how do thermal cameras even work
In: Technology
You know how hot things glow?
This is called blackbody radiation, it’s essentially something of a given temperature giving out “light”. This still happens with cooler things, they still give out a form of “light”, just one that we can’t see.
Infrared cameras can see this though, and the more advanced ones can see the wavelength of the light and know the temperature from that.
Edit – this is separate from IR emitters and the associated footage. There it’s all a light source just outside visible range being used to illuminate something. This is then monochromatic as a single “colour” (spectrum/wavelength) was being used.
This gives much sharper images than the blackbody IR as it’s a shorter wavelength and closer to visible light.
Latest Answers