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Floaters.
As you get older the vitreous humour (the jelly in the posterior chamber of the eye, behind the lens) dries out and shrinks and can pull away from its attachment to the retina (vitreous detachment, as opposed to retinal detachment, which is a medical emergency). As it pulls away, debris and skerricks of jelly get torn off and these float freely in the back part of the eye. In certain circumstances, such as looking at a blank wall or clear sky, you see these "floaters" as amorphous strands which flick and drift through the field of view when you move your eyeball. Often the mind can suppress them, but when looking at bright objects through an eyepiece they can be quite distracting.
First time I saw my own floater, I was convinced some insect had laid an egg in my blood stream and that its larva had found its way into my eye!
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