Rainbows, water droplets, and seeing--slow motion analysis of experiments in atmospheric optics.
Many physics processes underlying phenomena in atmospheric optics happen on a rather short time scale such that neither the human eye nor video cameras are able to analyze the details. We report applications of high-speed imaging of laboratory experiments in atmospheric optics with subsequent slow motion analysis. The potential to study respective transient effects is investigated in general and for a few phenomena in detail, in particular for rainbow scattering due to single oscillating droplets during free fall, and for light propagation effects through atmospheric paths with turbulences, leading, e.g., to scintillation of stars or shimmering of mirage images.
Microsystem and Optical Technologies, Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences, Brandenburg, Germany. vollmer@fh-brandenburg.de
Michael
M
Vollmer
Klaus-Peter
KP
Möllmann