Schlieren Photography

Schlieren photography is a method of photographing airflow utilizing refraction. It can be applied to visualize things like heat off of a flame, the air pressure around a bullet, a plane breaking the sound barrier, and more.

Schlieren photography requires a precise setup of a light, camera, and mirror. In the Spring of 2022, I built a setup to be able to take my own schlieren photographs. Building this setup required working with electronics to make a very small, controllable, and high powered point light source, 3D modeling and printing to build mounts for various components, and a lot of patience dialing in the exact angles of the light/mirror/camera and camera settings. The setup was repeated for my EN.530.327 Introduction to Fluid Mechanics project.