Re: UV-photography (was: IR progress report ?

[ANDPPH@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Willem,

re: > Many books have been written on IR systems, and tons of papers. Check
> proceedings of the SPIE.  UV is another matter.  There are only certain
> limited circumstances where UV is appropriate, and much UV work has been
> classified.

I am not sure quite how to comment on this but possibly one of the reasons
not much has been done or published regarding UV systems is that they are
beyond the reach of regular optics. This has not been a great hindrance
when it comes to organizations with "deep pockets" but the average
photographer, scientist or engineer is somewhat limited.

.... hmmmm, actually maybe that is not a good reason either since
excursions into the IR also depend on esoteric _film_ materials if not
optics. Anyway, it does seem that astronomers took an interest in IR as
well as the military and the medical profession so there was a significant
driving force pushing IR developments ... simply because IR was an
appropriate wavelength to work in given the kinds of interests these groups
had. (This is actually a restatement of the item of the person you quoted!)
                     
On the other hand, UV is somewhat different and its potential applications
maybe are not as intuitively recognized by an examination of the
interaction between the UV wavelengths and the UV reflectance or
transmission of samples or their UV excited fluorescence. 

Nevertheless, the applications of UV are not "secret" and significant
achievements in the field have been made and have been published
particularly in microscopy, entomology, botany and forensics (and I am sure
many other  applications as well).

I personally think that the development and output of research connected
with infrared is directly related to the usefulness of these wavelengths
and besides there are a lot more IR ones than there are UV ones (in a
manner of speaking) since IR seems to encompass not only near IR (that is
used by photographers to make interesting visual statements) but also the
mid-range IR and even thermal IR ... all of it known as infrared
photography or imaging or whatever.

regards,

Andy  o o  0 0 o . o  Andrew Davidhazy, Imaging and Photo Tech
       \/\/\/\/\/\/   http://www.rit.edu/~andpph  716-475-2592  
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