Night vision monocular

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

Hello all, I'm looking to get a night vision monocular, I've seen them priced quite cheap. Any recommendations for one of these, there're are two types that work on heat and light on the subject your watching.

There's so many monocular on the market that it's hard to choose, a midrange monocular is what I'm willing to pay.Ive got a field at the back of my house and would be interested to see what animals are around at night.

Thanks Bob

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

You need to decide what you want to do.
You are correct that there are two types, Thermal and light. The "light" class is further dived into near infrared (n-IR) and image intensification (II). n-IR requires external illumination with funnilly enough IR light. This is what a lot of the nature programmes use. You can tell bescause eyes still glow due to reflection. It will work in caves etc. Traditionally uses vacuum tubes with fairly good resolution. A lot of the cheap consumer units use a webcam like digital camer with an IR pass filter. Resolution of those varies

II uses low levels of ambient light hence one name of starlight. They won't work in total darkness but will respond to infrared so you can use an IR light. Can be identified by the noise "sparkles" in the image. There are several "generations" but these are not consistently used particuarly by abvertisers… Proper ones ae expensive and have high resolution

Thermal magers only show difference in temperature. So good for detection but most are not great for identification of what you are looking at. Typically use false colours to represent temperature. Resolution is very variable from less than a hundred pixels in low cost devices to a few thousand in professional equipment costing tens of thousands of pounds. The low resolution units often mix the thermal image with a monchrome video image to improve the apparent resoultion. This does not work in the dark. The frame rate is an issue too. Anything over 9 images a second can be subject to export restrictions so vide rate >25 fames per second) are more expensive. Lenses are typically fixed, Focus is infinity and any zoom id digital with loss of resolution.
These are not best for wildlife.

A versatile and low cost solution is a CCD video camera. These have some sensitivity to n-IR. in fact normally it is blocked by a filter for daylight use. This filter can be removed or on some models moved out of the light path. Sony's name for this is nightshot. A nightshot camera with a LED IR light is one of the best solutions for wildlife. It has high resolution, zoom and recording. If you want to practice in daylight you cna put a IR pass filter on the camera. These also allow you to look through some normally dark materials like black acrylic.

Robert.

Edited By Robert Atkinson 2 on 08/05/2023 09:18:58

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

Thank you Robert for your information, more complicated than I thought, I shall do some homework with this info.

Again thanks. Bob

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

I feed and watch hedgehogs in our front garden, we get about six visiting each night thro the summer and foxes plus the odd rat, I bought a wildlife camera to be able to see our visitors. Maybe a wildlife camera would be of use to record what wildlife you have thro the night, being motion triggered it records everything within range and it’s infra red facility means that good pictures are stored to view later. My advice when selecting a wildlife camera, and there is a multitude on the market, is go for a mid price item which should give reasonable quality. Dave W

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Wildlife cameras are great for see what goes on when you are not watching. They can't be used for live viewing.

This is not all new technology. I have a IR monocular dating from WWII. This was codenamed tabby. I also nave examples of later image conversion and intensifying tubes and viewers as well as a few thermal imagers.

[Ian ParkinParticipant @ianparkin39383]

We have a wildlife camera that you can use for live viewing

its set up on a bird table and streams the feed 24/7 notifys by a message to ones phone when it spots movement and records and/or takes stills

you can also just look at the feed at anytime day or night wherever you are on your phone/tablet/computer

images are great for viewing at large tv sizes

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Robert Atkinson 2 on 08/05/2023 14:04:00:

…I have a IR monocular dating from WWII. This was codenamed tabby. …

Amazing, more on TABBY here. They were deliberately disguised as army Water Bottles in the hope the enemy wouldn't look closely if they found one.

[Roger HartParticipant @rogerhart88496]

The CV143 tubes were common on the surplus market back in the late 60s. I got one for about 5 bob and hooked it up to an old 9" TV eht power supply. These had a big mains transformer for the eht and a big capacitor to smooth the supply a bit. Handily it had a string of big resistors between eht and ground so easy to tap off about 3 to 4Kv for the tube with a croc clip. But a bit dangerous – that eht supply could kill you as soon as look at you.

The CV143 worked OK but hard to see it as a really useful see-in-the-dark device but it worked well on very dim torch bulbs etc. Very interesting to look up how CV143 tubes were made – very ingenious – they must have been v expensive.

Much later I got hold (cheaply) of an ex military cascade tube. These show up for about £150 to £200 and work off about 4.5 volts to an internal inverter that drives 3 image converter tubes in cascade coupled allegedly by fibre optics. This worked much better with a camera lens at front and a short focus eyepiece at the back. What I found really interesting was to look at the night sky. Not only to see many more stars but also many more small satellites and even meteors. Lent it to someone and never got it back – must have been interesting.

Back then a mate went for a job at Mullard/Philips who made microchannel plate image intensifier tubes for the military etc. Handed a very expensive sample plate to look at he dropped it – and didn't get the job. These tubes could be used as a fast shutter to photograph shells in flight and I was told Mullard had a shed somewhere where shells got shot in one side and out the other for handy snaps.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

I have a couple of Mullard/Philips XX1332 50mm microchannel plate tubes. One i still in the sight. Very expensive even as surplus. The american tubes are much smaller. The XX133x tubes are prized by astronomers because of the wide wavelength sensitivity an high resolution. The later tubes have restricted wavelength sensitivity as this works better when used in cockpits with filtered lights and instruments.

Robert.

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

Hello all. A reply to my question about a night vision monocular. I brought a Bestguarder 6×50 it has a camera and video recorder, it's well made but I'm a little disappointed with it. I done my homework using reviews and YouTube, plus advice given here. Am I asking too much from this monocular, it states that it can be used daytime, on YouTube it shows a clear images of objects, mine shows a fuzzy image like a cheap digital camera. At night it works as good as the YouTube images. Another point is the lens cap has a air hole which is about 2mm, I can see during the day through the hole almost the same quality image with the cap on or off. I am wondering if the monocular is faulty or not,any thoughts please.

Bob

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Having of late developed an interest in air rifles/pistols I like to read the magazine "Airgun Shooter". If I was looking to acquire a night vision device (which I am not) I would find the many related articles / adverts in this mag helpful if I was thinking of buying such an animal !

Rik

Edited By Rik Shaw on 28/06/2023 10:55:46

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

With apologies … I don’t have time to study it at the moment

[ busy taking debris to the Tip ]

This may be useful for reference: **LINK**

Bestguarder 6×50 mm HD Digital Night Vision Monocular Review

MichaelG.y

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

You may have to re-focus the objective lens and use a IR block filter to get the same sharpness as IR only. IR and visble light focus at different points.
However it is likely that this is just low resoluton. What does the specfication say for the sensor resolution.

[JohnFParticipant @johnf59703]

Bob, look at your messages John

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

The answer to Robert Atkinson 2 is in the photo I hope. I'm at the stage of sending it back because I think it has a fault, the problem is that theirs no helpline. What also is odd is that I can almost see the same out of the monocular with the lens cap on as it has a 2mm air hole,just a slight difference with the lens cap off. I would liked to have tried a few monocular first but no outlets or shops around my area.

Thanks Bob

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

These two photos one with the lens cap off,the other lens cap on with the 2mm air hole. I took the photo through the lens.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

The manual does not show the actual image sensor resolution. It is probably 640×480 Not the 500 million pixels claimed by the adverts. The fact that it is colour immediately tells me it is not optimised for night vision with IR illumination. Assuming it has no IR block filter (there is no control for a day/night filter), being a colour sensor immediately puts it at a disadvantage for both day and night. The lack of IR filter reduces sharpness in daylight due to IR wavelengths being out of focus. At night the colour matrix on the CCD reduces the IR sensitivity.
I'd send it back. Look for a used Sony digital camcorder with "Nightshot" this will work much better as it has a movable IR filter. Bit of info here:
https://laserpointerforums.com/threads/why-sony-nightshot-diy-night-vision-here.71151/

Robert.

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