How Schlieren Photography can be done using mobile camera?

Question

Can we do Schlieren Photography using good mobile phone camera (13-20 MP)? If yes how or can we do this photography only using professional digital camera? Schlieren Photography

Answer 1

Yes, and you can even do schlieren photography using old and poor mobile phone camera.

It's not rocket science, yet it requires some equipment not normally found in a typical houshold (or even professional photographic studio), unless you are the amateur astronomer. The key ingredient is spherical mirror, which can be obtained from a cheap newtonian telescope (higher class amateur newtonians have parabolic mirrors, which is also acceptable). Then it is just the matter of arranging the mirror, camera, and a light source in a configuration similar to this:

(substitute the eye with a camera, and the light source can be used directly, no need for the second diagonal mirror - I'm just pasting the existing Wikipedia illustration on the Focault knife-edge test to avoid licensing issues, feel free to replace it with a better picture)