OT: Backlighting stained glass window

[J. Clarke]

I would try a parabolic reflector flood positioned so that it covered the whole area but was not in line of sight from outside.

[whit3rd]

Best illumination for a stained glass window is northern exposure, on a cloudy day; you want a diffused light background. Unless you don't want to admire the window from INSIDE the church, it has to be nonblocking from the interior.

Two solutions suggest themselves.

(1) Unpleated sheer curtains with electric control, that draw back in the day but close and glow under diffuse backlight (a bank of fluorescents, if the colors can be made to work, or halogen if not) during the evenings.

(2) if the line-of-sight from the ground is through the window to a ceiling, apply suitable reflective paint (like used for painting surfaces for projection screens) to the ceiling and illuminate the ceiling from light sources near the window inside the church, aimed at that ceiling surface. One can hybridize the two, using a motorized reflective-screen.

A third possibility is ... amusing, but maybe not practical. If you could commission a Fresnel lens and sandwich it against the stained glass, it would be possible to use the single-point-source illuminator inside and still get whole-pane brightness in some suitable viewing zone outside (near the virtual focus of that source). I actually used this trick once, to make a microwave oven display more visible at an odd viewing angle.

[Joe]

[J T]

Tue, Nov 13, 2007, 5:04pm (EST-3) [e-mail] doth sayeth: I know that churches in Europe illuminate their stained glass windows and that it looks really nice. What is it that they are doing right and that I do not know how to do?

That's easy. Thay have a dozen or so monks holding candles behind the window.

JOAT The whole of life is a learning process.

- John Keel