In this investigation, the applicability of the two-color pyrometer technique for temperature measurements in dry hard turning of AISI 52100 steel was studied, where both machined surfaces as well as cutting tools were considered. The impacts of differing hard turned surface topography on the two-color pyrometer readings was studied by conducting temperature measurements on reference samples created using cutting tools with different degrees of tool flank wear. In order to conduct measurements in a controlled environment, a specially designed furnace was developed in which the samples were heated step-wise up to 1,000 °C in a protective atmosphere. At each testing temperature, the temperatures measured by the two-color pyrometer were compared with temperatures recorded by thermocouples. For all materials and surfaces as studied here, the two-color pyrometer generally recorded significantly lower temperatures than the thermocouples; for the hard turned surfaces, depending on the surface topography, the temperatures were as much as 20 % lower and for the CBN cutting tools, 13 % lower. To be able to use the two-color pyrometer technique for temperature measurements in hard turning of AISI 52100 steel, a linear approximation function was determined resulting in three unique equations, one for each of the studied materials and surfaces. By using the developed approximation function, the measured cutting temperatures can be adjusted to compensate for differing materials or surface topographies for comparable machining conditions. Even though the proposed equations are unique for the hard turning conditions as studied here, the proposed methodology can be applied to determine the temperature compensation required for other surface topographies, as well as other materials. © 2013 Society for Experimental Mechanics.