development itself leading to enhancement in the instrumentation available for astronomy and space science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combined Optical Industries Ltd. of Slough, UK, have released a new range of illuminated stand magnifiers. These have been designed with a uniform emerging vergence and are specified in terms of equivalent power according to the new standards. This paper describes these magnifiers in terms of their measured optical and ergonomic properties. The expected enlargement ratios achieved with typical presbyopic additions are tabulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The build-up to the original 1958 Opticians Act is used as an introduction to the more recent developments in UK optics that have culminated in the introduction of the Opticians Act 1989. The changes introduced as a result of the Health and Social Security Act 1984 and the Health and Medicines Act 1988 are briefly described before discussing the sectional arrangement of the new Act. This new legislation pulls together much of the law relating to optometry and dispensing optics in the UK and provides a single accessible source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silicon photonics has expanded considerably in the last decade and a number of companies have also released products onto the market place. Some of the recent results from the field are reviewed before the main areas requiring further research before they can be achieved are discussed. An overview is given of the major Si photonics research presently being pursued in the UK. Finally, a number of potential new applications are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces various image analysis software and infrared imaging products in Great Britain. Versions of the image analysis software introduced by ISS Group; Features of the infrared cameras manufactured by Flir Systems; System design of the eddy current inspection developed by GE Inspection Technologies.

The article underscores the stoppage of the operation of the Synchroton Radiation Source (SRS) at the Daresbury Laboratory in Great Britain on August 4, 2008 after 28 years of service and two million hours of users beam for a wide-ranging science programme. It states that the SRS has played an essential role in promoting research in many areas of Great Britain and international science.

The article features the product H-7650 TEM by Hitachi High-Technologies in Great Britain. It has an ultra-high sensitivity digital imaging TEM. It has approximately 40 times sensitivity greater than can be obtained using conventional film. It will captures images at 1024X1024 pixels. It allows configuration direct imaging at beam dose rates that would be insufficient to excite a traditional fluorescent screen imaging system. The H-7650 features a single computer operation.

The article provides information on the Cell Imaging Techniques Course from September 5-9, 2005 in Oxford Brooks University in Great Britain. The course contains all the basics information and introduces more advanced concepts. It started with light microscopy which is part of the course that gave basic information. Professor Howard Pringle had discussed on in-situ hybridization which would enable the detection of mRNA molecules that are expressed in a tissue section.

This article presents information on articles published in the January 1997 issue and the previous issue of the journal "Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics." Approximately one-third of the seventy-one items published in the previous issue were submitted by institutions in Great Britain. One-third of these were from non-optometric sources. Seventy-one items constituted in the previous issue and were categorised into regular articles and reviews, academic and clinical research notes, technical notes and a mix of additional matter which included letters to the editor, abstracts of conference meetings. This issue opens with two related research papers concerning the incidence of true glaucoma in a sample of referrals for suspected glaucoma to a hospital clinic.

The article focuses on English color scientist Dr. W. David Wright. It discusses the scientific contributions of Wright in the establishment of the 1931 CIE Standard Colorimetric Observer and shares how he got involved in the project. It also looks at his accomplishments in color science, and offers an insight about the research on colorimetry he made with John Guild of the National Physics Laboratory. Wright is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the first Colour Group Newton Medal and the AIC Deane B. Judd Award.

Photon08 was the fifth in a biennial series of events that began in 2000 and has grown to become the largest optics research meeting in the UK. Two of the co-located constituent conferences of Photon08 were generated by the Institute of Physics. These were the Optics and Photonics Division conference plus QEP-18 organised by the Quantum Electronics and Photonics Group. In addition, Photon08 contained a major exhibition and an Industry Technology Programme. Photon08 was organised by the UK Consortium for Photonics and Optics (UKCPO), whose members comprise all organisations that represent the UK optics community, whether learned societies, professional institutions, trade associations, or regional special interest groups. In hosting the Photon series, it is the objective of the UKCPO to provide a single forum for UK optics. Photon08 was held at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 26-29 August 2008, and was attended by around 500 people. The international representation was very impressive and the range of topics was mapped onto a wide audience, which embraced every aspect of photonics from quantum information processing to biomedical imaging and technology transfer into the commercial domain. The purpose of this special issue is to present a characteristic selection of the research reported at Photon08. On behalf of the conference, we are very grateful to the editors of Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics for the opportunity to provide this archival record. The majority of the papers in this special issue follow the theme of measurement and instrumentation. This reflects one of the traditional strengths of the UK community that spans the interests of the Optical Group, the Optics and Photonics Division and the Instrument Science and Technology Group of the Institute of Physics, and the Fringe Analysis Special Interest Group. The other papers illustrate other UK strengths in quantum processing and nonlinear optics. There can be few areas of physics so diverse in application, and of such immediate value in the wider world, as photonics and this is evident from the content of this issue. It is a fascinating example of what Photon08 had to offer. As well as its intrinsic interest, we hope that it will inspire readers to attend Photon10, which will be held in Southampton at the end of August 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photon06 is the fourth in a biennial series of events that began in 2000 and has grown to become the UK''s largest optics research meeting. Photon06 is a set of co-located meetings, including the Institute of Physics conferences Optics and Photonics and Quantum Electronics and Photonics QEP-17, plus an exhibition, and the Industry Technology Programme. Photon06 is organized by the UK Consortium for Photonics and Optics (UKCPO), whose members comprise all organizations that represent the UK''s optics community, whether learned societies, professional institutions, trade associations or regional special interest groups. In hosting the Photon series it has been the objective of the UKCPO to provide a single forum for UK optics.Photon06 was held at the University of Manchester, 47 September 2006, and was attended by around 500 people. Attendance was predominantly from the UK, although international representation is growing steadily. Within the science programme, over 300 papers were presented. The purpose of this special issue is to present a representative selection of the research reported at Photon06. On behalf of the conference, I am grateful to the editors of Journal of Optics Afor the opportunity to provide an archival record of a sample of Photon06, as they did for Photon04.Once again, it turns out that the majority of the papers in the special issue follow the theme of measurement and instrumentation. These are subjects where the conference and the UK community have been traditionally strong, and continue to be so, spanning the interests of the Optical Group and the Instrument Science and Technology Group of the Institute of Physics, and the Fringe Analysis Special Interest Group. There can be few areas of physics so diverse in application, and of such immediate value in the wider world. The range of applications covered in this issue is illustrated by two of the papers, that by Blazej et aldealing with photon counting for altimetry in planetary exploration, and that by Sheridan et alon spectral techniques for measuring fading in sliced, cured ham.Applied spectroscopy features strongly, partly driven by the needs of society for more intensive environmental monitoring, e.g. in vehicle emissions (Dooly et al). Imaging has always been an intrinsic and natural theme in applied optics, and I recommend the article `The optics of microscopy'' by Sheppard as a comprehensive treatment of an important subject. Fibre optic sensors continue to be a strong theme, with a notable emphasis on in-fibre gratings for in situmonitoring (Ogin et aland Buggy et al). An established feature of the Photon conference is a meeting of the Fringe Analysis Special Interest Group, concentrating on full-field measurement techniques such as speckle pattern interferometry and shape measurement by structured light. A representative sample of contributions in this issue are on that subject (Rajoub et al, Zhang et aland Somers et al).In addition to the papers on optical instrumentation, there are others on laser material processing. One is struck by how sophisticated the subject has become, with one paper concerned with using surface modification by ps pulses (Gakovic et al), and another with two-photon ablation techniques (Fischer et al).This issue is a small sample, but a very worthwhile example of what Photon06 had to offer. As well as its intrinsic interest, I hope that it will inspire readers to attend Photon08, an event for which provisional plans are in hand, to be held in Edinburgh at the end of August 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on several issues about electron microscopy in Great Britain. Aid of microscopes in advertisements; Implications of the use of slides as props in advertisements; Impact of legislation covering the unauthorized retention of tissues for research.