This Week we tested our lens under rough thermal conditions like those occuring during the flight of the REXUS rocket. The purpose of the test was to determine if the recent Design of our experiment needs some improvement in the form of a protective glass, to protect the lens and the camera from hot gas inrush during the flight.
As a protective glass would add more distortions like lens flares and reflexions to our image data and the current version of our horizon-detecting algorithm is struggling with those effects, we would prefer to omit any kind of additional layers in front of our lens, even if we then have to deal with hot gas inrush and higher temperatures.
We simulated the hot gas inrush via a hot-air gun which heated the air up to more than 300°C and directed the hot air directly onto the lens. After the test was done neither mechanical deformations nor changes in optical characteristics could be detected, so the test was considered to have been successful =)
The second test needed to decide whether we have to use a protective glass, by again testing the lens within a hot air stream, just this time connected to the (running) camera, was initially planned to be done this week,too, but since some crucial parts for mounting the camera haven’t arrived yet, we had to move the test date to next week.
At this point I would like to thank Matthias Wolz, who provided the needed equipment and a test location to perform the thermal test!!
