Judy May wrote: > >From the start I will admit that I did not purchase this for visual > satellite observation. But after my first impressions, I have a feeling > it is going to become a regular at my sessions. > > I got a Gen 1 night vision scope for $300. I bought it mostly to > view wildlife at night. At first I was thinking I would want the higher > quality images of a Gen 2 ($800 extra!), but after settling for the Gen > 1, I can see that it far exceeds my expectations. > > Then, I had a most pleasant surprise as I turned it towards the sky. > The view was unbelievable! I have some light pollution, plus the moon > was quite intense, but through the monocular fainter stars became > visible. The handle of the little dipper for instance, normally hard to > see here, became quite evident. > > Unexpectedly, I spotted a satellite. I attempted again and again to > see the bird with just my eyes, but without success. The night vision > made viewing it very easy. > > So why should you pull out a night vision scope when you have a nice > pair of binoculars? With the unit I have, the answer is the much > greater field of vision. Although the magnification is billed as 3.5X, > I believe it is much less, and the amount of sky visible in the view is > fantastic. A word of caution, however: the star images are not as crisp > and clear as through binoculars. And especially towards the edge of the > field, the image becomes quite blurry. But for purposes of acquisition > of a less-than-ideal prediction, a blurry moving point at the edge still > works. After centering, the image of the sat amongst the stars is > excellent. > > I have not taken the time yet to perform more specific experiments > regarding the exact decrease in magnitude that can be obtained visually > nor to discern the actual field of view attained in the sky. > > My particular unit is call the "Night Storm" made by "AMTc". I > believe there are several mail-order catalogs that sell their products; > mostly camping, boating, and hunting suppliers. > > I did try a different unit that came from a company in Cleveland > called Newcon Optics. I returned that scope to the retailer after > finding the image intensifier tube to be of vastly inferior quality. By > the way, most Gen 1 night vision scopes are imported from Russia or > Ukraine. > > Does anyone else have any experience using night vision for satellite > viewing? I've used mine for all sorts of observing, including celestial objects as well as satellites. In fact I was enjoying the Milky Way recently and seemed to see more satellites than ever.... rdc ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Oct 04 2001 - 11:33:24 EDT