All I know...is that if you think there is a bunch of stars up there now.......look up with a NVD.

I'm going to take my PVS-14 out during the next meteor shower.....and instead of 1 to 5 a minute......I have heard it can be that every second.

The only person i know of that has first hand experience with telescope/intensifier is on the opticshq board. I don't think he's a member over here.

The guy is very knowledgable and knows his stuff. Super guy.

Check out some of the astronomy images on that forum with the "holy grail"  tube, the  gen3+gen1 cascade, i think that has a ton of promise for this purpose.


Brent

I believe he is a member now and will be along shortly... Just a prediction.

Night vision and astronomy is his game !

There's so much info over on http://www.nightvisionforums.com/phpBB3/index.php that I'd be hard pressed to condense it all.

As far as I know there haven't been any advances with I2 technology as they pertain to astronomy, with the exception of 2 micron MCP tubes. As far as I know, there's been no implementation of these tubes in any astronomy suitable units. Hopefully that will soon change.

As far as astronomy specific units, there are only two that I know of; http://www.ceoptics.com/ccd/i3.html and one I'd prefer not to list but will anyway for the sake of others;http://www.nightvisionastronomy.com/

Where you looking for a suggestion on a telescope compatible unit that stands in place of the standard eyepieces?

P.S. okay you two green little men, Dino and Brent  you may now bounce with glee. I've gone full retard and joined yet another forum, now my brain is even more scattered.

 

Darnit David, My feet still do touch the ground and I can't offer hope nor change. I feel like I'm in a game of risk, when all I wanted to do was cuddle up to my precious little ones. Each and every on has a distinct personality and quirks but mostly they are just cold and whiny.

We ARE bouncing gleefully!  ...lol

"P.S. okay you two green little men, Dino and Brent  you may now bounce with glee. I've gone full retard and joined yet another forum, now my brain is even more scattered. "


Welcome aboard and bouncing away !    

I took mine out on the meteor shower we had a month ago or so. I dont feel I saw anymore than one would see if the naked eye. I may have been looking in the wrong location in the sky though.

I've used both the Collins and BIPH. The Collins worked pretty well with very little edge distortion but the optics where simply not matched well with the convex screen. The BIPH was interesting because it was Bi-ocular and gave the feel that there was some depth to the image. The BIPH I looked through was one of Doug's first runs and their was a lot of edge distortion and the screen was quite small. The panoramic EP on the BIPH came off a ATN Voyager and was designed for the flat output of a 25mm screen, so it wasn't very compatible with the convex 18mm screen of the 10160 style tube. I would liken it to looking through a PVS-22 with a 2x magnifier with a lot of edge distortion. I believe the new one's have the edge distortion corrected but not the magnification. I asked him for a housing once and he was a real PG-13 about it, so in responce I hobbled together my own, which can be seen here;
http://www.nightvisionforums.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5959

I don't see why Nagler would be developing a intensified eyepiece since there are cheap alternatives like the Micro Monocular that work as well as whatever they may develop.But like the rest I'm a sucker for new things, so I look forward to what they may bring to the table. The eyepiece on the Micro Monocular is the same as on the PVS-14 and AVS-6/9 units and we all know how good those are. If I where you, I'd purchase a Micro and C-Mount to 2" Eyepiece adapter and call it good. The c-mount adapters vary in price and quality but here's one for reference;http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_c2bf.htm.

As far as filter go I can't offer much advise. The only one I have is a Lumicon Deep Sky Filter and haven't noticed any improvements, keep in mind there's very little light pollution here in Hawaii, at least where I do my viewing. Since your in Loma Linda, which probably has as much light pollution as Claremont where I lived back in early 2000, you'll probably want something like the Lumicon Hydrogen Alpha Filter http://www.lumicon.com/astronomy-accessories.php?cid=1.

I don't have a picture hosting site, so I will take some photo's of my set up and post it on Michael's forum and then post a link in this thread.

As far as tube selection for this set up goes, you'll want to pick a tube with the lowest EBI possible: EBI<0.5 optimally.

Hi Victor, nice to talk with you today, and thanks so much for all the service.  Love the  AN/PVS-14!!!

As we discussed, I'm interested in trying to attach this (securely, please) to my 5 inch refracting APO scope, to see what some of the deep sky objects look like.  I perused this thread and wonder if someone can link/post more info about using PVS-14 on the night sky.  There was a quick reference to Pinnacle tubes not being well suited to astro work - wonder why?  The extent of my PVS-14 astro experience is direct viewing the milky way from my fairly dark skies, and I was blown away, to be succinct.
Am presently planning to head out to try to find a step up ring that will let me couple the inside threads of the 14's objective to something that I can slide into the tube of the scope, lock down, and achieve good focus.  Will post back here if I have any success.

Edit: a few more ideas:

Has anyone tried taking separate exposures of the same area using R/G/B filters and then combining with a digital program as three images to obtain full color shots of the night sky??  If this is wacked out or plain wrong, I stand corrected, but it seems some of the guys doing imaging with CCD cams are doing something like this.  You'd have to capture screen images in B/W and combine them somehow.  Don't know if this is even feasible.

Also, is there a risk of damaging Gen III tubes by accidentally scanning across the Moon?  Seems that could be pretty intense through a scope - like daylight.  

I just measured my eyepiece holders and they're not a good fit for the '14.  14 is like 31mm inside threads and about 35mm outside diameter.  The inside threads are very close to the 1 and 1/4 inch finders, but the outside are way off from the 2 inch standard.  Any ideas/success people have had would be appreciated.

the threads are 30.5mm..

google "Digiscoping" until as expert comes along...

I think the expert you refer to should be sleeping at this hour. I gave up on astronomy. My camera is challenge enough for me. I really would love to learn more about it. Have a brand new telescope in the basement. Never been a read the instructions kind of guy but after looking at nothing but a blur in the sky for over an hour I think it is time to break out the manual and read it ! :)