Kirlian photographs are pictures
of the corona discharge produced by objects connected to high voltage. They are
fairly easy to make, all you need is a stack of a grounded sheet metal on the
bottom, then a glass plate, the photographic paper and finally the object you
want to take a picture of on top. The object is connected to high voltage AC.
You can take pictures of anything flat and conductive, metal, plants, body parts...
The power supply is usually a flyback, an ignition coil or a tesla coil. But given
enough exposure time even mains frequency might work. Well, and then of course
you have to develope the photographic paper, and if everything was right, you'll
see a beautiful Kirlian photograph.
Below you can see the Kirlian photo of a German coin (it was taken before Euro
coins were introduced...). I've used a flyback power supply for this photo but
I didn't like the image quality...
...so I used a modified Tesla coil. The primary, secondary and the caps where
the same as those used in my 3" TC. Instead of the MOTs I used the flyback
supply with rectified output (more voltage, less danger). But the special thing
about this Tesla coil was a triggered spark gap so it could be run it in single
shot mode. Usually I used about five shots.
Now the photos looked like this:
This photo below was taken by just placing a pointy electrode on the photographic paper. Very beautiful Tesla-like discharges.
Nice photo of a milling head.
"Normal" photo of the milling head. Note that the metal parts lying even on the photographic paper don't produce any corona discharge.
Picture of a printed circuit board. Guess where the HV has been connected...
Birch leaf.
Leaf from a...tree :-)
The key of power! Unfortunately it didn't prevent my mountain bike from being stolen :-(
