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View attachment 283304
I donna wanna know about your Furry obsession, keep it in the bedroom and everyone is Kool
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Night Vision
- Thread Starter IheartSig
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Carrots aiding vision is a myth. And actually a funny part of history.
The british started that myth as a reason why their pilots were so effective in nighttime combat, when they were actually using radar a new technology at the time. The myth just stuck worldwide.
The british started that myth as a reason why their pilots were so effective in nighttime combat, when they were actually using radar a new technology at the time. The myth just stuck worldwide.
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And was the whole red light discipline for night crews just as much an myth?
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No. I can attest to that.
Takes some getting used to though.
Takes some getting used to though.
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Destroyed another childhood myth!
THANKS
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I feel like my whole childhood was a lie.
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ditto
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Do you relies how many pounds of carrots were shoved down my throat as a child?!
Mum wanted me to be an astronaut!
!Mum wanted me to be an astronaut!
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Man I had glasses since 3rd grade I thought it was from feeding my carrots to the dog.
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Here is what I want:
http://flir.com/thermoSightR-Series/
Way outside your budget, but it is compact, variable magnification and has thermal.
NV is something I am holding off on though. 30 years ago when I priced some of this stuff, it was in the range of $20K for anything approaching the capabilities of what you can get now for $5K. I could afford it, but right now I don't think I really need it. In about 5 years, when I retire, I plan to do some hog hunting in Texas/etc., and then I would have an actual use for it.
Is NV useful for SHTF?
Yes, if there is a serious long term event. But right now I am not too worried about that.
http://flir.com/thermoSightR-Series/
Way outside your budget, but it is compact, variable magnification and has thermal.
NV is something I am holding off on though. 30 years ago when I priced some of this stuff, it was in the range of $20K for anything approaching the capabilities of what you can get now for $5K. I could afford it, but right now I don't think I really need it. In about 5 years, when I retire, I plan to do some hog hunting in Texas/etc., and then I would have an actual use for it.
Is NV useful for SHTF?
Yes, if there is a serious long term event. But right now I am not too worried about that.
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Ok, so to actually answer the questions asked... here are my thoughts, take them for what they're worth.
First, I took the plunge last year and bought some cheap NVG gear russian gen1+. I went with monoculars, I ended up buying two, the first one I didn't care for very much, but returning it ended up being something of a hassle, so I kept it, both were in the sub $300 range. The two I got, one was a yukon NVMT 1x monocular, came with head gear, and was $200 on amazon, this one certainly had the better optics of the two, but it was large and bulky, it also used 2 1/4-20 screws to mount it to the head gear, and would only go over the right (my dominant) eye. This is really not what I wanted, as it makes using a rifle very difficult. The second unit I got was the sightmark ghost hunter 1x24, again a monocular. This one has been the most successful for me as I have a big head, and I needed to flip the mounts around to get it to where I could see through it easily (this was impossible with the Yukon unit. FYI, I use the Yukon unit in my lab, it sees in the near-IR spectrum, so it's handy for debugging IR sensors, this is the only reason I kept it) I really think the Yukon has the better optics, but I would buy the sightmark again in a heartbeat.
As far as mounting either of these on a gun, I suppose you could, but it would be really hard to walk around, which in either case still takes a bit of practice. Mounting it over your left eye, allows you to get a bit of peripheral with the right. Especially if you're highly right-eye dominant like I am.
Now, two things about Gen-1 stuff, most of the time, if you're outside, you can get away without turning the illuminator on, a lot of people bubblegum about the illuminators saying "other people with NVGs can see them!" well, this is true, but only true if it's on. Second, the illuminators typically use a high brightness near-IR LED, which means, when on, there is a faint red light coming from the end of the illuminator. On both of these units, you can turn the illuminator off, and use ambient light, or you can use a still more powerful light, with an IR filter, which is actually what I would suggest. The only places you're going to need something like this, your distance vision is not going to be especially useful (inside buildings, deep in the forest). Also, the IR illuminator, doesn't really do much when you're in the flat desert, in fact it's pretty useless. Coming back from SHOT show, I drove the back way down to my parents place, and stopped out near Amboy to see what I could see, which was quite a bit. However, despite being a mostly moonless night, I had better over-all vision without the NVGs, mainly because any of these gen-1 units are like taking in the world through a soda-straw. The focal system requires almost constant adjustment to go from looking close to far. There's kinda've an unhappy medium you can do, that will make close objects clear enough that you can view them and walk around, but still pick out other things like vehicles or people in the distance.
The other thing with Gen-1, is blooming. If there's any point sources of light, like a streetlight, you can't look more than about 30deg towards it or it will completely wash out whatever you're looking at. Better NVGs like 2 and 3 have gain control to take care of this problem.
As far as aiming the gun, the best compromise is to attach an IR laser, there are a number of units out there, I ended up going with some goofy chinese one that was about $100, it had an IR laser, and a green laser. It mostly holds zero, but if I needed to make a precision shot, I would probably use my right eye through the sight, and light up my flashlight. The advantage to the NVG is knowing where the target is, if the other person was looking at me with NVGs, he would be blinded. Over-all, I think the laser is a but superfluous, but probably ultimately worth it.
The one thing I passed on, are the chinese knock-off "digital" AN-PVS units sold by Canis Latran and a bunch of others. The main reason I did so was two-fold, first, being digital, these things chew through batteries, they often don't have room for internal batteries, and are attached to a larger lithium prism cell that has to be mounted somewhere (like your head) that ends up adding a lot to the system weight. The biggest complaint I heard was that often the CCD and the view screen are not properly aligned, it may only be a few degrees, but that can be like trying to cut your own hair in the mirror in terms of mechanics. The other major complaint I've heard is that since the optics are a few inches from your face, it ends up shifting your point of view, so it's a bit disorienting, I imagine you could get used to this without too much effort, but it could still be an issue.
There's really no easy primer on all the stuff you can run into with NVGs, I could probably prattle on for a while longer about it, but the above are the basics that I've found. I think I would probably recommend the Sightmark as my #1 in the ~$300 range, it had the best fit, it was easiest to get lined up, and the airsoft kids seem to love them, so they're compatible with most of the airsoft accessories if you want to go with a helmet mount, it's a cheap way to start.
First, I took the plunge last year and bought some cheap NVG gear russian gen1+. I went with monoculars, I ended up buying two, the first one I didn't care for very much, but returning it ended up being something of a hassle, so I kept it, both were in the sub $300 range. The two I got, one was a yukon NVMT 1x monocular, came with head gear, and was $200 on amazon, this one certainly had the better optics of the two, but it was large and bulky, it also used 2 1/4-20 screws to mount it to the head gear, and would only go over the right (my dominant) eye. This is really not what I wanted, as it makes using a rifle very difficult. The second unit I got was the sightmark ghost hunter 1x24, again a monocular. This one has been the most successful for me as I have a big head, and I needed to flip the mounts around to get it to where I could see through it easily (this was impossible with the Yukon unit. FYI, I use the Yukon unit in my lab, it sees in the near-IR spectrum, so it's handy for debugging IR sensors, this is the only reason I kept it) I really think the Yukon has the better optics, but I would buy the sightmark again in a heartbeat.
As far as mounting either of these on a gun, I suppose you could, but it would be really hard to walk around, which in either case still takes a bit of practice. Mounting it over your left eye, allows you to get a bit of peripheral with the right. Especially if you're highly right-eye dominant like I am.
Now, two things about Gen-1 stuff, most of the time, if you're outside, you can get away without turning the illuminator on, a lot of people bubblegum about the illuminators saying "other people with NVGs can see them!" well, this is true, but only true if it's on. Second, the illuminators typically use a high brightness near-IR LED, which means, when on, there is a faint red light coming from the end of the illuminator. On both of these units, you can turn the illuminator off, and use ambient light, or you can use a still more powerful light, with an IR filter, which is actually what I would suggest. The only places you're going to need something like this, your distance vision is not going to be especially useful (inside buildings, deep in the forest). Also, the IR illuminator, doesn't really do much when you're in the flat desert, in fact it's pretty useless. Coming back from SHOT show, I drove the back way down to my parents place, and stopped out near Amboy to see what I could see, which was quite a bit. However, despite being a mostly moonless night, I had better over-all vision without the NVGs, mainly because any of these gen-1 units are like taking in the world through a soda-straw. The focal system requires almost constant adjustment to go from looking close to far. There's kinda've an unhappy medium you can do, that will make close objects clear enough that you can view them and walk around, but still pick out other things like vehicles or people in the distance.
The other thing with Gen-1, is blooming. If there's any point sources of light, like a streetlight, you can't look more than about 30deg towards it or it will completely wash out whatever you're looking at. Better NVGs like 2 and 3 have gain control to take care of this problem.
As far as aiming the gun, the best compromise is to attach an IR laser, there are a number of units out there, I ended up going with some goofy chinese one that was about $100, it had an IR laser, and a green laser. It mostly holds zero, but if I needed to make a precision shot, I would probably use my right eye through the sight, and light up my flashlight. The advantage to the NVG is knowing where the target is, if the other person was looking at me with NVGs, he would be blinded. Over-all, I think the laser is a but superfluous, but probably ultimately worth it.
The one thing I passed on, are the chinese knock-off "digital" AN-PVS units sold by Canis Latran and a bunch of others. The main reason I did so was two-fold, first, being digital, these things chew through batteries, they often don't have room for internal batteries, and are attached to a larger lithium prism cell that has to be mounted somewhere (like your head) that ends up adding a lot to the system weight. The biggest complaint I heard was that often the CCD and the view screen are not properly aligned, it may only be a few degrees, but that can be like trying to cut your own hair in the mirror in terms of mechanics. The other major complaint I've heard is that since the optics are a few inches from your face, it ends up shifting your point of view, so it's a bit disorienting, I imagine you could get used to this without too much effort, but it could still be an issue.
There's really no easy primer on all the stuff you can run into with NVGs, I could probably prattle on for a while longer about it, but the above are the basics that I've found. I think I would probably recommend the Sightmark as my #1 in the ~$300 range, it had the best fit, it was easiest to get lined up, and the airsoft kids seem to love them, so they're compatible with most of the airsoft accessories if you want to go with a helmet mount, it's a cheap way to start.
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Sixty-five hundred bucks for a flir.com thermal scope! It had better fight crime, cure cancer, and remove unwanted hair for that price. How about a Torrey Pines for one-tenth that much:
http://tplogic.com/thermal-solutions/t10/
http://tplogic.com/thermal-solutions/t10/
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If you've ever tried the flir stuff... it's totally hella balls-to-the-wall awesome. The crosshairs light up when you're on the hottest part of the target.
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Compare the specs:
TP Resolution 80x50 pixels
FLIR resolution: 640x512
T1 magnification: 1X?
FLIR magnification: 2x-16x
You get what you pay for.
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