Another use for infrared CCTV

[Jim]

Has anyone watched "Most Haunted" or other ghost investigations? They are constantly getting what is referred to as "orbs" which on the infrared cameras are like a bubble you blow with a bubble wand except that they can move oddly and come and go in and out of things, even through objects and people.

When my new cameras arrived Saturday it got dark and I switched it on in our darkened living room to see how it performed in darkness. My wife turned the camera facing the sofa while I was monitoring it on the laptop. When she sat down next to me we could see a swarm 6 or 8 of these which looked as if they were following her path. All disappeared and I have no scientific explanation.

Just to rule out dust stirred by her closing the curtains I had her go back to the camera and shake them hard. We couldn't get them to appear again no matter what we did. They just followed her and then disappeared.

So you do it yourself ghost hunters might try playing with a cheap set of these cameras and see what happens.

[chewingyu]

Maybe it is just her cologne mist!! : D

[Jim]

Yeah maybe hehe

[brian]

My personal though is some form of static discharge - ie, if those curtains were carry a static charge - not unusual - then the movement of these could have gently ionised any dust that was also released to the air by the movement.

The result as being tiny little electrical clouds swirling away, like ripples, slowly dispersing, with the electrical charges losing energy via the infra red spectrum.

Or - maybe just the friction from small dust clouds moving would generate enough heat to show on a sensitive enough camera.

My initial thoughts, anyway.

[codemonkey]

Based on what I've seen of this phenomenon, it usually is dust, either directly on the front glass of the camera, perhaps inside the glass (depending on how it's set up), or just in front of the camera.

In any case, I'm certain the effect is perfectly explainable.

[Jim]

I've worked with many cameras, lenses etc. Dust or insects are usually blamed for "orbs" etc. Before digital cameras we blamed them on air bubbles on the negative during developing. Now that we do mostly digital I have some of the same results so I'm not so quick to discount everything as dust etc. I think in most cases the aberrations can be explained but often they can't.

Dust on the lens is not an issue because the things move and aren't fixed. Optical flare also isn't the cause since there wasn't any source to create the problem and optical flare remains stationary when lenses and light sources are constant and they also usually move in a radial pattern as the camera or light source moves. The only physical explanation is dust in the air since there are way too few insects in Scotland during the winter and very few on the East coast even in summer.

What was difficult to do is recreate the situation manually. If it is dust then why can't you create it each time by recreating your movements or even exaggerating them more than before? There just isn't a solid explanation for all phenomena so I try to keep an open mind. I do agree though that most instances are explainable. But sometimes the effects are interesting.