Making a head set for my night vision?

Question

I have a night-Owl Night vision Hand held Monocular. Any ideas on making a head set for it?

Answer 1

Of course your monocular was never intended as a head-mounted optic, but I suppose it could be modified into one.

There are a couple of issues you'll have to deal with, though.

a) Weight.

The Night owl hand-held units I've examined were aproximately the size of a 16 oz plastic soda bottle. They weigh, I'd guess over a pound. You're going to need more than a harness to hold that size and weight of an object securely into place.

I recomend using a protective helmet with a strong chin strap. You want one of the solid ones meant for serious uses such as skydiving. It has to fit well, and have a chin strap that can be tightly secured.

You will have to craft a bracket and securely attach it to the helmet using epoxy glue AND nuts and bolts.(to spread the weight over an area), positioned so that the optic lines up well with your eye. The optic probably should be attached to the bracket by way of s***w-type hose clamps, you know, the metal strips with all the little slits in them that tighten by turning a s***w? Like the ones on a car's radiator hoses. Use one near each end. You can loosen these and adjust the position of the optic in front of your eye.

b) The other difficulty you may or may not face depending on the exact model monocular you have, is magnification. There are several variations I've seen. 3X 3-5X, 1-3X and 1X.

If you have a 1-3X or a 1X model you are in buisness. Just dial the telephoto down to 1X. Everything will appear the same size through both your uncovered eye and your Night Vision eye.

If you have a 3X or 3-5X, you have a problem. Everything in your night vision eye, will appeaer three times larger than they will with your uncovered eye. Walking with the 3X eye would be fairly dangerous, as you could not judge distances accurately. You'd have to

Study the path  front of you with the NV, and then close the NV eye, and do your best to follow the remembered path.

Trying to look through both eyes open at the same time would start to mess with your head badly,very quickly.