Not sure if this belongs here on in the sandbar. Anyone have/use a set of night vision goggles or a mono-scope? How do you like it? Any recommendations for an inexpensive one? Ive heard good things about some of the Russian military surplus ones.
Printable View
Not sure if this belongs here on in the sandbar. Anyone have/use a set of night vision goggles or a mono-scope? How do you like it? Any recommendations for an inexpensive one? Ive heard good things about some of the Russian military surplus ones.
Here is a resource for product & technology: http://www.electrophysics.com/e/nv/nv-app-handheld.html
I have a mono scope I bought it around 5 years ago it was pretty advanced back then probably junk by todays standards. It works fine but for me it's use is limited. I found you have to adjust your preception looking thru the scope then re adjust when your not. Because of that I rarely use it for me it's better to get oriented to the dark and radar GPS and stay that way rather than switching back and forth.
Brian
I have used night vision on my job, but not on my boat. I have also used thermal imaging in the same capacity as the night vision.
I believe thermal imaging may be better in the boating world for several reasons. Just one of which is that it can work in total darkness. It reads heat, it doesn't just magnify light.
FLIR makes several fixed units for the marine market that are not cheap. But they just came out with a handheld unit for around $3000.00. It can be used off-hand or fix mounted and connected to a fixed screen.
Again, $3000.00 isn't exactly cheap, but the technology is so good, I'm thinking of dropping the coin on one of these units.
Just a little extra info for your decision making..... FWIW
Good luck
I haven't heard much good about some of the Russian units for boating use. As noted in another post, any hand held is going to be problematic if you are both piloting and reading boat instruments like plotter and radar, and trying to use one of these. That's why boats tend to use the type that feed a monitor.
FLIR introduced a "consumer" model at CES for use primarily in automobiles, not sure of their pricing. A very pretty and articulate young woman also showed me their handheld unit, which I guess would be OK for a look out stationed on the bow, say. She also showed my their handheld imaging camera, which is used in industry for checking hotspots on machinery, and would be very nice for engine room checks if one had a few grand to spend instead of getting an inexpensive IR thermometer... For some reason I lingered awhile to get a very thorough explanation and demo, yet can't remember all the details.. about the camera and hand held, I mean... ;)