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Re: (meteorobs) Transmission Gratings
I worked for Pink Floyd, the band, on several tours. In 1972 and 1975. They
had a lighting designer who tried to make some large fluid prisms so as to
try to have a real representation of their "Dark Side of The Moon" album
cover which depicts a prism with a spectrum emerging. He found that several
fluids as you mention would have had adequate optical properties, but it was
difficult locating glass that had the exact index of refraction as the
fluid. I remember that he said that with more time he might have been able
to locate suitable glass.
>Has anyone ever tried to make a fluid prism? With the aid of silicone
>cement it would be possible to assemble a hollow prism of a good
>quality float or plate glass. Theoretically this could be filled with
>a suitable dispersive solution whether sugar, glycerol, salts of
>suitable metals or other aqueous solutions or oils such as microscope
>immersion oil. Prisms would have the advantage over gratings that all
>the light goes into one spectrum but the disadvatage of unequal
>dispersion through the spectrum.
>The optical quality of the glass would be adequate for camera work.
>One problem would be to ensure temperature equilibration before use
>to avoid the effects of convection currents and consequent optical
>inhomogeneity. With strong solutions or pure materials freezing would
>not be a problem under most conditions.
>
>
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