Thermal Monocular Night Hunt Surface Gold

[ZombieKnot]

Anyone use a drone with thermal imaging to snipe surface nuggets? They retain heat from sunlight better than surrounding rocks. Was at GOLD HILL area last summer and found a single 3 gram nugget with monocular. LUCK job as i was trying to catch coyote stealing supplies(standing on top of motor home, had to leave that morning, not wanting to leave stolen food wrappers .). Plan on taking my YUNEEC drone next summer. Right after sunset and ground underneath was whiter than nugget.

 

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[Carl-NC]

Not sure how this would work as rocks have a much higher thermal mass than gold. That is, gold would cool off much faster due to the high thermal conductivity.

 

[99thpercentile]

Not sure how this would work as rocks have a much higher thermal mass than gold. That is, gold would cool off much faster due to the high thermal conductivity.

Yes I have looked for metallic surface targets using IR sensors on many different types of platforms. We had a multimillion dollar program to do this when I worked for the Army. We also used multispectral and hyperspectral cameras to detect disturbed soil over land mines.

 

[ZombieKnot]

Hi 99%tile,
WOW. Hope my YUNEEC drone camera is in light spectrum for small area detection of warmer soils. Have been using on cold colorado springs ground and not able to discern COLD rocks from ground yet. Frustration; any suggestions? Might need DJI camera but those are big buxx! Or i need to adjust settings with no clue to such parameters. Not too computer savvy...
Graduated from EHS in '78 and found fine gold on upper bear creek back then. But getting permission from creek side land owners was next to impossible as they all thought i would destroy their waterfalls and such. Followed source to Troutdale.
SLAVA UKRAINI... could you send LANDMINE info to ukraine embassy to help? 7th Inf. 1/9th Manchu's, "DOC" is asking a favor.
Will owe you a beer.

 

[1637]

saw josh gates on expedition use these to find some metal target ,they found a gun and some other cool stuff.

 

[signal_line]

saw josh gates on expedition use these to find some metal target ,they found a gun and some other cool stuff.

Pretty much needs to be dry sand and high sun angle so the ground heats up. The idea is gold has a low emissivity and the dry sand insulates it. So it stays a little bit warmer, maybe. I I saw Josh Gates episode where the drone had a thermal camera and they found a pistol.. Kinda thought it might have been planted for the show, but I don’t know. You don’t hear much about it so I guess it probably not real successful.

 

[ZombieKnot]

Any spec's on what drone they used, please? Camera type? I flew at night for 5 minutes in backyard and EVERY contour lit up. Big difference from daytime. It was 12 Farenheit and lens fogged. VFR landing. But now have to take drone course and get FAA card to fly. Paperwork to prospect! Hope it wont be as hard as my Airframe & Powerplant ticket.