How does a thermal camera/scope work?
In: Technology
A thermal camera or scope uses the same technology – a bolometer. A bolometer is just like a camera. However, while a normal camera is sensitive to visible light (like red/green/blue light), a bolometer is sensitive to infrared light. Infrared light is light that has a frequency “below” red light, which is light given off by “hot” objects, like people or animals. This is plain, regular light, but most normal humans cannot see this kind of light. Bolometers are arranged just like a normal camera — into pixels. Each pixel of a bolometer can detect “temperature”, which is composed into an image so that us humans can see it. Each pixel measures the incident infrared light that hits it. The more infrared radiation each pixel receives, the “brighter” each pixel appears.
Infrared radiation is another form of light (photons), just like radio, that humans can’t see. However, we can make gizmos that can detect it and use the energy they detect to make an image on the screen of the detector.
You can start with how a normal camera works. Search this sub for that.
Once you understand that, you can replace the pixels which detect visible light with pixels that detect far-infrared light. Far-infrared light is emitted by the ‘heat glow’ of objects around room temperature. Raising temperature raises the light’s frequency, which is why things can glow red hot and eventually white hot, but that’s a tangent.
Basically, everything of normal temperature glows in these frequencies.
Hotter objects emit more of this light. They appear brighter to your camera.
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