Night vision equipment for mortals (3 Viewers)

[opisska]

Physics isn't my strong point but the moon is showing for another reason not due to heat as it's a huge distance away and isn't warm.

Of course it is warm. It's a piece of rock being shone upon by the Sun, it' at least as warm as any piece of rock around you during the day and those shine bright and strong on the IR vision. In fact, due to the lack of atmosphere, the surface gets actually much warmer than that in some places - even over 100 Celsius actually - because there is no air to cool the surface down and the very porous surface is also very good thermal insulation, so all the heat received stays close to the surface. Additionally, it also reflects the Sun's IR radiation, but I would make a mildly educated guess that that's a minor effect.

 

[Hauksen]

Hi,

Of course it is warm. It's a piece of rock being shone upon by the Sun, it' at least as warm as any piece of rock around you during the day and those shine bright and strong on the IR vision. In fact, due to the lack of atmosphere, the surface gets actually much warmer than that in some places - even over 100 Celsius actually - because there is no air to cool the surface down and the very porous surface is also very good thermal insulation, so all the heat received stays close to the surface. Additionally, it also reflects the Sun's IR radiation, but I would make a mildly educated guess that that's a minor effect.

It would be great to see

a) whether there's a temperature gradient on the moon surface visible when the colour palette is adjusted to the average moon temperature (so it shows more detail then in the shot where it also acommodates branches in leaves).

b) whether the heat picture coincedes with the optical picture, or whether there's still visible heat on the dark side of the terminus.

Probably one could make educated guesses on that too, but having a picture would be more satisfying in my opinion ;-)

Regards,

Henning

 

[opisska]

That quite depends on what device you have. My Pulsar has a FoV that's, as just guessed by me from a rough measure of an object filling it, roughly 15 degrees - at 384 pixels across the sensor, it means that the half-degree Moon is only about 14 pixels across, which is one thing to keep in mind - the resolution of any detail must be limited, but a large scale difference should be possible to see. Then there is the problem of the palette adjustment, I was never able to see anything but flat surface on the Moon. But now you made me curious, so I am surely going to play around it next time the Moon is up

 

[Steve Babbs]

Of course it is warm. It's a piece of rock being shone upon by the Sun, it' at least as warm as any piece of rock around you during the day and those shine bright and strong on the IR vision. In fact, due to the lack of atmosphere, the surface gets actually much warmer than that in some places - even over 100 Celsius actually - because there is no air to cool the surface down and the very porous surface is also very good thermal insulation, so all the heat received stays close to the surface. Additionally, it also reflects the Sun's IR radiation, but I would make a mildly educated guess that that's a minor effect.

I told you physics wasn't my strong point. Luckily my science degree was in ecology. I clearly wrote that before turning my brain on.

 

[opisska]

To be fair, this is not a very fair trivia competition, this semester I teach a university course called "Astronomy of the Solar System"

 

[ajfossey]

Pulsar Axion XM30S Thermal Monocular available at Naturespy currently. Purchased one this morning.​

 

[JWN Andrewes]

At under £500 this is starting to look a little bit more realistic for those on a budget (like me!)

Hikmicro LYNX LC06 Handheld Thermal Monocular – 50Hz

IR resolution: 160 x 120px Long-lasting, integrated, rechargeable battery Digital zoom, selectable colour palette and a range of observation functions/ modes

www.pass-thermal.co.uk

The main motivation for me to be looking to acquire this kind of thing is to try and locate day roosting Owls, Woodcocks etc, and skulkers like Jack Snipe. Don't know how effective this would be for that, but it looks intriguing.

In the mean time, some of those night vision bins for under £150 are looking waaaaaay too tempting!

 

[Steve Babbs]

Pulsar Axion XM30S Thermal Monocular available at Naturespy currently. Purchased one this morning.​

A few places have that but the XM22 was no longer even on the website of the place that I've ordered it from last time I looked.

 

[edenwatcher]

Uttings had the XM22 briefly last week - now out of stock again. They have the XM30 but not the XM30S

Rob

 

[pppppvvvv]

At under £500 this is starting to look a little bit more realistic for those on a budget (like me!)

Hikmicro LYNX LC06 Handheld Thermal Monocular – 50Hz

IR resolution: 160 x 120px Long-lasting, integrated, rechargeable battery Digital zoom, selectable colour palette and a range of observation functions/ modes

www.pass-thermal.co.uk

The main motivation for me to be looking to acquire this kind of thing is to try and locate day roosting Owls, Woodcocks etc, and skulkers like Jack Snipe. Don't know how effective this would be for that, but it looks intriguing.

In the mean time, some of those night vision bins for under £150 are looking waaaaaay too tempting!

I was tempted by this one. It has record, which the xm22 doesn't, and the feature that points out hotspots.
Don't think the range was quite as good and the resolution not quite as good, but if you use them to detect, then switch to a torch, its maybe not such a big deal.

The built in battery, as opposed to swappable put me off in the end.

 

[Steve Babbs]

A switchable battery appear to be pretty essential, although it does claim 10 hours of power. I'll mainly use it looking for night stuff. After ten hours I'm ready for my bed!

 

[wllmspd]

The colour scaling the pulsar uses means that pointing at the moon any slight temperature differences are swamped by the temperature difference between the moon and the cold clear sky (-40C or so), but like looking for birds in trees. A spot temperature mode would allow you to see more, but I don’t expect Pulsar to add one. The atmosphere also needs to be transmissible to the thermal wavelengths or you’d not see the moon at all.

Peter

 

[GiG]

I was tempted with getting a thermal monocular but they were outside the budget I had. I opted for a night vision monocular and went for a Bushnell Z2 6x50. Limited to the garden but tonight had a nice surprise with two Foxes. I couldn't see them at all but I heard a snap of a twig and switched the monocular on and recorded some footage - Foxes in the garden. I bought the scope at NatureSpy who were very good.

 

[wllmspd]

There is lots of stuff going on after dark, even the cheaper NV can show a lot (though many have a deep red light on the front that some creatures might notice).
the moon in thermal infrared.. found a page I’d seen before, very interesting.

Vidéo : Regardez la Lune se refroidir

Les dernières découvertes expliquées simplement, le guide pratique et tous les conseils pour observer, tous les lieux du tourisme astronomique, les rendez-vous culturels. Le ciel qui vous intéresse ? Avec Ciel et Espace, il va vous passionner.

www.cieletespace.fr

PEter

 

[opisska]

I was tempted with getting a thermal monocular but they were outside the budget I had. I opted for a night vision monocular and went for a Bushnell Z2 6x50. Limited to the garden but tonight had a nice surprise with two Foxes. I couldn't see them at all but I heard a snap of a twig and switched the monocular on and recorded some footage - Foxes in the garden. I bought the scope at NatureSpy who were very good.

Wow that's great! Do you use some external IR light, or is this just with the built-in illuminator? How far were the foxes? Do you have experience with more distant targets? Because this looks just marvelous ...

 

[GiG]

Wow that's great! Do you use some external IR light, or is this just with the built-in illuminator? How far were the foxes? Do you have experience with more distant targets? Because this looks just marvelous ...

Hi Jan,

I was really pleased with the footage. I only used the built-in illuminator - I actually turned it down a step as, on the first video, the eye shine was very bright. I had been tempted to purchase an external one but wanted to see how it would perform first - maybe on distance stuff it may be needed. I reckon I was about 10 metres away - they seemed oblivious to me. No chance to use anywhere else at the moment, so looking to see it's capability for more distant stuff one day!

Gi

 

[edenwatcher]

XM22 just arrived. Ordered on Monday evening from Cluny Country Store. They apparently got 4 at the start of the week and were down to two by the time I ordered. Now to work out how to use it so that I can avoid flushing jack snipe on my WeBS count...

Rob

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

XM22 just arrived. Ordered on Monday evening from Cluny Country Store. They apparently got 4 at the start of the week and were down to two by the time I ordered. Now to work out how to use it so that I can avoid flushing jack snipe on my WeBS count...

Rob

Definitely comes in handy for that.

 

[Steve Babbs]

I cancelled my order from Scott Country and ordered the one remaining one from Drew's which comes with a free battery. Scott country weren't sure when they'd be getting it in but said maybe the end of the month.

 

[opisska]

So I researched the active near IR night visions a bit more and decided for the Bushnell Z2 6x50 as it universally gets the most positive reviews. It just arrived and I have to say that I would like to meet the guy who thought this is how they should design it, get him to explain his thought processes and then kick him in the nuts. Because I am completely fascinated by how stupid the display is. They have made a nice handy device, which can produce pretty clear view - as is easily seen when you watch the stream via wi-fi on a smartphone - and then gave it a display with pixels bigger than some animals I am expecting to observe and apparent field of view of looking through the Mont Blanc tunnel. WHY? It just doesn't make any sense, both LCDs and eyepieces cost peanuts compared to the overall cost of the device. It's just pure condensed stupidity to produce something like that in 2020 ... What shocks me even more is that basically none of the reviews I have seen even mention this, what is wrong with people?

It's actually a bit similar to many of the inexplicable design choices found in the Pulsar - these things are just not very popular and thus there just isn't a lot of competition leading to design improvements. If someone engineered a camera this poorly, they would just see no sales and be immediately forgotten or broken down to death by reviewers, but it's clear that a dedicated community for these things is almost nonexistent and thus the pressure is really small.

Well, I am looking forward to seeing how it actually performs in dark, which is the main goal. But I am a bit afraid that I will eventually be forced to figure out some smartphone holder for it so that I can look at the proper picture instead of the tiny pixelated abomination ...