Has anybody tried thermal gun scopes?

[ikrase]

While shopping for thermal cameras I found some notable and oddly inexpensive options from the firearms scope world.

First are the low-end ATN thermal scopes and thermal spotting scopes and the low-end Pulsar spotting scopes, which are available with "1.25x" lenses (FOV around 15-25 degrees) and 30hz 320x240 sensors.

These routinely are available for under $1500 USD and are of course IP67 and shock-resistant.

[tautech]

Only those on others rifles when they come to use my range.
Monochrome versions only and they easily show up rabbits at 300 yds in the dark. 

One day when I'm feeling flush.....maybe.

[ikrase]

That's less expensive than the FLIR 320x240 camera.

[tautech]

That's less expensive than the FLIR 320x240 camera.

Yes because IR rifle scopes are monochrome !

[Spirit532]

Yes because IR rifle scopes are monochrome !

That's irrelevant. All thermal imaging cameras are B&W, some just apply false color.

[Fraser]

A rifle sight is tuned to the needs of the hunter or possible SAR in some cases. They are basically stripped down thermal cameras with an optical block suited to longer range working. They are often very limited in functionality and connectivity.

A standard thermal camera normally offers a choice of temperature measurement modes, palettes and analysis software. Rifle sights rarely provide such unless they have an I/O port for use with a laptop. The viewfinder on a rifle scope also dictates close eye use and, in many cases, relatively poor image quality. A handheld thermal camera normally uses a decent sized LCD display that provides good image quality. Some rifle scopes do provide composite video output.

It is a case of horses for courses really. I own the FLIR Scout II and HS series scopes and, though very nice, they are nowhere near as useful or nice to use as my Ex and Exx series cameras. That said, the scopes lend themselves to recon work and SAR tasks for which they were designed. The HS series even has an SD card for recording images, plus a small choice of palettes. It has no temperature measurement modes though.

If you dismantle a FLIR SCOUT or HS scope, you find the venerable TAU core within it. That core can be directly accessed via its comms port to provide modes that are not normally made available to the scope user, including temperature measurement. The cheaper FLIR TK contains the somewhat limited Lepton core and is a completely different story.

If you want a thermal rifle scope, buy a thermal rifle scope, if you want a versatile thermal camera, do not buy a rifle scope ! The same applies to Thermal Drone and CCTV cameras.

Fraser

[Vipitis]

There is also software functions baked into those. Flir has DDE - digital detail enhancement; which is a special made of histogram stretching and sharpening. https://www.flirmedia.com/MMC/CVS/Tech_Notes/TN_0003_EN.pdf

Which is made for it's use case - survaliance and detection on long range. Human and vehicle targets. The Flir Scout TK has this baked in.

There is likely similar features to other manufacturers.

[Bill W]

Rifle sights are the origin of many 'uncooled' thermal sensors in use today.  US state sponsorship of detectors in the 1980's for military rifle sights gave us the first generation of commercial detectors/cores from Raytheon (ASi and BST) and VOX from Lockheed, Indigo and Boeing. 

Indigo are the ancestors of FLIR detectors.

The parallel is with commercial aviation where the US troop transport requirement resulted in the Lockheed TriStar (actually used) and the 747 and DC10 as the 'not chosen' then sold commercially.

Measurement, colour and software all came later, for a while simply seeing thermally without the complications of cooled detectors was enough, as it still is for simple imaging as opposed to thermography.

Bill

[ixfd64]

I've noticed that many thermal rifle scopes don't indicate temperature. That's kind of a deal breaker for me.

[ikrase]

Yeah.

The ones I was looking at are rather below the military price range -- these were the ones sold by ATN. Mostly I was wondering whether the core they contain is of any use but it's probably all proprietary and soldered together.

[Fraser]

Many decent quality thermal scopes contain a FLIR core, namely the TAU or TAU2. The TAU is a self contained camera module that is controlled via RS232 format data at 0/3v3 levels. FLIR provide a free TAU configuration utility that runs on a PC. The TAU may be set to power up in any chosen configuration and outputs a choice of digital data or composite video.

Whether it is worth buying a new scope in order to extract the TAU core is another matter.

Fraser

[Avi1982]

I was looking for a high end solution and found it with Opgal's thermal rifle scope.
the Sii WS by Opgal has a start time under 5sec, weighs only 2.1 lb, has a resolution of 640 x 480, 17μm and a 60hz frame rate.
vehicle detection of up to 4000m and Human/animal detection of up to 2000m.

[DaneLaw]

I was looking for a high end solution and found it with Opgal's thermal rifle scope.
the Sii WS by Opgal has a start time under 5sec, weighs only 2.1 lb, has a resolution of 640 x 480, 17μm and a 60hz frame rate.
vehicle detection of up to 4000m and Human/animal detection of up to 2000m.

Are you an affiliate or making an advertisement for Opgal (which are also an Israel-company to my knowledge)
I'm asking since you didn't put any vital info as price in the above.
If you are an Israeli Opgal-affiliate there are humping the scene as a basic consumer promoting their stuff, then fair enough but then you could perhaps make some cracking deals for the users here, then you or Opgal would likely sell a lot.