On 08 Feb 2004 17:20:43 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (Greg) Gave us:
I used to work for a manufacturer of IR thermometers. I made the rifle stock fitted, 4" tube, gold mirror instrument that power companies used for over a decade to look at transformer and insulator temperatures from a distance.
This allows one to determine heavy leakage paths on "bad" insulators.
For transformers, it could spot overheated units before failure.
It had a rifle scope for a sighting method I used to make 4 or 5 a week. Now, they got laser sighted thermal imagers for the job. Technology is amazing! When I worked there (1987), our 4 fps (state of the art then) imager was $90,000. I liked the little LN bath cooled CCD chamber. It was a neat outfit!