Night Goggles & Binoculars-How Do They Work?

A Little Night Vision History
The United States Army invented the first night vision device during the Second World War. The first night vision devices used a beam of infrared light that is not visible to the human eye.

This invisible beam of light would bounce off an object and return to the IR illuminator and the image would become visible in the binocular. This technology not unlike any other new technology had problems. The biggest problem was that the enemy could duplicate the technology, see the infrared beam, and find the person using the goggles. The other major problem with them was the image was distorted. This is the first of four generations of night vision goggles. The above-mentioned goggles were known as generation 0.

First Generation
With the coming of the first generation, the technology changed just a little. They still use the IR Illuminator but instead of using a beam of invisible light, they used what is called passive infrared. This new technology used the natural infrared from the environment (light from the Moon and Stars). This did away with the beam of active infrared light and the enemy could no longer find the user. However, with the use of the same tubes as the earlier generation the images were still distorted. This night vision device or NVD was not very reliable on cloudy nights.

Second Generation
The Second generation finally fixed the distortion problem. With the new technology, they improved the transfer tubes by adding a micro channel plate to the tube. The new micro channel plate increased the number of electrons instead of accelerating the original ones.

Third
The third generation is what the United States military is still using today. The only change this NVD has from generation 2 is the use of gallium arsenide. This changes photons to electrons and allows for more sensitivity to light.

Uses
There are several different uses for night vision goggles and night binoculars. The most common use would be for the military. The military would use night vision for night recon on the enemy. With them, they can move into enemy camps under the cover of the night undetected.

Night goggles are also used in the civilian world. People use night vision goggle to watch animals moving at night. Hunters will use NVD to get to their hunting location before daylight and allow the woods to settle down from the strange movements before the sun rises.

Photographers will use night vision lenses to capture photos of animals that only come out at night. They will also use night vision to photograph fish that are so deep in the water that the light is limited.

Conclusion
As you can see, there are many uses for night vision goggles and binoculars. Just think if the military had not decided to fight at night  we would not have photos of many of the animals in the world. The military also developed night vision scopes and this technology has found it's way to the great outdoorsmen where he has put it to use for hunting scopes as a lot of wildlife are more active at night.

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