Patent ID: 8835815

Claim:
A heater control device comprising: storage circuitry configured to store a turn-on pattern of a heater specified in units of a predetermined control cycle including a plurality of half-wavelengths of an alternating-current voltage supplied to the heater so as to prevent flickering; color temperature detecting circuitry configured to detect a color temperature of light emitted from a filament of the heater; and heater control circuitry configured to perform, while operating in a standby mode in which power supplied to the heater is reduced, cause the heater to be fully turned ON when a first period has elapsed, determine whether the color temperature exceeds a predetermined threshold, when the color temperature does not exceed the threshold, maintain the heater to be fully turned ON until the color temperature exceeds the threshold, and when the color temperature exceeds the threshold, cause the heater to be turned ON in the turn-on pattern, wherein the turn-on pattern specifies that the heater is turned ON at all of the half-wavelengths of the predetermined control cycle such that one of a fully turned ON status and a partly turned ON status is assigned to each of the half-wavelengths.