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Posted: 4/8/2007 4:13:17 PM EDT
| Ok, so this will be my first post over here in the NV forum. I know little to nothing about night vision, but have been semi-permenately loaned a Gen 2 ATN AMT Aries Mk 6500. I know enough to know that ATN isn't exactly top of the line, but considering I got it for free I won't complain too much. I guess my question(s) is/are what should I know about this thing? What can any of you tell me about it? Also I don't have a manual for this thing, anyone know where I can get one? Any other information would be helpful as well. Thanks. |
Pretty damn cool.
| Just messing around with it last night, it seems that it gains too much light. If I take cap off outside in the dark, it seems that it gets too bright and washes everything out so I can't see anything. It doesn't seem to have any gain control, there's a brightness control but I can't reduce the gain. I'm gonna try experimenting with home made lens caps with varying sized holes in them to see if I can find a hole size that helps keep it from washing out so much. It also seems that ATN has discontinued this model. The closest model they have is the Mk 6600 which looks somewhat the same, but has a lot more features. This thing is pretty barebones. |
| ok, so I came across this and I think they may sell one with the appropriate diameter(54mm) and the proper mounting threads for the front of my optic. I'm gonna contact them, and see. |
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Ok you are headed down the road of what I call mechanicaly controled adjustable gain. Not a bad project at all. Ok when you decrease the light coming in the objective lens via an aperature you are going to get an increase in depth of field. For our type of optics this is a GOOD thing for close (read arms length) manipulation of anything. I have been experimenting with this same thing in day covers with larger ID holes. One of these would solve all my problems. I am going to check these out. THANKS for the link IPSC_GUY SIERRA II ALPHA |
Thank, just from browsing around their site they seem to deal mainly with laboratory optics for things like lasers and beam manipulation and stuff like that. Could prove to be rather useful stuff. |
Yes it does have a daylight cover that works fine, and without the cap in total dark it really does ok it just when i'm out behind my apartment (where there's lots of ambient light from street lamps and lights from peoples windows and on their houses) I get lots of extra light that just washes everything out, I would assume from reading around this is that "bloom" you guys talk about in "urban environments". Everywhere I saw it said that this is corrected by adjusting the gain. Since my optic doesn't have gain control, I started experimenting with pieces of cardboard with different sized holes in it taped over my objective lens. |
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The detractors to this method will say that "your decreasing your signal to noise ratio." In truth you are, but if you need to knock the brightness down, then it really doesn't matter if your doing it by a mechanical method or electronic method. The scene is too bright. Where SNR really comes into play is in very dark enviroments where there is NOT much ambient light and then ya need all the light you can get to keep your image quality up. I think having a variable aperature on a Night Vision Device iwill be a grand improvment. I am going to try one of these out. IPSC_GUY SIERRA II ALPHA |
| Well, I heard back from them today. I help Applications Engineer by the name of Bruce told me that the 54mm Iris Diaphragm doesn't have any filter threads and that I should try searching www.GlobalSpec.com to see if I could find anything that met my specifications. This Global Spec place is awesome, will definitely be useful if I ever need some sort of special application part(s). In the mean time, I think I can construct a threaded filter assembly for this device using a 55mm to 54mm adapter and some strong epoxy. When I have some cash to spare I'm gonna order one of these things and will update this thread as I progress in this project. |
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