weird camera preview behaviour

I have an orthographic camera that looks at an object. The object appears when i start the simulator, but when i look at the camera preview it doesn't appear. i try to perform a raycast and the object responds.

I then move the object on the z axis so that it appears in the camera preview. The object is still viewable in the simulator but now the raycast doesn't work.

What's the problem? Why does the raycast work only when the object is not viewable by the camera preview?