I'm afraid I can't remember what sort of temperature I was seeing on the display, and anyway I don't think the figure would be meaningful given the optical setup. When I point the camera straight up on a cloudless night using a normal lens I see reported temperatures like -20°C, but that's not really news.
You're right of course about it being dangerous to look at the sun with telescopes etc - that's why I said I could track the moon with my
other eye!
Meteors have been tracked in broad daylight using thermal cameras for years. For instance, see Daylight Meteors, Brian Oughton, G4AEZ,
RadCom March 2008 pp 64-65. Brian and friends used unspecified military thermal imagers that were probably made by Selex. There's a photo in the article that might let the eagle-eyed identify one or more of the cameras that was used. I've attached a relevant clip.
According to the last part of article,
"EQUIPMENT USED. The thermal imaging equipment used to capture the meteor images included both 3- 5µm and 8-12µm technologies. One idea was to determine which wavelength would perform the best in this task. As with many experiments with so many uncontrollable variables, there was no clear winner.
"What did come out as expected was that the latest generation equipment, using an 8-12µm (long wave) Cadmium Mercury Telluride detector with a resolution of 640 x 512 pixels, generally performed the best in terms of number of detections and clarity of image. Cameras of this kind are capable of exceptionally high sensitivity and resolution and are unfortunately likely to be outside the budget of the majority of amateur enthusiasts. It would be very interesting to try the same experiment with low technology equipment of the kind often available in the high street."I like the idea that in 2008 one could buy thermal imagers (of
any resolution or technology) on the high street.
I have never tried a similar experiment but I guess it is something I could try. The Perseids peaked last night with a good show but unfortunately I was tucked up in bed.
I'm sure I'm not the only person who has ever pointed a thermal camera at the moon. There are enough high end military imagers out there with good optics that would probably give quite a decent picture and there is always downtime when you're training or whatever so it's possible to have a play. But not many squaddies seem to post work photos of classified equipment online - something to do with getting court-martialled, I think!