[N] Eye boggling moon--Night Vision Devices-Sea story [N]

Jim Nolan (panache426@hotmail.com)
Thu, 23 Dec 1999 11:58:58 MST


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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My first experience with night vision devices was when I was standing bridge
watches in the Navy during the mid seventies. The officer of the deck
handed it to me and said, "be careful, this thing cost 22 thousand dollars".
When were in the middle of the Med so I took it out on the bridge wing for a
look. It was amazing, you could see the waves, other people on the dark ship
and other ships. The NV scope was used intermittently, mostly to check out
the attentiveness of the lookouts with regular binoculars. Well, the moon
was out and I decided to look at it. When I looked it felt like someone
stabbed a sharp stick into my eye and the phosphor screen eyepiece bloomed
and stayed saturated. I quietly put it back into its box, praying no one
would use it soon. Apparently there was no damage (except to my eye) as I
never heard any gripes about the unit.
Note this was a first generation NV unit, todays units are more compact with
less problems. Caution: Do not use them to look into the sun.

Jim Nolan P-19 #426 Panache
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