Survival and Emergency Preparedness

I am interested in getting something in the NV line. I have looked at bdc's post but I cannot help but think that there are some units that are worth having. I have been scouring reviews on the good ol' wide wide world of web and realize that there is a lot of stuff to sift through. So, I am left with the decision of do I go with a binocular or monocular setup? This is not the only decision I need to make but I am making it the first-- it simply narrows the field. And we are talking night vision as opposed to thermal imaging. Budget considerations will come later but I want to stay under $500.

So, does anyone have any experience, thoughts, opinions, or recommendations along these lines? Thanks in advance!

Alright, I am leaning heavily to the monocular type. The compelling argument for that is when in use you still have one eye that stays dark adjusted. Another consideration is that the monoculars are generally less expensive than their binocular counterparts.

A thought. Try a browser search or talk to your local camera store for a referral to a major specialized seller in optics. If you are on the east coast, it would probably be a place in New York City. Or I dealt with a specialty place in AZ. Do not buy at Walmart/Target/Big 5. Without identifying the retailer, I went to a big box store and tried the same identical model that I already owned. The unit was defective.

You might also go to a major golf store. There are a number of monoculars with a range finding capability.

There are so many different scenarios and one unit does not fit

I don't play golf. If I did, one of the range finding monoculars would be great. Just a quick glance to see where the ball might be or whether our group was going to have to play through. Conversely, I have Leicas that must be handheld and they range out to at least 1000 yards.

Or I have a Yukon unit which is monocular with some night capability.

I have a few "pocket monoculars" that cost under $40. Should have saved my money. I will start looking for them and gift them away.

Take a look at OpticsPlanet.com. I have dealt with those people in the past. For under $500 you can get a Leica monocular.

Thanks for the things to think about! I'll look at Opticsplanet and see what they have.

Outside of just having a night vision option for "what ifs" I can see some routine use of it at home. Where I live is heavily wooded and it would be interesting to have the ability to see what might be moving around in the woods behind my house at night. Of course, how this plays out is that I get the NV monocular, I set up to watch one evening, and manage to see some horrific creature of the night that detects me and knowing that I have seen him he now must kill me. Oh well. Watch for my obituary...

I note that this thread has received a fair amount of traffic (in comparison to other threads in this forum topic) so I offer this for your consideration:

So, why do I want a night vision scope? I am not an “operator” and don’t plan on becoming one. I don’t need something that will attach to a helmet. I cannot afford 2nd generation equipment. But having come to the realization that there are some affordable options available I am highly intrigued. Even if it’s not gen2 the gen1 stuff or equivalent is superior to the Mark 1 eyeball. And I have what is, for me at least, a compelling bit of motivation. If you are either willing, or bored, or brave enough, or fool-hardy enough here is my story. You have been warned.

Where I live is on the outskirts of a small city. It is heavily wooded and from spring until the leaves drop in the fall we have what my wife and I refer to as our “privacy fence.” I often see deer move through our lot (we have about 2.5 acres) as they follow the low cut of the wet weather stream. As they follow it beyond our property it goes into about 400 acres of just woods. From having looked at our area via Google Earth I do know that there is a small pond back on that property. I know that all sorts of other critters come through. I have seen the occasional fox, ground hog, raccoon, and possum. I haven’t seen any coyotes but I have heard them numerous times at night off in the distance doing their howl/yelp/bark thing. At times they are not that far away.

I look at my woods. I am familiar with what is there. Some trees are young and growing well, others are in their prime, some are old and dead, others not so old but have succumbed to disease or infestation and are dying. There is a mix of hickory, at least 2 types of oak, maple, cedar, dogwood, cottonwood, redbud, and a smattering of pine. The pines are generally large as they are the remnants of what came before the hardwoods set in. In other words a normal forest. But because, over the past few years, there have been a couple of trees that have fallen— the first a sizable hickory on the edge of our yard proper, the other a huge oak down in the heart of the lot, both were the result of storms—there are sight lines down into the woods that did not exist before.

At night it is very dark. There are no street lights. I do have, on the garage end of my house, an area light with a light sensor. Over the winter I was letting this come on at night just because. It lights where I park my car. Most nights I will step into the kitchen as I am making my rounds before bed. The kitchen window looks out onto our back patio, the back woods, and provides a sight line along the side of the house down to the garage end. The house is L shaped and this window is at the bend of the “elbow”— to the right is patio and woods, to the left the extension of the house that is the great room.

One night, back in January, I stepped up to the kitchen sink. It was about 11:30 pm, my wife was in bed asleep, all the lights in the house were out except for a single lamp in our great room. This provided enough light for me to maneuver without injuring myself. I looked out the kitchen window and something caught my eye. Something was different. I have looked out this window uncountable times and the view is extraordinarily familiar. But not this night.

The area light was on, I could see the front of my car, but there was something beyond my car in the woods at the edge of the light. At first I thought it might be a clump of leaves that had yet to fall only I could not account for any branch or limb at that particular spot at that particular height. It was difficult to make out any definition to the shape other than it was somewhat oval and its size was about that of a persons head or maybe a football. The side of the window I was looking through was the window screen side and this prevented me getting better definition. I moved slightly to see it through the non-screen side (my windows open side to side, not up and down) but the support beams for the roof overhang prevented me getting a sight line. I moved back to my original position. I thought it might be a deer but the shape was wrong and I think I would have been able to discern a neck and body. But no— it just sort of hung there. It did have some motion to it. Try as I might I could not make out any features such as eyes or nose or mouth or beak. Whatever this thing was it was about 4-4.5 feet off the ground. There was no branch at this position capable of supporting an owl. And as I watched it began to move off to my left. This quickly put it out of my sight line as it moved into the area blocked by the end of the house. I rushed into the great room, grabbed a pistol and a flashlight, and ran out the back door. I rushed to the end of the house but it was gone. There was no sound of anything moving in the woods. I wish that there had been.

Over the next few weeks I kept my binoculars close at hand in the kitchen hoping to see this whatever-it-was/is again. I would go and look out the window at night thinking that it might come back. I then began to think that maybe I really don’t want to see what this was. So I have turned the area light off.

And now I want to get a night vision optic. Maybe.

So do you think maybe someone was casing your house or is your mind drifting more towards the "exotic"?

My initial reaction was thinking it might be a great dane that had wandered through the yard earlier that day. The height of head above ground would fit my estimate. And the thought of a person is also a possibility. The problem there is one of terrain on that side of my house and the density of the woods and undergrowth that they would have encountered to get to that spot. Not an impossibility, though. A person in appropriately dark/camo clothing is not out of the question. As for exotic, well, sometimes my imagination does like to run rampant. But in reality it is something mundane and repeatable. And if someone is casing my house-- and yes, that has happened before-- I would desperately like to be able to see them without them knowing it.

The fact of the matter, though, is I don't know anything for certain. And there in lies the story. Make of it what you will! Thanks for asking!

When I started this thread I thought that I would be purchasing a night vision optic within a couple of months. Well, life intervenes and other unexpected expenses popped up. So, no purchase right now. That does not mean I haven't continued to look. It does mean that it is forcing more time on me to make a decision and that is not bad.

At the moment I am leaning towards a Bushnell Equinox Z2 series of night vision monocular. There are several others that are similar but made by companies I do not know. The prices are all in basically the same ballpark. The functions are all very similar. But Bushnell is a name I know. Realistically? They may well all come out of the same factory just configured differently for the different sellers. I did see a TV program recently (Amazon Prime program) where one of the people was actually using something along these lines. Couldn't tell what brand but it was a night vision monocular.

I was sitting out on my back patio a couple of weeks ago-- temps were good, humidity was low, and bugs were at a minimum. I had all lights off and just enjoyed the dark. It would have been interesting, though, to have been able to see what sort of critters might be just beyond the edge of the woods. In short, I still want to get a night vision device.

Being able to see what's out in the darkness is never a bad thing. For most of us it would be a novelty item at best so the expense is hard to justify.

It is something that I will have to save for. Spending more time outside at night will also make me want to get another telescope. And it just goes on and on and on...