Getting Closer - Advantages of using a Telescopic Lens

by Bob Rogers
Infrared Training Center
ASNT NDT Level III TIR

While I was conducting a Level II certification class in Costa Rica I thermographically scan everything as usual. There was a high voltage electrical tower about a half-mile (800m) from where I was standing. I was interested to see if I could detect anything with the FLIR P60 thermal imaging system I was using to conduct the class. Looking at the tower with the infrared camera at this distance, I could not see any thermal anomalies present.

Adding the telescopic 2x lens (12º lens) and thermally tuning the image, I noticed a faint thermal signature on the far lower phase of the tower. Using this 12º lens, the optical distance is now ¼ mile (400m) to the target. The distance of 800m was correctly entered into the camera along with the relative humidity and atmospheric temperature. Notice that with the addition of the 12º lens, no distance correction/modification is required as the camera is still looking through ½ mile (800m) of atmosphere. I decided to get a closer look and walked over to the base of the tower. The image shown close-up is also with the 12º (2x) lens. It is so important to obtain thermal images without any uncertainty, which is why the 12º lens makes a great general purpose lens for those hard-to-get-to thermal images. This cancels any degree (pardon the pun) of uncertainty.

Straight from the World Wide Web, here is what's going on in the world of infrared thermography.

Medicine/veterinary

• Taking infrared thermography off-road
  SA Instrumentation and Control - Feb 29, 2008
  Having seen the advantages of IR thermography in industry, R&C Instrumentation decided to investigate its usefulness in tracking down elusive night-time...
  
   

• Alternative Detection Method for Breast Cancer
  Gather.com, MA - Feb 25, 2008
  Known as Thermography, the technique measures heat differences in the tissue and can detect these rapid growth cells nearly 10 years before it becomes large...
  
   

Buildings/energy/infrastructure

• Energy Goes Up In Smoke
  Newsweek - Mar 8, 2008
  They then walk around the house with smoke sticks to locate the spots near windows, doors, electrical outlets and trim where smoke blows sideways...
  
   

• Infrared scanning can handle two jobs
  London Free Press, Canada - Feb 17, 2008
  It seems both could benefit from examination by an infrared camera. With your house, the infrared images can show heat loss or overheating electrical...

• Current Cover Story|
  Philadelphia citypaper.net, PA - Feb 20, 2008
  Haven will also use an infrared camera (which is freaking cool) to find which spots on your wall have the least insulation. These spots are generally the...

Here is a selection of recent new threads by IR Community members. Feel free to click the links, see the responses, and post your own response if you like.

• Commercial Property Inspection-First Time
  I have a commercial property that I need to look at for air infiltration and water intrusion. I have never performed this before on a commercial property and I'm just looking for some suggestions. The place is in Boston, right now (it's cold) One building is 7 stories tall and one is 10 stories. I'm not sure if it's only exterior shots or both. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

• Information on fly overs
  I have a customer that I have serviced for the last 10 or 12 years doing electrical inspections. As part of the inspection I inspect his power lines (14,400). The line is 30KM long and I use either a snowmobile or an ATV and do it in the winter. The area is very rugged with lots of streams and woods and no roads. I have a friend who offered his plane (fixed wing) if I wanted to use it. Because I haven't done an inspection this way before I would like to give it a try for my own self-satisfaction . Here is the problem - I am using a Flir P65HS camera with a normal 36mm lens. I know that I can get my flight speed down to around 60KM/Hr and a height of 400-600 feet but will that work? Since this is probably a 1 shot deal and the system I use now works OK, I really don't want to spend a lot of money to gear up. Any comments would be appreciated.

• infrared and Earthquake .. advice..
  Question, is anybody here had made some infrared test or any ideas how to use infrared in order to detect road bridges or buildings abnormalities after an earthquake?. Maybe i will need to have images right away before the next seismic activity and then compare with images taken few minutes later or asap after quake, taking care of weather, wind etc.

• water intrusion inspection
  I have to do an inspection of water intrusion for a house. However, the house is attaching to the other house so that the IR images can only be taken inside the house instead of taking outside. It is not possible to use the temperature difference created by the sun from outside since the house is attaching to the others. Moreover, the house does not have air conditioner. What should be done in order to find out the water intrusion area of the house in this case?

• Insurance
  Can someone please help me. I can't find professional liability insurance anywhere. Nobody wants to write it because of potential mold litigation when performing moisture surveys. Are the rest of you insured or just going without? Where is a source to find it?

• Single Tank 3 phase Oil brkr 23Kv
  I am concerned that I may be misdiagnosing an OCB.
  I have some temperature in the head area where all six bushing pass into the tank. I have an temperature gradient that goes from top to bottom. Oil analysis says that there are no abnormalities. At the time I shot this there was 650 Amps going thru a 2000 amp breaker. I am wondering if the CT's in the head of the breaker could be generating enough heat that the gradient I am observing is conduction thru the metal to metal contact of the breaker tank to the breaker dome.

Brainteaser of the Month 

Here is this month's brainteaser. Readers who email us a correct identification or explanation are entered into a drawing to win a prize. Please put "Brainteaser" as the subject of the message.

Click here to email your guess

Do you have an interesting image that you think would challenge other thermographers? If so please email me your image (preferably in native .img, .jpg, .tif, .tgw, or .tmw format) with an accompanying visible photo and explanation. If your image is used, you receive a gift as well.

Last Month's Brainteaser

We had 85 guesses and only 1 correct answer for last month's image. Most of you thought these images were a piece of toast. Read on for the truth from our contributor, John Druga from Veolia Water North America Central LLC.

Congratulations to our Bryan Rapp also of Veolia Water North America (different location though), our winner this month. Both Bryan and John win an ITC low e coffee mug.

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