Thermogram of incandescent and compact fluorescent lamps. Shown here is a thermogram of two side-by-side desk lamps, one has an incandescent light bulb and the other one has a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). The bulbs are rated to produce about the same amount of visible light. Compared to the incandescent bulb, the CFL is several times more efficient and produces less wasted heat as is manifested by the lower temperature. Thermography is a technique for visualizing the temperature of objects by recording the thermal emission intensity at long infrared wavelengths. This image was acquired with a specialized camera that uses a focal-plane array of vanadium oxide microbolometers as a sensor. It is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of 8 to 14 micron. The camera produces a 320x240-pixel image where different colors correspond to different temperatures.