Best night vision rifle scope for $1200-$1500.

[NVGdude]

Keep in mind, nobody in the US makes a gen II I-squared tube anymore. Both L-3 and ITT only make Gen III tubes. That means any Gen II tube is going to be imported.

Photonis/DELFT makes a very good Gen-II product, but the price is right up there with US Gen II stuff. The only reason we haven't simply crushed them in the market is because of ITAR. Anyway, you probably are not going to see a Photonis tube in a commercial Gen II system since they are French and busy selling to our enemys anyway.

That means any Gen II tube you get is probably going to be Russian, and Russian tubes simply suck diseased donkey balls.

So to summarize:
It's the tube that matters
Buy a system with an ITT or L-3 tube.
Buy Gen III

[Termite]

I can't wait to see what happens to the price of 507nm devices when/if AIST, INVIS, Tenebraex etc... get their shit together, and natural color intensification and processing matures.

Of course, it's only 13 years since natural color light intensification was even invented. The image intensifier took from 1928 'til the mid 60's to become useful at all, and 'til the late 80s to mature sufficiently to be anything more than a specialized tool.

But with the processing power we have now, in such small packages, with such high power efficiency... I don't think we'll have to wait much longer for the first generation of really useful natural color devices.

When that happens, do you think the price of Gen III and IV monochromatic devices will imitate what PCs did, ie, the price plummets? Natural color rendition isn't needed for nighttime invasive species control, just a decently clear image, and a reticle that stays zeroed.

[NVGdude]

When that happens, do you think the price of Gen III and IV monochromatic devices will imitate what PCs did, ie, the price plummets?

No. The technology is fairly mature, and there are no great increases to be had in terms of driving down the price of building them. We take about a month to build a tube, and there is a LOT of touch labor involved.

The near future for ground applications is fusion systems. Take an I-squared tube, take a thermal sensor (microbolometer) and overlay the images. You can do it optically or you can do it digitally. Digital is better, but nobody is yet building a microdisplay that is even close to the limiting resolution of current night vision. And as soon as someone does build one, the NVG manufacturers can build a new micro-channel-plate with a tighter spacing to improve the resolution another 10-20%.

With fusion you can take a night vision scene (in green or white) and overlay all of the warm objects in red. I-squared "sees" better through humidity/fog, and thermal sees better through dust. Thermal can't see through glass, but I-squared can, etc.

It's useless for aviation (since the thermal can't see through the canopy) but great for ground apps or weapons sights.

[Termite]

When that happens, do you think the price of Gen III and IV monochromatic devices will imitate what PCs did, ie, the price plummets?

No. The technology is fairly mature, and there are no great increases to be had in terms of driving down the price of building them. We take about a month to build a tube, and there is a LOT of touch labor involved.

So the only way to significantly reduce the cost is to farm out the labor to a low wage country, like China or India. And then your quality may go to shit.....
OK, gotcha. <Sigh>

I guess I could work over some and buy a D-760 with a hand selected ITT Gen III tube....LINK
Damn......$4600......ouch.

[blackeagle603]

like China or India

What about Eastern Europe?

[NVGdude]

you don't need nearly the resolution on the intensifier (or the microdisplay) to get a good high contrast image.

Yes, the image will have less detail, but with the overlay processing, we should be able to get much better target discrimination and background separation out of an older technology (and hopefully less expensive) tube.
.

This, even at half the resolution of a conventional system, the multispectral imagers give you incredibly more situational awareness. It's shocking how much more information you get from the scene even at moderate resolution compared to plain I_squared.

The issue is target identification. I can "see" a target a lot further away, and in much heavier cover. But if your ROE says you have to "identify" the target, then you are back to needing very high resolution systems. E.g. it's not enough to know that there is a tank hidden in a corn field, you need to know if it's an M1 or a T-72.

[NVGdude]

Now... Forgive me because this is speculation; but once the gen4 tubes mature, is it fair to say they will actually be easier and less expensive to manufacture? IT seems like that would be the case to me, because the coatings process and materials seem to be amenable to higher yield rates at lower material cost.

We make 50,000 tubes/year. ITT makes about 200,000. (public knowledge from the financial disclosures) from a materials processing standpoint that's a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the amount of III/IV semiconductors even a small wafer fab handles.

It's odd, but there are no real economies of scale there. All of our wafer processing can be done on a single piece of equipment.

[308Mike]

We make 50,000 tubes/year. ITT makes about 200,000. (public knowledge from the financial disclosures) from a materials processing standpoint that's a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the amount of III/IV semiconductors even a small wafer fab handles.

It's odd, but there are no real economies of scale there. All of our wafer processing can be done on a single piece of equipment.

If that's the case, what kind of breakthrough is going to have to occur before the prices can REALLY come down for the common consumer / night hunter? I might be able to guess, but I'd just be throwing ideas out there out of ignorance and prefer to have an educated answer. THANKS!

[Denis]

NV gear is taboo for hunting in most of Europe. Folks who shoot boar at night do it with quality scopes with BIG objective lenses, 56mm or more, and usually a 30mm tube.

If you can get one, a 6x56 fixed magnification scope with a 30mm tube is pretty much ideal.

You can get somethig suitable for a lot less than your NV budget: Minox 56mm scope at Cameraland. Cameraland had a Minox open-box sale recently. Give Doug or Neil a call and see if they'll still let you get in on those prices.

If you want to get fancy Schmidt & Bender, Zeiss and Swarowski do specialised pig scopes, with a tiny red dot superimposed on the reticle - it's supposed to make it easy to place your shot on the dark shape of a pig in the dark. They'll be considerably more expensive than the Minox.

[Termite]

NV gear is taboo for hunting in most of Europe. Folks who shoot boar at night do it with quality scopes with BIG objective lenses, 56mm or more, and usually a 30mm tube.

I understand, but this particuliar application has nothing do do with fair chase or sport. I am trying to control a four legged pest that tears up hay meadows, wipes out ground nesting birds, etc.

I figure that in Louisiana/Texas/etc, feral hogs are here to stay. Like fireants, we will never eliminate them, just keep the numbers under control.