Would it be possible to have both a fiber optic based reticle and battery powered back up where there is a sensor that detects the amount of light the fiber optic tube is gathering to light the reticle and another inside the scope tube to see how bright the target is and then have it automatically adjust the battery operated portion of the reticle to boost the reticle brightness when necessary and dim it when appropriate?  Then you could have the perfect reticle brightness for outside, inside, a quick flash of your weapon mounted light or even from a dim interior looking into a lit area.

The fiber optic would mean less draw on the battery to extend its life and by closing the scope cap the battery powered portion of the reticle would go into a "sleep mode" for storage since the sensor in the tube would see no light.

Kind of a cross breed of the Dr Optik and Trijicon systems without the drawbacks or use of Triutium which dims over time.  It could even exceed the time between battery swaps of an Aimpoint theoretically.  Is this a patentable idea?  Am I way off base?

Quoted: Kind of a cross breed of the Dr Optik and Trijicon systems without the drawbacks or use of Triutium which dims over time.  It could even exceed the time between battery swaps of an Aimpoint theoretically.  Is this a patentable idea?  Am I way off base?

Patentable?   Most likely.    Catch is funding the patent and finding a buyer for it, assuming you won't be manufacturing it yourself.

Oh, and the clock is now ticking...  

-z

In a nutshell - yes it's possible.

DevL - dont take this the wrong way - but 10yrs is a pretty long time for a weapon scope - you really dont like Tritium much do you?

Quoted: Catch is funding the patent and finding a buyer for it

No kidding, imagine the retail cost of that scope!

I posted about a similar idea back in March 2001:
www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62397

So I was reading some old threads about red-dots, and one of the arguments against battery-powered red-dots is that having to turn them on when you need it now may be a problem. Here's my idea.. have a red-dot with three power-on settings: 1. completely off - no power at all. 2. motion sensitive mode - when the rifle is in motion (actually, undergoing acceleration), the reticle will automatically be activated. Once activated, it will stay "on" until the rifle has been motionless for period of time. This period may be configurable, but I would expect between 5 and 30 minutes would be reasonable. 3. locked on - in this mode, the reticle will stay lit regardless of motion or lack thereof. Models like the Aimpoint Comp/M family currently have modes 1 and 3 only (along with brightness controls, etc). The idea is that if the rifle is locked in the safe, or it is in your trunk, you leave it in mode #1, so that no batteries are used at all. In the trunk, the bounces of travel will not activate the sight. If this is a "go-to" gun, then you leave it in mode 2. The reticle will be deactivated after sitting still a short period of time. If you pick up the gun in an emergency, it will automatically activate immediately, and stay lit as long as there is some movement every 30 or whatever minutes. If you are going to be sitting a long time, totally motionless, and you will want the reticle to be lit, you put it in mode 3. There is no requirement for moving parts or any sort of room-temperature metal (conductor) in a vial (as in some old toys). Solid-state semiconductor accelerometers exist (e.g.: the G-tech auto-performance tool). Presumably, the sensitivity of the sensor could be calibrated appropriately. The battery & turn-on issue issue is the only reason I currently prefer the Trijicon ReflexII over the Aimpoint Comp/M. Combine this idea with one of the new high-intensity, small LEDs (which has hundreds of hours on a single small battery) and you have a very capable system. Modes #1 and #3 could be omitted or made hard to activate so the rifle would more likely be "ready". Does anyone currently build such a sight? Why not? -z

Note that this was before the Aimpoint M2 was released, and before I was a TA11 convert.

-z