Clip on night vision/thermal how it works in front of a dayscope.

[rgilbert]

I have noticed this phenomena also and have done some experimenting.

My theoretical plan is to scan with white hot and shoot with black hot. It doesn't always work out that way, but that is the plan. But after walking around for 2 hrs with the 14 on the left eye and holding the apollo on WH up to my right eye (as a handheld monocular) I get headaches. So, I started using the RED ("custom OEM") pallet. It is one away from the white hot pallet so if I actually see something I can switch to the WH pallet quickly.

The RED pallet seems to be able to detect things just as easily as the WH, though I think the WH is better for identification. Switching back and forth between BH and WH helps also for ID, depending on the conditions (see Aaron's NV tips!).
RED pallet dramatically reduces headaches. I can now look through the Apollo for say 70% of 2 hours without headaches.
RED pallet reduces light coming out of the back of the Apollo and bouncing off me, thus increasing visible stealth.
RED pallet seems to increase battery life.

If my apollo had a brightness control, like I hear the new ones do, then running WH/BH on reduced brightess might accomplish all this also. So perhaps my RH pallet is just a poor man's brightness control!

I'm doing the same with the WH vs the BH. I use white hot to scan and black hot to shoot. I'm still using the PVS14 helmet mounted for the majority of my scanning

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

I added this to the original but this is a video showing live targets at ranges like requested.

 

[JPK]

The video is showing an error. My computer? Or a problem with the video?

JPK

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

This phone will not copy and paste right

 

[Daryl licht]

I've had a great deal of experience with clip on thermals (both FLIR and Armasight) and the problems I've experienced haven't been with the clip on unit as much as with the optic it's mounted in front of. It usually boils down to parallax issues. Recently I had the new vortex razor gen 2 in 1 x 6 mounted in front of the new Armasight apollo pro 100mm unit. It was a disaster. The vortex had so much parallax that when the digital zoom was engaged on the Apollo the bullets impact would shift up to a foot from the previous shot. When the Apollo was mounted in front of a trijicon acog 4x the parallax issues were resolved...although other issues arose. The FLIR t-50 in front of the acog had no parallax issues as this unit was designed to be used with this scope but still when the t-50's digital zoom was engaged the point of impact would shift. If the unit was sighted in with digital multiplier engaged on 2x that's where it had to be in order to successfully engage targets...if you doubled it again to 4x the bullets point of impact would shift dramatically. Clip on thermals are fine for engaging targets under 100 yds. Or for very specialized weapon systems where the operator has spent the amount of time and ammunition required to make hits at distance. Personally I find no use for the clip on system with the advent of quick release mounts that return your optics to zero each and every time they're used. Besides who needs to hump the extra weight of a weapon system with a scope and NVD device mounted when you dont need too. It's why I switched from the Apollo to the Zeus from Armasight. But to each his own.

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

From what I understand with the clip on you do not use the digital zoom digital zoom is for when you are using it as a stand alone scope. Leave it on 1x and use the day scopes zoom.

 

[Daryl licht]

I specifically asked this question of dimitri at Armasight and one of the engineers at FLIR, both told me the digital zoom shouldn't shift the point of impact. The engineers at Armasight never got the issues resolved. I bought 2 of the Armasight apollo pro 100's and tried them both in front of the new 1x6 vortex and a schmitd & bender 5x25 and neither would maintain zero after multiple trips to the "shop" to repair this issue. I traded them both in for 2 of the Zeus pro 100's and with the new software I am now very pleased. The people at FLIR could of cared less. They acknowledged the issue then tried to sell me a battery holder for 800 dollars. They had far too many government purchase orders to care about the individual purchaser.

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

I hear ya but now you know digital zoom does not work with clip ons. I know you have a zeus now but for others out there with apollos only use the day scopes magnification not the digital zoom. I prefer the dedicated scopes myself but a clip in is handy lots of times especially hunting daytime and then straight into the night with one rifle.

 

[Daryl licht]

I agree the digital zooms don't work on the clip on versions, I just wish they wouldn't market that as a fact, as you say it is just as easy to crank up the zoom on the scope. I much prefer the Armasight equipment over the FLIR for various reasons, I just expect for 10,000 a pop for stuff to work as advertised. Personnally my perfect thermal would have white hot/black hot, the range finder and the 100mm lens...still amazed at the detail, the mechanical shutter for the non uniformity correction (nuc) and the ability to take AA batteries and the reticle of my choice. Armasight fulfills this perfectly and they actually care what the end user thinks. Just drives me crazy to see stuff advertised not work i.e. Bluetooth or digital zoom. Not that I want Bluetooth and I can work around the digital zoom issue on a clip on but if I'm paying for it...I want it to work

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

Yea I did not realize they advertise it works on digital zoom, that was the first thing people told me about lip ons don't use digital zoom. But these were users not designers.

 

[Daryl licht]

Engineers can build anything hypothetically...but not necessarily real world.when I started working with the space program the first old joke you hear is about the difference in the Russian engineering philosophy vs the American ideal. Americans spent 3,000,000 dollars inventing a pen that worked in zero gravity, the Russians used a pencil. Same goals, same outcome just a different mindset.