Left: Here is the scene on the back deck of
the cruise boat Caprice as we toured
Biscayne Bay in Miami at night. On the
extreme left is Raymarine’s E140W
widescreen displaying the output from the
top of the line FLIR T450 camera. We
could see almost nothing in the dark with
the naked eye, but the picture on the screen
was remarkably clear and offered a wide
field of vision. Notice the little yellow First
Mate handheld unit on the table. It was
there for comparison. The First Mate performed quite well and offers amazing value
at about $3000, retail street price.
such as pan, tilt and zoom through the
Furuno system.
The Apollo II is a thermal camera and
low-light camera in one unit. Both images
can be displayed simultaneously on two
displays or on one display with split
screen. The Apollo II is the least expensive
multiple camera system available in the
marketplace and saves more when used
with Furuno NavNet 3D because there is
no external controller required.
An added benefit is the ability to track
AIS and ARPA targets that is integrated
with the OceanView Apollo cameras.
Again at the Miami show, OceanView
showed their Apollo II system feeding it’s
output to a Furuno NavNet 3D display
screen. The split image allows a chart display on the left, the lowlight camera feed
on the lower right and the thermal image
feed on the upper right.
[heat] energy which is then processed to
produce an image. It seems incredible
that all kinds of items can actually be
detected by these thermal sensors. Even
trees, rocks, bridge abutments and
moored yachts all have what’s called a
“heat signature”. The more sensitive the
thermal imaging system is, the more
clearly we can detect minute temperature
