New Blogger Interface and the New Google Look (Sucks!) / Android a Google product

Hello!
   
Yes I know that I said in my last post that I wasn't going to post again in Blogger... I decided to post one last time because of several emails that I have received about why I am done with the New Google Interface and Google in general.  Here is why I hate Google and the Blogger interface that they have destroyed.

I'm not going to elaborate much so here is the simple explanation in no particular order:

1) The New Interface Is Hard To Read: The new Google interface is all white space with black text making it hard on the eyes especially in low light, which is how I like to use the computer in the evening. I can't easily see what I am typing. The eye strain is obvious (unless you work for Google). Why do this, let's make it hard for everyone to read!!!!!

2) The menus are down the left side instead of across the top, a very unnatural place to look for stuff. Don't we all gravitate to the top of the window to look for "File" or "Edit" or any other common task? It's become natural to scan the top of the page or window to look for the options that are available...  let's "Save" what we are doing (look to the top of the window); "Edit" the text or font (look to the top of the window)... Or... "I want to do something... it should be in the Tool's menu.... at the top.... where the hell is it????... not at the top!!! It's down the side!!!".... Why???

3) All the menu selections are now different. OK I get it, lets take what used to be at the top and put it down the left side of the window... But wait, you didn't do that did you? What used to be a simple click at the top is now buried in some complicated maze of stupidity in your "improved" left hand side bar menu system. Why?? Please tell me why you would do this?

4) Login page. The "blogs I follow" info is bigger and takes up more screen space than my own blog information when I log in. Why is that? Did I log in to see what my buddies are writing or did I login in to create a new post. This is after all about what I want to write about.
Google think tank: "Let's put all the stuff our user's friends are writing about on our users home page because we think our user wants to see that"... When I log in I want to see what is going on with my blog first, everyone else can wait until I'm ready to click on something (CLICK AT THE TOP) and see what other Bloggers are writing about.
Why can't I see on my own login page my own Blog info? Why???

 - Side note: Blogging is a Web Log about me (or you) want to write about. Blogs that I follow are secondary, in other words when I log in TO MY BLOG I expect to see info about MY BLOG and not other people, I can and will get to them later (Unless I use a Google product, because then I have to see everything BUT then things I want to see).... WHY?????

5) Scroll bar and Omnibar. Do you use Google chrome? Good luck if you do. Chrome has a very stupid and annoying scroll bar that is inverted in relation to every sane person in the world (unless you are a idiot). The scroll bar is "dark" where you have to click to scroll, exactly backwards from every other software product I have ever used.
Here is what this amounts to:
Google engineer says " Lets be different and mix it up a bit, lets invert the colors on the scroll bar, everyone will love it"...
A real world example: "Let's reverse the gas and brake pedals in the car we are building, everyone will love it"

Insert frustration, car crashes, cuss words and...

6) The Google Omnibar.... lets not even talk about it.... one word: WHY????? Fill in for me what I typed yesterday??????? REALLY????????

7) Another thing about Google and in this case Andriod...  Here is an example from my phone right now:
Today is Thursday July 5th at 5:11pm
My phone's call Log says I had a call: "incoming call - 2 days ago" When I click on that call the call details say the call was actually made on Sunday July 1st at 8:42pm.
So in other words the call wasn't received "2 days ago" it was received 5 days ago. The call log is wrong! Thanks Google!
This makes the call log useless for me. I have to open the call log and click on Details for every call to see when it was actually made if I want to know when a call was placed or received.

So am I upset at Google, am I upset at Andriod??? AM I upset at both?? Is the new Google Blogger interface all that bad?

Maybe... or maybe it is just me. If the user interfaces for Google products actually made sense to someone like me, an average user, then I could accept the change and improvements with all their bugs and problems...

Unfortunately this isn't the case. Google has across the board created an online environment isn't user friendly, is overly complex to use for what it does and all around "broken what didn't need to be fixed".

Blogger wasn't perfect my any means but now it is trash thanks to the Google team 'Improvements'. Honestly if Goggle had come in a simply fixed what was wrong with Blogger (a few minor tweaks) I would be right there with them cheering them on, even if there were a few bugs.

But because Google decided to change everything and in the process mess up things that used to work, change around menus that were easy to use, move simple "one click" tasks down to places I don't want to click... and gave me a phone that has a useless and messed OS... instead of making things easier, rather they have made things harder...

Because of everything they have done, I am done with Google.
   

Follow Up: Chromatic Dispersive Light Schlieren

For the last couple of weeks I have been tinkering with the Chromatic Dispersive Light Schlieren that I built. If you haven't read the other couple of posts about this setup check them out HERE and HERE. To summarize the only difference between this setup and the other ones that I have built is the light source. As the title suggests this uses a Chromatic Dispersive Light source for the Schlieren illumination or CDLS as I like to call it. To make this I placed a prism and a collimating lens right after the LED light source to break the white light from the white diode into all the colors of the rainbow (at least as many as a white LED can produce anyway!). Check out the first link above to see what I mean.

  

The reason I decided to try this is getting a Schlieren stop in just the right place, at the focus of the mirror, with a camera that has a zoom lens is difficult and sometimes impossible. My hope was the Chromatic Dispersive Light Schlieren would eliminate the need for a Schlieren stop and so far it seems to work.

 

 

Above is a short video showing the results that i got with a candle. The reason I am using a candle to test this is because it's a easy thing to photograph because of all the wonderful hot air it makes ;-)

First Test: Chromatic Dispersive Schlieren Light Source

From the title of this post I bet you can guess what it's going to be about. Last week I wrote about a Chromatic Dispersive Light Source that I was building for my Schlieren setup. I managed to get time to work on it this week and test it a bit. But before I get to that I'd like to say that I'm going to abbreviate the Chromatic Dispersive Schlieren Light Source from now on as CDLS. That either stands for Chromatic Dispersive Light Source or Chromatic Dispersive Light Schlieren. Why give it an acronym? Why have the S mean either Schlieren or Source? Everything sounds better and more important if it has an acronym associated with it!! Better still if it's a little ambigious and mysterious. At some point if I mess around with this more and make it better I'll have to come up with a retronym for this version. OK I'm kidding...

Enough of that, HERE is last weeks posts about what I am trying to build. As I mentioned I ground down the bullet lens end of a white LED and polished the surface flat. Then I wrapped it in aluminum foil tape, poked a pin hole in the foil and mounted it in front of a prism. You can see a picture of the assembly HERE. One thing that I did add that is not in the picture is right after the prism I mounted a plate with a 0.1" hole in it to block and light that is bouncing off the prism. I also built a small cardboard cover with the whole thing to help block any light from coming off it.

  

The first attempt at using this didn't work too well because the 'rainbow' coming off the beam and out the hole was very narrow and didn't illuminate the mirror very well. I tried putting a lens after the 0.1" hole and that works better but is still not perfect. Below is a picture of what I got.

Burning Candle With CDLS

  

See how much better that caption on the picture looks with CDLS instead of Chromatic Dispersive Light Schlieren? What can be seen in the picture is a nice rainbow of colors caused by the refracting light from the hot air rising off the candle. Before you even ask "why are you taking pictures of candles?" Click below to read more and for the answer to that question.

Chromatic Dispersive Schlieren Light Source

One of the things that has always been tricky for me to set up and adjust in my Schlieren setup is the "Schlieren Stop" sometimes called (and physically is) a razor edge. Everything else related to getting good images I have pretty much nailed down and figured out to the point that I can set everything up in about 10 minutes - except the Schlieren stop.

 

The Schlieren stop is sometimes a colored filter, a slide projector slide, a razor edge or almost anything placed at the focal point of the mirror that will either block the refracted light or color it. There is a short and somewhat descriptive explanation of what is going on in THIS Wikipedia article. According to that Wikipedia source depending on what kind of 'Block', 'Filter' or 'Schlieren Stop' you use (if any) determines if it's a Shadowgraph, Schlieren, Rainbow Schlieren or something else. I use the term Schlieren for all of them because in my mind they are all basically similar. HERE is another good (and short) article explaining the Schlieren setup and how the knife edge stop is used.

  

Below is a diagram of the Double Pass Schlieren setup that I am currently using. I wrote a post about this setup HERE and made a exciting video about it HERE if you are interested.

 

Home Made Double Pass Coincident Schlieren System

  

On the right side of the picture you can see the box labelled 'camera' and right before that is a line labelled 'colored filter' click on the picture to get a better look at it. That colored filter is what I am calling the 'Schlieren Stop'. It doesn't matter what I am using, a razor edge, colored filter or slide projector slide that thing is always difficult to get positioned correctly. Most of the problems that I have with it are associated with keeping the object that I am viewing in focus after placing it or having placed it the image of refracted light isn't uniform or is degraded.

Another Long Week and Little Time to Play

I had huge plans for this last week related to the experiments that I want to do with high voltage and my Schlieren photography setup. Unfortunately for various reasons I didn't have time to do much. One reason for my lack of "experiment time" is I have not won the lottery and am unable to have all the 'normal' things taken care of by an army of personal assistants. I did add "build robotic servant" to my list of things to do but that is for another day.

What I am writing about this week is a continuation of lasts weeks post. You can re-red that post HERE just because it was so interesting! Just in case you didn't read it and don't want to let me explain a bit what I am doing. I have a high voltage power supply that I am connecting to two electrodes. The high voltage wire is connected to one electrode made from a stainless steel sewing needle. The other electrode is a small 'banana'  electrode that is movable. It's movable so I can raise it up and change the gap between the two electrodes. This whole setup is sitting in front of the parabolic mirror that I use to make beautiful and interesting Schlieren videos ;-) Below is a picture of the setup.

High Voltage Electrode Schlieren Setup

Do you notice something strange about the above picture? If you know me well you won't think anything is strange because you know that I can't spell! I noticed the error after I made the picture and I'm too lazy busy to fix it. The picture is pretty self explanatory if you read the explanation I wrote above. What isn't so obvious is why I'm doing this. Continue reading to find out and don't miss the exciting and entertaining video!

High Voltage Electrode Schlieren Images

This week was another busy week but I managed to get some time to experiment a bit. I decided to look a little more closely at the airflow around a high voltage electrode with the Schlieren setup. To do that I put together a quick test rig that allows me to raise and lower an electrode in front of the parabolic mirror. I'm working on editing a video of what I saw going on but in the meantime I have a couple of pictures. The first picture below is of the test setup.

 

High Voltage Electrode Schlieren Setup

The black cylinder near the bottom of the mirror is a plastic tube mounted to a small piece of wood. In the center of that is a smaller plastic cylinder that has a rounded and blunt electrode attached to it. There is a wood 'lever' going off to the left side of the photo that I can use to raise and lower the electrode by sliding it in the larger tube. The red wire at the top is connected to a sewing needle that is mounted right above the movable electrode that I just described. The red wire of course is connected to the power supply. What does all this mean?? I don't know but I'm going to try and figure it out and explain it to you. Continue reading to find out!

Ionocraft Lifter: Study of Airflow Around the Electrodes

Doesn't the title of this post sound all scientific and official?! Well it's just me messing around in my garage again, nothing too scientific about it. Last week HERE I wrote about an experiment that I wanted to try with the Ionocraft "Anti Gravity" Lifter that I built. Click on the above link to read more about it... But as I mentioned I wanted to put that device in my Schlieren setup and look at any airflow patterns that might be happening around and between the electrodes. Last week I did just that and I made a video to show the results. To backtrack a bit and explain what this is all about the Lifters or Ionocrafts are devices that some say create anti-gravity and fly around. Does anti-gravity exist or doesn't it? There seems to be much debate. I'm not convinced by either side so I thought I'd throw my hat in the debate ring and look into it myself.

The first thing that I did was build a Ionocraft with instruction that I got off the web from THIS site by Jean-Louis Naudin. Once I had done that I put it in my home made Schlieren setup to look for any air currents around the electrodes. Those interested in Schlieren can read about it by looking at my Schlieren Topic or reading this post HERE for details on the setup I am using. Below is a picture of what I built. The top picture is the Ionocraft and the lower picture is a time lapse long exposure of it powered up. I couldn't see the purple corona, only after taking the long exposure 'night shot' with my camera in what appeared to be total darkness was it visible.

TOP: Ionocraft Bottom: Long exposure pic

Below are some pictures of what I saw while this was operating in front of the Schlieren mirror. It is clear that there is a lot of air flowing around the high voltage upper electrode wire and also in the surrounding area.

Single-Mirror Coincident Schlieren Camera Setup (double pass)

Yes I know I seem to go on and on about Schlieren Photography on my blog... but hey it's my blog and it's about the things that I am doing! As many people know I have been messing around with Schlieren Photography for some time now and mostly it's been the camera setup itself and not the things I am photographing that I have been playing with. My latest adventure in camera setups has yielded the best results so far. If you are a avid reader of my blog you have already seen the results of this with last weeks post HERE.

  

What I have been looking for is an even illumination of the subject matter and a high degree of sensitivity. The sensitivity issue isn't something that I feel I have optimized but the setup that I have now seems to be the best so far. Up to now what I have been doing is putting the light source off to one side of the camera. The mirror then reflects the light from the light source back into the camera but because the light and the camera are side by side the light path going out to the mirror and coming back isn't 'lined up'. From what I have read this isn't the best way to do it. A better way is to have the light going out and coming back be 'lined up' in the same optical path. This is called a Coincident Double Pass setup and that is what I built. Note: I'm not an optics person so forgive my layman's explanation of all this!

Double Pass Coincident Schlieren Setup (click for bigger view)

The tricky thing about doing it this way (other than building it) is getting everything lined up just right so the light source and the camera are both coaxial and looking at the mirror. This involves getting the beam splitter, the light source, the camera and the mirror in just the right places. The mirror I am using has a focal point of 118 inches so it's really far away from the camera and beam splitter. That means that if the positioning of anything is off by even just a little bit it wont work. Usually before building something I would try a 'hack' and hold everything in place with tape and toothpicks just to see if it worked before I took the time to build a proper setup. But because of the sensitivity of the positioning I decided that I had just better build a solid and adjustable setup right from the start (and how it works!). Below is a picture of what I ended up with. If you are interested in an explanation of Schlieren photography HERE is a short Wikipedia link explaining what it is (but not how to do it).

Asymmetrical Capacitor Lifter "anti-gravity" Experiment

Asymmetrical Capacitor Lifters seem to be a popular "anti-gravity" concept and for fun I thought that I might experiment with them. An asymmetrical capacitor is a capacitor that has one electrode larger than the other one. If the insulating dielectric between the electrodes is a gas there is a small thrust that is generated in the direction from the small electrode to the larger one. This thrust is sometimes referred to as the Biefeld-Brown effect and at other times it's considered to be a mysterious anti-gravity effect. Some experiments have seen a thrust generated in a vacuum as well as an ion wind. I'm not going to comment on the presence of any anti-gravity effect other than to say I don't know what the exact definition of anti-gravity is. If a hot air balloon is floating is it defying gravity? My understanding is that there is still a gravitational attraction between the balloon and the earth it's just countered but the force of the hot air trying to get up above cooler air. Does that count as anti-gravity?

Asymmetrical Capacitor Lifter Test - it's arcing in this picture

The experiment that I decided to try was to build a small asymmetrical capacitor and photograph it in my Schlieren setup to see if I could detect any airflow. From what I have read to get some kind of force you need to have a high voltage DC potential across the electrodes. I don't have a really high voltage purely DC supply right now. The closest thing I have is a 28,000 volt DC supply that is pulsed at 15kHz. Since that is all I have, that is what I used. 

Schlieren Photography With Laser Illumination

As the title says I have decided to give lasers a try with my Schlieren Photography experiments. Mostly because lasers are neat but also because I didn't have anything else better to do this weekend! OK Kidding I thought that the monochrome light of a laser and the 'pin point' light source that they are would work good. I think that all in all it turned out pretty well.

  

I didn't have a lot of time this week to set this up properly so it was more of a hack than anything else. The laser that I am using is a red high power solid state laser and it's in place of the LED that I have been using. HERE is a post I did awhile back showing the setup with the LED and it's almost the same as what I am using now. The exception of course is that I am using a laser and some lenses and the Sony video camera so maybe it's not even close! HERE is a summary of everything that I have done in this field up to this point for anyone interested.

  

Candle photographed with laser illumination

Above is a picture of the results and below after the jump link is a video. The point of this is the laser and not the candle and my hand of course. I think that I am getting close to having a setup that I can rely on to get good images. I just need to take the 'hack' out of it and build some reliable and repeatable fixtures to hold everything. Send me an email at ottobelden@yahoo.com or leave a comment if you have any questions about all this.

Schlieren with a Sony DCR-TRV250 Camera

While moving into my new place I unearthed a video camera that I bought 10 years ago or so. It's a Sony DCR-TRV250 and after charging the battery it still works! Yeah Sony! There are two really neat things about this camera (well three actually). The first thing is it has a great 20X optical zoom and a 700X digital zoom. The second thing is it has 'Night Vision' that lets you see stuff in low light conditions. The last thing that I didn't realize was neat until today was the I.Link as Sony calls it, in reality it's a IEEE 1394 Fire Wire interface. I didn't realize how cool the fire wire thing was until I tried to get the videos I made off the camera and onto my computer. More about that later. Anyway the first thing I thought of doing once I got this thing working was to use it to make some Schlieren videos.

If you have read my other posts and seen the videos that I was making with my FujiFilm FinePix camera (a great camera by the way) I was always having trouble getting zoomed in enough on my parabolic mirror to get a good image. That problem went away with the Sony camera and it's insane zoom system.

Sony DCR-TRV250 In My Schlieren Setup

The videos that I ended up making with this camera were more just to see if I could do it and not really all that experimental. After all everyone makes a video of a candle burning using Schlieren. One thing that I did decide to try that I hadn't done before was instead of using a razor edge or 'Schlieren Stop' was to try a Circular Polarizer instead. Above is a picture of what I ended up doing and below is a more detailed explanation.

Homemade Steadicam Camera Stabilizer

Recently I was trying to make some short videos of things and I wanted to walk around while filming, to get shots of all the sides. Trying to keep the camera steady while doing that was difficult so I decided to build a camera stabilizer! There are a lot of instructional videos of homemade steadicam camera stabilizers and the simple ones are nothing more than a counterweight that adds mass and keeps the camera stable while moving around. The tricks (if you can call them that) to building one is you have to have some way to hold the camera and stabilizer that decouples your hand and body movements from the camera. The other challenging thing to making one is balancing the camera with the weight so that the camera is at the right angle for your shot.

The easiest and most obvious way to decouple your movements from the camera is to have a gimbal of some sort that lets the camera move all around relative to your hand. I decided rather than building a gimbal I'd use a small universal joint that is used in the drive shaft of radio controlled cars. Other people have built camera stabilizers using these and got good results. I decided to use one because I had a few laying around the garage!

 

My homemade Camera Stabilizer and the parts I used to make it

The counterweight has to be adjustable so that when changing from one camera to another one of different weight or center of gravity you can level it out. Also if you want to angle the camera down or up you have to do that by adjusting the weight. Most camera stabilizers require you to add little weights and/or move them around on some kind of arm. I decided to get around that hassle by using a flexible gooseneck mount with the weight mounted to the bottom end. These goosnecks are used to position microphones and car accessories. This allows me to adjust the weight position and camera angle by just bending the gooseneck. Here are the details of how I went about building this, along with a video! Watch the video!!

How to do Schlieren Photography at home

A few people have emailed me and asked about the setup that I use for taking Schlieren pictures. In the Site Index of Projects link there are links to all the posts that I have done explaining what I did to make the pictures. But I suppose that pictures (or videos) can speak a 1000 words as they say so I decided to make a video that shown what my setup looks like.

  

With that in mind I made a video and is linked to below explaining in better detail how I go about taking these pictures and making the videos. If any of it doesn't make sense please email me at ottobelden@yahoo.com or leave a comment and I'll be happy to explain whatever it is that isn't clear.

  

There are some really good sites with lots of information about how Schlieren photography works like HERE. Also if you are going to make a pin point light source like the one I use you should go to the source HERE of how I went about making mine!

How To Make A Kinematic Mount

I made a video explaining how I built a Kinematic Mount for a parabolic mirror that I use for doing Schlieren Photography. The original post where I described how to make this is HERE but the video explains it a lot better!!

 

  

If you want to know more or have any question please leave a comment or send me an email and I'll be happy to help. Enjoy!!

Homemade Camera Zoom Lens and Schlieren Experiment

I think I need a bigger playhouse workspace. The mirror that I use for my Schlieren photography requires that the camera be 120 or so inches from the face of the mirror. This is of course because of the focal length of the mirror and a longer one is better for Schlieren photography (so I'm not complaining) but it takes up a lot of room. Another thing that having a long focal  length does is it requires me to have to zoom in a lot to see what I am photographing.

  

The camera that I am using is a Fujifilm FinePix J38 that has a optical zoom and a digital zoom built in but they don't get close enough. Actually the digital zoom does get really close but the image gets so grainy that I can't use it. To zoom in as far as I need to I built a zoom lens for my digital camera from an old pair of binoculars. At first this seemed like a really easy way to go but I quickly realized how sensitive the alignment of the binocular is to the camera lens.

 

Homemade Camera Zoom Lens for Schlieren Photography

Above is a picture of the zoom lens setup that I built. The binocular is now a monocular because I cut one side of it off but you get the idea. I mounted the monocular on a couple of linear stages that are position adjustable with Vernier adjustments. These Vernier knobs allow me to position the monocular right in front of the camera lens. The camera and the adjustable monocular are both mounted on a linear slide that allows them both to be moved closer together and farther apart but keeps them exactly aligned while moving them.

Schlieren with Anamorphic Lens and Blue LED

I am still really busy this last week but I managed to try something that I was wondering about. Specifically I wanted to try using an anamorphic lens with the Schlieren parabolic mirror setup to see if it increased the resolution. As I mentioned already I have been really busy so I only had time to build a lens and give it a quick try. The results were interesting but not quite what I wanted. I think that with more tinkering around I could make it work.
 

Schlieren of candle with anamorphic lens and blue light source

Another thing that I also wanted to try again was using a blue LED instead of a white one. I gave this a try back when I was using a convex lens instead of a parabolic mirror to reduce / eliminate chromatic aberrations. It didn't help so I switched to the parabolic mirror.

Homemade Bladeless Fan Construction and Testing - DIY Dyson fan

Some time ago I decided to build myself a bladeless fan like the Dyson Bladeless fan you see in the stores and on TV. These things look really neat and I would like to have one but unfortunately they cost a lot of money. Before going 'full tilt' and trying to make a really big one I thought it might be a good idea to start with something small, after all that should be easier right? As with most of the projects that I attempt I'm never really sure if they are going to work so I didn't want to put a lot of effort into making one - in other words keep it simple.

  

From what I have seen and read it's just a airfoil shape that is wrapped around into a ring and you blow air into it through a small annular gap around one end. The air is blow through the gap using a fan that has blades so is it really a bladeless fan? The air going into and through the ring draws more air in from behind the ring and around it so you get a lot of airflow - at least that is how it is supposed to work!! HERE is a link to a video of the inventor Sir James Dyson explaining how it works better than I ever could. Below is how I went about making my own small one and a exciting video of it running!

  

Beginnings of Fan (pieces of parts)

DIY Kinematic Optical Mirror Mount and Schlieren Photography

This week I built a Kinematic Mount for a 8 inch F7.38 parabolic mirror that I picked up. To explain why I bought a mirror, in the last post about Schlieren photography (HERE) I mentioned that I was using a lens in the setup and was trying to get rid of the chromatic aberration that I had in the pictures. The obvious solution was to get rid of the lens and use a mirror as the focusing element. I found a guy nearby that makes telescope mirrors and he had this one for sale so I bought it. To explain why I built a kinematic mirror mount for it... well why not?!

Homemade Kinematic Mount

Click on the picture for a bigger view. UPDATE 11/27/10: I made a video explaining how to make this Kinematic Mount HERE. The mirror by itself is a cool and fun thing to have but being delicate and heavy (it's 1-3/4in thick) it's a bit awkward to hold in place accurately. The nice thing about a Kinematic mount is you can hold a something like a mirror or a lens and position it just where you want it with screw adjustments. The mount that I made has one adjustment screw for elevation and one for azimuth allowing for easy alignment.

More About the Homemade Schlieren Photography Setup

This week Otto Jr. and I did a bit more experimentation with the Homemade Schlieren Photography that we were doing last week (details in last weeks post HERE). The setup that we are using is essentially the same using the 5 inch 3 dioptre lens and the LED light source. HERE is the setup diagram of the basic setup. Last weeks results were pretty good all things considered but there were several things that we wanted to improve and try. Here is a picture that we did of a candle burning and is similar to last weeks pics HERE and HERE.

  

Schlieren Image of Candle Burning

One of the things that I tried to 'fix' was the chromatic aberration that can be seen around the lens in the above image. Rainbows are really cool but in this case I think it's a bit of a distraction. Most Schlieren setups use a mirror as a focusing element which doesn't have this type of disadvantage (and has other big advantages) but I don't have a mirror... The obvious solution was to switch to a monochromatic light source that wouldn't have all the colors of the rainbow and would also be lacking the pot of gold you sometimes find at the end. This was especially true in this case because it didn't work! Later what I found out was I need to find the optical Circle Of Least Confusion!!! (That is my new favorite technical term)

Click below to read more about the second Schlieren setup complete with videos!

Homemade Schlieren Photography Setup with DIY Optics

I'm not an optics or photography expert but I thought it would be fun to try and make a Schlieren Optical setup with my son. The main reason I tried to do this is the pictures look really really neat like the below picture we took of a candle. I also thought it would be a good summer science project for Otto Jr. We had to do candle pics because that seems to be the quintessential picture that everyone takes!!
  

Our first Schlieren Photo of a Candle Burning

  
From what I know Schlieren optical systems let you see and photograph differences in fluid densities by using refraction of light. Refraction happens when the light passes from one medium (like air) of a given density into another medium (like water) of a different density. The most obvious example is looking at something that is partially in water and partially in air because air and water have very different densities. The amount of refraction or 'bending' caused by the 2 different densities is the refractive index. If you look at a straight stick partially submerged in a swimming pool or a straw in a glass of water they look bent because of refraction. In my setup it's different densities of air that are causing the refraction but it's the same principle.
  
Click below to read more about our first Schlieren setup!