3rd Gen Night Vision vs. Thermal Sights

[Big Frank]

Here's a video from a hog hunter about 3rd Generation Night Vision vs. Thermal Sights. I thought it was interesting. I didn't know a pane of glass would make you invisible to a thermal sight. I always liked how natural things look with a plain old night-vision device with an image intensifier compared to the fancy new, and more expensive, IR thermal sights. It's almost like looking through a camera with a green filter in daytime. But thermal sights are the way to go for hunting because they can see through bushes.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIhFupwqOU4

[AprilTBevins]

Thermal scopes are good are as compare to night vision scope for detection and can be used in almost all conditions.

[Rastus]

I prefer the white phosphor NV over the green.  What would really be great is to have NV with integrated thermal.  Thermal can only see through thin bushes and hiding behind a tree or bushes will obscure or eliminate your signature. 

For $25-30k you can buy a thermal scope that talks to your amenometer, reads wind speed, humidity and temp and plugs all of that into the angle you are shooting, distance and your direction (NSEW to take into account earth rotation) along with your bullet drop data and zero.  It moves the image so that your crosshairs are on zero.  It's some really neat kit that would be fun to have.

[Big Frank]

I wish I had that kind of money to spend on NV. I'd probably get a multi-color thermal sight and a new rifle and suppressor worthy of such a scope. Or save some money for when I need to start making car payments instead. Car payments sound like a lot less fun. The more I see about thermal scopes the better they look but no system works all of the time. Not even SONAR, RADAR, or LIDAR if you could put those on your rifle. I saw pictures a few days ago on Instagram where someone posted that they like to hunt with their thermal scope switched to all red. They and some other people said it doesn't mess up your natural night vision like looking through green NV scopes. The same would go for white scopes. Red light being the highest wavelength has the lowest energy, which may sound backward. That's why flashlights have red filters for use at night, so you don't blind yourself and lose your night vision. It's the least amount of energy in visible light you can use.

In basic training they had us sitting in bleachers at the rifle range in a room lit only by red light for 20 minutes while they tried to teach us something. Then they turned the lights off for 10 minutes before sending us out to the firing line to shoot in the dark. 20 minutes of red light only, followed by 10 minutes of darkness was supposed to accommodate our eyes to darkness just as well as sitting in the dark for 30 minutes. I just remembered about the blind spot in the middle of your vision caused by where the retina is attached. You can enhance your ability to see at night by randomly shifting your eyes around instead of trying to look straight in any direction. If you hear someone but can't see them try it. They can't tell you not to roll your eyes at them if they can't see your eyes. I guess I did learn something at the night firing range. No wonder I can see so good at night. It's because of my shifty eyes darting around.