Experimental Investigation of a Holographic System that Records Front Surface Detail from a Scene Moving at High Velocities

Any motion of the scene during the exposure of a hologram results in a spatial modulation of the recorded fringe contrast. On reconstruction, this produces a spatial amplitude modulation of the reconstructed wavefront, which results in blurring of the image not unlike that of a conventional photograph. The concept of motion holography has been aptly described theoretically by D. B. Neumann. This paper presents and discusses the experimental investigation of a new holographic technique that allows resolution of front surface detail for scene velocities on the order of 9 x 10(5) cm/sec.