The trick to catching bullets in flight (or hitting a ballon, apple, or playing card) is a very careful trigger setup (often sound activated) and a spark gap flash or specially designed xenon strobe.
A typical strobe can only quench the flash duration down to around 1/10,000 of a second.
A correctly designed spark gap can produce pulses down to a millionth of a second. Of course as the duration goes down other tricks must be used to ensure enough light is available frm the spark.
the operation has a lot in common with Krytron design (the tubes used to trigger nukes).
By placing a trigger electrode betwen the gap electrodes, and then using some radioactive material to help ionize the gas in the gap to just short of breakdown.
A trigger voltage on the trigger electrode will allow the gap to break over exactly when desired. These setups are very touchy and hard to work with, and have a limited life before electrode damage results in no triggering.
I built one anout 20 years ago and had great fun with it.
A .22 rimfire in flight was easy.
A .30-06 a little harder.
A .220 Swift took about a half dozen tries to get the triggering correct, but after that worked just fine.
The sutter is simply opened manually, the gun fired, spark triggered, shutter closed manually. Advance film and try again.
A typical strobe can only quench the flash duration down to around 1/10,000 of a second.
A correctly designed spark gap can produce pulses down to a millionth of a second. Of course as the duration goes down other tricks must be used to ensure enough light is available frm the spark.
the operation has a lot in common with Krytron design (the tubes used to trigger nukes).
By placing a trigger electrode betwen the gap electrodes, and then using some radioactive material to help ionize the gas in the gap to just short of breakdown.
A trigger voltage on the trigger electrode will allow the gap to break over exactly when desired. These setups are very touchy and hard to work with, and have a limited life before electrode damage results in no triggering.
I built one anout 20 years ago and had great fun with it.
A .22 rimfire in flight was easy.
A .30-06 a little harder.
A .220 Swift took about a half dozen tries to get the triggering correct, but after that worked just fine.
The sutter is simply opened manually, the gun fired, spark triggered, shutter closed manually. Advance film and try again.