thermal monocular - can't afford a thermal scope

[FPIV]

can any one recommend a thermal monocular / binocular from amazon. I will be hunting rabbits that get within 5 yards -25 yards - i can't see them with the naked eye - but i know they are there. ive read that some monoculars have a hard time with close range ie 5 yards. often some of my the back yard will be illuminated. So I need a thermal monocular that won't be thrown off by some light. there are also coyotes lurking. so if i could see out to 50-100 yards that would be great to. basically i'll use the thermal monocular to spot the animal prior to turning on the flashlight. can i look through a closed window or will that throw off the ability to sense heat outside - i would assume so

any help would be much appreciated 

 

[Guest]

Thermal/LWIR nerd here. LWIR can't see through windows/glass. It'll show up as a gray blob and you'll actually end up seeing yourself because the glass reflects LWIR like a mirror.

50-100 yards to see a rabbit you'll need a good scope. Something that has a thermal resolution of 320x240 or greater or you'll just see a heat blob show up. Also bear in mind that many animals are insulated so you may not end up with an image that you expect. A strong thermal contrast will work to your advantage so on a cool crisp night you should be able to see better with more clarity. The greater the thermal contrast the better the image.

You won't be able to put the monocular in front of the scope for the reasons stated above with regard to glass. So like you indicated, it'll make a good spotting scope. You'll need something with a Tau core not a Lepton because the thermal resolution isn't high enough.

Let me be honest here -- you're looking at about $1500-$4000 to do what you want to do. LWIR gear isn't cheap. I've got a Lepton 3 (160x120) and had a Lepton 2 (80x60). At 160x120 at ~50-100 yards a human will look like a heat blob and that's a large human versus a small rabbit. 640x512 would be ideal for your use case and FLIR makes them in the Boson cores. They run about $4000.

I'd recommend NVGs over thermal for what you're doing but that's expensive as well BUT you can look through your scope with them. You'll see about 50% as bright through the scope depending on the size of the objective lens. I own a PVS-14 Gen3+ autogated filmless with a L3 Warrior Systems tube. You can probably score some Gen 2 gear or blemished tubes for $1500 or less.

Also realize any of the FLIR gear that's above 9Hz refresh rate will be considered ITAR equipment, much like the PVS-14. If you're ok doing *active* versus passive get you an IR spotlight and a camera that can see IR. Much cheaper.

Good luck and hope this helped.

 

[biohazardman]

Thermal is pretty spendy stuff do you really need it or would some digital nightvision werq?

Thermal is better if things can hide in deeper grass or hay bales or something but if that is not the case the digital nightvision will werq just fine and is very reasonably priced as well.

Here is a vid of a digital nightvision monocular. Link for amazon under it. Included vid so you can see it.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmZW9vbqEEQ



https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KXMTFKT/ref=sspa_dk_detail_5?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B07KXMTFKT&pd_rd_w=5bPpb&pf_rd_p=7d37a48b-2b1a-4373-8c1a-bdcc5da66be9&pd_rd_wg=Fj3e2&pf_rd_r=WPNQ99WGQFKTPRHDC90G&pd_rd_r=0957b120-e6e6-42c9-94ab-336e61279526&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExVzVHRjJDMkhDNzBPJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNDUwMjE3MklDVVdQTTE3UjlNOCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwOTcyNTE4MTJQTFRZNFU5OUtNWiZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2RldGFpbCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

So here are few thermal monoculars that may werq also.

https://thermogears.com/best-thermal-monoculars/



I have one of the Leupold LTO units it is nothing fancy but werqs OK. It only has a 206x156 resolution sensor so it is far less expensive. It is the lowest I would go on the resolution as any lower makes it very difficult to recognize what you are looking at. Don’t let the 240x240 screen resolution fool you that is only what the screen is capable of not what the sensor is feeding it. I grabbed one off of the classifieds and did a lens mod to make it a true monocular it werqs great for what I have planned for it.

After the lens mod I put it atop the ATN so I could use it to spot with then zero in with the scope. In theory anyway I hope it werqs. I just barely got finished with this then took a pic and posted it.



https://cheapestthermalcamera.com/leupold-lto-tracker-review-vs-flir-scout-tk/

https://www.amazon.com/Leupold-LTO-Tracker-Thermal-Viewer/dp/B07N8JGF96/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=thermal+monocular&qid=1606755024&sr=8-3

 

[Guest]

Another thing is some critters actually "glow" under IR. Example Turkey's appear white under IR illumination. No idea if rabbits show up this way. The active, instead of passive, stuff is way cheaper. Animals won't see the IR illumination.

Not sure what the ATN series uses for their core and if it's chopper wheel or microblotter.

For your use case what Bio linked would work well. Even a Gen 1 NVG with IR illumination turned on would work. Unless you get into the high end LWIR gear you're going to be disappointed contrasting it against NVGs or active IR illumination.