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Anyone Use Night Vision Goggles For Night Caches?


TexasGringo

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I have used a gen2 night scope to night cache once. It takes a bit to get used to walking without depth perception and close up work is best handled by a low level red light without the night vision. Starlight nightvision is ~okay~ but what is really kicka** is the Infra-red vision. When the price of that comes down to something reasonable, I'm going after it. Right now, 15K for an IR camera is just a tad to high for this pocketbook.

Edited by TotemLake
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pvs7_b.jpg

Last summer I got a chance to play with some of these, not sure if they were the same brand but wow what a blast. I was told to be very careful since they were a little expensive. Great for seeing folks and walking around but I would not like to use them in the woods, I'd end up walking into a tree with them. Best used in open areas and do not let your buddy shine a flashlight in your eyes when you are walking :rolleyes::)

 

I would not use them for caching if I had them, I'll stick to the maglight/staff of light

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NVGs are Ole' School!!!! Try the new line of hand-held thermal viewers. Way pricey but extremely effective, especially close in at most caches. Because of the difference in the ability of materials to gain or shed heat, the temperature of a cache will either be cooler or hotter than the background they're hidden in making them stand out like a sore thumb.

 

Trust me, thermals are the way to go when seeing 24 hours a day. We used our thermal sights 24 hours a day as our primary weapons sight.

 

Now if the cache is under four feet of snow or 20 feet of water, that's a whole other story.

Edited by eagletrek
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I usually use and LED headlamp, but when stuck on a tough one down in Alabama, we broke out the night vision scope with IR illuminator and the distant firetacks suddenly blazed into existence. I thought it was awesome that I finally got to use the thing in a fun way.

 

Along the same lines, when I placed my most recent night cache, I used a combination of different reflector types in different sections. In the beginning all the reflectors responded best to an LED, but for about .10 mile in the middle I used some reflectors that showed very poorly with LED but blazed like crazy from a halogen light. Just something to keep things interesting in the woods.

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Just curious...

 

Would thermals allow you to see trees while walking in the woods at night? Seems like the temps would be similar enough that there wouldn't be a distinguishable difference.. but I don't claim to understand exactly how they work either...

Actually, each tree will have it's own thermal properties because not all trees are the same size or shape. You can get a fair visual of what is in front of you. Even cold water pipes side by side were visible in demos I saw because again the thermal properties were just enough different. It's almost like seeing daytime in a negative.

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Just curious...

 

Would thermals allow you to see trees while walking in the woods at night? Seems like the temps would be similar enough that there wouldn't be a distinguishable difference.. but I don't claim to understand exactly how they work either...

Actually, each tree will have it's own thermal properties because not all trees are the same size or shape. You can get a fair visual of what is in front of you. Even cold water pipes side by side were visible in demos I saw because again the thermal properties were just enough different. It's almost like seeing daytime in a negative.

 

Absolutely!!!!!! As long as there is a slight differnce in temperature everything is visible. Now if you're on a cache that's using firetacks or reflectors, using NVGs with an IR illuminator is the way to go. But for finding a plain ole' cache at night without having to use any light, thermals are the way to go.

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i dont git it..use a flashlight n you,ll see all the trees n reflectors ya want to..

 

Have you ever heard of infra red caches? :drama: I have, and have the capabilities to make one. My only problem is the lack of geocachers that will actually hunt it. I'd end up changing more batteries than I would get "found it" logs. :drama:

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i dont git it..use a flashlight n you,ll see all the trees n reflectors ya want to..

 

Have you ever heard of infra red caches? :drama: I have, and have the capabilities to make one. My only problem is the lack of geocachers that will actually hunt it. I'd end up changing more batteries than I would get "found it" logs. :drama:

 

I believe a typical digital camera will see ultraviolet light. I know video cameras do, so if you have a digital camera that does video clips, it's probably the same thing. If people could get close enough to the blinker and use a camera to look around, they could probably find it.

 

Hmmm..... :drama:

Edited by DocDiTTo
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I would love to add NVGs to my bag. Probably wouldn't use them much for caching, but never know when they might come in handy. Thermal imaging is waaaay out of my price range though. Heck, GEN 2-3 NVG are still way out of my range. The GEN 1 stuff if affordable, but I don't know if it's even worth buying.

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i dont git it..use a flashlight n you,ll see all the trees n reflectors ya want to..

You're obviously not a gadget freak. Not only that, but a flashlight not only announces you're there, but pinpoints where you are at. NVG and IRG allows one to snoop around without much notice from other people.

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As far as night vision goggles go ,you pretty much get what you pay for.I paid some serious coin for a set U.S. military NVG.These things have fantastic preformance,with 2 different front objective lenses ( which preserves your depth perception) and will focus from infinity to about 8 inches without any focus adjustment.To see anything closer just turn the lenses 1/4 of a turn and you can read a newspaper at night if you wanted to.Walking around and picking up something on the ground is very easy.On the other hand some of the russian stuff can e useful but the resolution is not as good with a huge amount of distortion in the image.

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