Schlieren photography

DonRicklin

Any one out there doing this? Al la Schlieren photography. My boss is interested in equipment and techniques, especially from anyone in the New England area who could come by and demonstrate.

Don

ziggy53

You could contact Harvard:
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~scidemos/LightOptics/SchleirenOptics/SchleirenOptics.html

... or PennState:

http://www.mne.psu.edu/
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mne.psu.edu%2Fpsgdl%2Fpsfvip2.pap.copyrightedimages.pdf&ei=FBd6SZvLOo-ctwfas_DDDg&usg=AFQjCNFkfY2UUtyM207831Edw73TJ9-RsA&sig2=ruKOq8heQ86luJFaJjNM7Q

... or RIT:

http://people.rit.edu/andpph/text-schlieren-color.html


Other technologies:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=659265

Complete system:

http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/DisplayProduct.cfm?productid=1655

DonRicklin

Thank you Ziggy53!

Passing to my boss!

Don

Nikolai

Very interesting, Don!
Anybody here tried it DIY yet? :-)

ziggy53

Nikolai wrote:

Very interesting, Don!
Anybody here tried it DIY yet? :-)

When I was in High School I was part of a (geeky) team that hand ground a 12.5" mirror which was used in a Newtonian/Cassegrainian astronomical telescope.

As part of the mirror forming/shaping you have to check the pyrex blank from time to time using a Foucault tester. In final finishing the shape is nearly perfect and the 12.5" blank has fairly good reflectivity even without the silver coating. We did see the Schlieren effect as part of the testing. While not as sensitive as a true Schlieren system the effect was unmistakable.

To just view thermals and heavy vapors the shadowgraph/shadowgram method can be much easier to set up, but the results are somewhat less dramatic.

There are also some crossed polarization techniques that work well in certain circumstances.

DonRicklin

Well, as a matter of fact while in Engineering School at UVM in the late '60s I did see a Schleiren setup fo a model wind tunnel with the split laser set-up.

A friend of mine sent this basic info when I queried him on the subject at the sametime as posting here.

Just occurs to me that maybe you are not doing macro stuff but micro or fluids? The oldest trick to get interferrence images is to just stick a razor blade right at the focal point of the light beam (needs a well collumnated source). Enough light gets boogered by the edge to generate interference. BTW when you look a shadows of venetian blinds on a smooth wall, you see these many edges of bright - dark ringing the actual blind shadows. Same thing.

Don

iansmith

I used to live in New England. :-)

If your boss is still interested, you can take a look at a tutorial I wrote describing how to get a simple setup. I use the single mirror system, but a more common method is the Z type which involves more mirrors and some lenses and a lot more percise alignment. The Z type is good for perminant setups where the expense and time is worth it to build it.

http://www.ian.org/Schlieren/HowTo.html and http://www.ian.org/Schlieren/

Art Scott

Schlieren Photography......NOPE!

But I built a Michelson Interferometer once and stayed In a Holiday Inn Express twice............. :ivar

DonRicklin

Thanks, iansmith, for the extra links. My boss just recently brought this up, again.

Don

Nikolai

DonRicklin wrote:

Thanks, iansmith, for the extra links. My boss just recently brought this up, again.

Don

Get him interested in getting an expensive phylter system for you, too. Tell him it's a latest rage...

DonRicklin

Nikolai wrote:

Get him interested in getting an expensive phylter system for you, too. Tell him it's a latest rage...

Unfortunately Photography is not my main job! Exhibit prototype building and final build are.

Don

aaronbrown

I was just reading about this the other day:
http://photojojo.com/content/guides/schlieren-photography-guide/

Hope that helps.