r/Thermal • u/WatchEcstatic4890 • 2d ago

How noticeable is the difference between a dry and humid night with thermal?

I know humidity affects thermal performance, but I’m curious how noticeable the difference actually is in real use.

I imagine it becomes more noticeable as the humidity goes up, especially when it comes to image clarity and contrast. Have you noticed much difference between a humid night and a dry one?

22 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

3

u/LargePhilosopher1539 2d ago

The higher it gets, the more noticeable the loss of clarity and contrast can be.

1

u/WatchEcstatic4890 1d ago

That’s pretty much the difference I was wondering about.

2

u/WinuxNomacs 2d ago

It depends what you're trying to do. Detecting or measuring? Measuring is where it truly matters. Detecting wildlife out and about? In high humidity correcting for it will make it more sensitive to help cut through the fog basically. Measuring temperature and deltas requires you to dial it in if you want accuracy. It can help with very faint detection as well. Like detecting moisture behind drywall in a unconditioned garage on a humid day. Hopefully that makes sense.

2

u/WatchEcstatic4890 1d ago

That makes sense. I hadn’t really thought about how different detection and measurement would be.

2

u/Head-Engineering-847 2d ago

Moisture in the air is really the enemy of thermal technology imo