That is mostly true but only for images without bright light sources in them, scratches/smudges on front elements are generally not that impactful on the basic image, the problem is when you have a bright light source, i.e. non reflected light or very bright highlights, but mainly direct light sources.
There actually isn't that many ATLFLIR videos out there taken under similar conditions (distant bright heat source) But they have been found and demonstrate the same thing we see in GIMBAL.
No, they don't. That's kind of the problem I have with all these demo videos claiming to show the same thing.
They show some glare materializing in the
camera, by the light coming in from a distant object that is more or less in focus.
In the ATFLIR, all distant objects are kept perfectly straight to the camera by the de-rotation mirrors in its optical path. So, a distant object cannot cause a rotating glare, but at most some rotating lens flares (the sharp 'starbursts' radiating out; the famous video of the twin engine jet shows this perfectly: The only thing
really rotating independently from the jet are the lens flares radiating out to the bottom of the image).
Mick's claim is something else entirely: A glare on the ATFLIR window screen, caused by scratches, is caught by the camera. This is the only way to get the glare to rotate with the gimbal.
The ATFLIR window screen, however, is
not in focus. There is no way a windscreen glare would show up this sharp in the ATFLIR image. The only thing it will cause in your image are some very vague streaks, like these examples show, where the scratches on the lens are also not in focus:
Camera lens:
Picture:
The scratches go from top to bottom and cause the vague cloudy streaks going from top to bottom.
Source: Youtube video /watch?v=Gy8-t7xP2oA
Or this one, lens:
Pictures:
Source: Youtube video /watch?v=oTjTRQohhgU
This is probably a deliberate design by Raytheon, since you don't
want dust, scratches, and smudges to interfere with the image so you would deliberately keep the ATFLIR wind screen as far out of focus as possible.
Here's a picture of an actual ATFLIR window. Imagine all these specs of dust/insects/smudges showing up in your image: