The above are photos from the OPSIN 2 (by means of base line comparison) relative to the Hikmicro ALPEX 4K A50EL (digital rifle scope) - conditions were as follows, 75 minutes after sunset and 15 minutes after nautical dusk.  Drizzle and cloud cover were present as was skyglow reflected off the clouds from a town about 15km away.  

The detector (in the ALPEX) appears to have a 2 micron pixel pitch and has good/solid quantum efficiency well into the IR spectrum responding well to 940 IR.  In terms of magnification it runs out to 28x (8 x digital from base of 3.5).  

In built LRF and ballistic calculator that shows point of impact solution in the scope, plus one shot zero - overall a surprisingly decent package.  

As a rule I prefer a decent quality first focal plane day scope, plus thermal spotter and thermal scope - however, this device squares a few circles and is surprisingly good beyond dusk (in IR mode).  At the end of the day its still a digital camera with the IR filter removed and thus for night use does have real limitations, however it does go to show that with a large lens plus large detector (3840 x 2160) and in effect a bit of a brute force approach (from a tech perspective) this can be made to work surprisingly well.

PS Illuminators were not used and images were taken within a few minutes of each other.

I'm curios whether that is digital video, or raw video from the camera.  If it's digital, it seems like there would be enough of a delay to screw with aiming.  It wouldn't take much for it to be a real issue.

The frame rate is 50 Hz (50 frames per second) which is 0.02 of a second.  At a muzzle velocity of  3000 fps thats about 10 yds of bullet travel at around 400m/440yds.  So has no impact on POA relative to POI.  Moreover, 50 Hz is a common frame rate for thermal scopes and hasn't been shown to be an issue.    

The big win is the LRF is built in and provides an in scope POA for the ranged distance. So far it has provided solutions to a little over 900 yds.  You do have to have a good handle on your muzzle velocity if you want genuine accuracy e.g. either back calculated from range data or from a chronograph.




Conditions: End of nautical dusk, cloud cover, 8% moon.  Rain showers.  Note the ranged distance is 933 yds to the treeline in the centre of the image (ranging point white box)  The buildings to the left of the treeline are at a distance of 2.5km.  No IR illumination.

PS - the scope was not mounted to a firearm in the image above.

The frame rate isn't what I was talking about. All digital cameras have a processing delay.  The displayed video lags behind the real world.  It's probably not noticeable.

Most current gear processing time is around 1 frame equivalent and has been for several years.  

Processors and detectors are improving at a significant rate, the technology lag is around sensitivity relative to pixel pitch in low light scenarios.  

The brute force approach is lots of pixels e.g. the OPSIN 2 has a pixel pitch of 10 microns whereas this ALPEX detector has a pixel pitch of 2 microns, equating to 25 pixels to the OPSINs 1 pixel.  In this instance brute force is starting to get close to smart science.  The other down side, is more pixels = more processing = more power.

Looking pretty good, thanks for sharing.  Pair that thing with an Armasight Watchman and I bet the image would be excellent.  Out of curiosity, how is the image during the day?

Very good, you switch to daylight mode and can adjust brightness, contrast etc or simply leave it in auto mode.  Its the equivalent of an 8 megapixel camera with a 50mm F/L - you can also adjust aperture from F1.2 to F2.5.  The former is good at night time and doesn't overly flatten the depth.  

No real fatal flaws as yet, great for all round feral pest control.  

"Lag"  has to be monstrous to matter - if it's in the Aurora Pro 30ms (or better) range - its a real world a non-issue. The "lag" when you blink, is an averaged 300ms.

Thanks for the new product report.

Still a long way to go, the initial race was to improve resolution with digital technology - now we have 60MP cameras and norms of ~ 25MP, the quantum efficiencies and spectral ranges have improved and pushed more and more into the NIR spectrum but as you reduce pixel pitch you lose effective sensitivity - thats why SiOnyx originally stuck with ~ 10 micron pixel pitch, this allowed effective harvesting of available "light" whilst retaining the ability to produce an ok image (e.g. a small number of large detectors Vs a large number of small detectors).  

Cracking the sensitivity relative to pixel pitch problem along with improved FOV will take time, probably another 10 years, largely through incremental improvement.  Having said that, its clear "workaday" tools are starting to arrive (as above), certainly as useful stop gaps.

My feeling is more return or impact will be achieved by the effective fusion of spectral ranges/detectors - but this won't be low cost.  Obviously, .mil have been doing this for a long time but as always size and or cost are an impediment for this to move into the civilian market.