Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/25/a-trick-to-see-the-blood-vesse.html
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Well, it worked for me.
And I learnt some stuff! Thanks. 
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Does it require a grapefruit spoon? Because I don’t have a grapefruit spoon.
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Fun fact, one theory as to why astronomer Percival Lowell insisted he saw giant canals on Mars was that he was seeing the capillaries in his own eyes, with staring at Mars through his observatory’s telescope providing the slightly moving bright background. This is what he drew…
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The whole “your retina is back to front” thing is a great argument against the “how could something as intricate as the human eye evolve” argument made by “intelligent design” proponents.
If there is a creator, quality control in the vertebrate manufacturing division is so bad, you’d be better off having evolved.
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True, but consider:
The human eye might not have the best vision, but it’s being “backwards” probably makes ophthalmology a lot easier. Imagine all the diseases and conditions medicine can diagnose just by shinning a light in your eyes. I’d rather have that than cephalopod quality eye-sight.
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Man I loved that movie.
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This is such a good party trick! I wanna see the veins bigger in higher res! What should I do? I feel like a bigger hole to look through is not going to help me…
You actually can in full res with a fundus camera:
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I was hoping for something to see them with my own eye, directly in the eye. Like this trick, only more so. I guess what i’m also after is, why is the area of veins I see so small? Is that just the central part of the eye with the most definition and thus the most interference from these veins? Could I get a bigger field of view with more veins?
Guess this will have to do for now, really cool already!
Really gives you some more perspective on how much your body and mind are constantly fooling you. Incredible!
That was AWESOME! Funny I had always assumed that the blood vessels and oddball things I was catching out of the corner of my eyes were embedded in the lens! Which make NO sense in retrospect. Hahaha.
My first job out of college was working with lasers. For insurance reasons, before and after my employment in this optics lab, I had to have my retinas photographed, I guess so they could do a before and after picture (lasers can do incredible damage to the retina without you even realizing the damage is happening).
The procedure was this: first you get your pupils dilated, then in a darkened room they put your head in a vise, then they use a device to keep your eyelids from closing, and that’s when the fun begins: they literally do a series of flash photographs through your eyeball – probably 5 minutes worth of pictures per eye. The bright flashing light was almost painful, but it left incredibly detailed after-images of blood vessels and other doo-dads that was kind of fascinating.
Good call. I remember seeing the eye vasculature when looking through telescope lens and especially when looking through microscope eyepieces.
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I can see the blood vessels in my own eyes quite well using a mirror.
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Are you serious, confused or did you drop a /s?
To see these veins you would have to look through your pupil right? That would mean you would have to be in a low light setting (bigger pupils) but then it would be even harder to see anything, let alone tiny veins at the back of a viscous liquid in a small sphere.
If you do think this is about the veins on the outside of your eye then you should look at the video, the last few minutes, it’s really pretty awesome.
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We did this a lot in school
I never said I could see all the blood vessels in my own eye. I see more than I need to in the mirror, especially when I run out of drops.
Don’t help them!
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