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Instrumented indentation testing (IIT) at elevated temperatures has proved to be a useful tool to study plastic and elastic deformation and understand the performance of material components at (or nearer to) the actual temperatures experienced in-service. The value of elevated temperature IIT data, however, depends on the ability not only to achieve a stable, isothermal indentation contact at thermal equilibrium when taking data, but to be able to assign a valid temperature to that contact (and so to the data). The most common method found in the current literature is to use the calculated thermal drift rate as an indicator, but this approach has never been properly validated. This study proves that using the thermal drift rate to determine isothermal contact may lead to large errors in the determination of the real contact temperature. Instead, a more sensitive and validated method is demonstrated, based upon using the indenter tip and the tip heater control thermocouple as a reproducible and calibrated contact temperature sensor. A simple calibration procedure is described, along with step by step guidance to establish an isothermal contact at a known temperature under thermal equilibrium when conducting elevated temperature IIT experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]