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Optics, Lenses & Filters

Coma

An aberration that renders off-axis points of light as asymmetric comet-shaped smears rather than dots.

In depth

Coma grows with distance from the optical axis and with aperture, so it is a corner defect of fast lenses used wide open. It matters most in astrophotography, where every star in the corners becomes a small wing-shaped blob, and it is the single specification night-sky photographers scrutinise before buying a wide-angle lens.

Examples in practice

Corner stars in a Milky Way frame at f/1.4 appear as tiny seagull shapes; by f/2.8 they are round again.