Achromatic

Description

Literally, without color. Achromatic colors are white, black, and gray. An achromatic lens or objective is able to transmit white light without separating the light into colors. If a color separation occurs, the lens has a chromatic aberration. An objective may be called achromatic if it is corrected chromatically for two colors (wavelengths) and spherically for one color (McCrone and Delly, 1972).

See also Chroma.

Synonyms and Related Terms

achromatisch (Deut.); achromatique (Fr.);

Resources and Citations

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• ASTM, Standard Terminology of Microscopy, Annual Book of ASTM Standards, Section 14, General Methods and Instrumentation, ASTM, E175, 75-78, May 1982

• Walter C. McCrone, John Gustave Delly, The Particle Atlas, W. McCrone Associates, Chicago, IV, 1972

• Matte Paint: Its history and technology, analysis, properties and conservation treatment, Eric Hansen, Sue Walston, Mitchell Bishop (ed.), J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, Vol. 30 of AATA, 1993