Review: FLIR MS-324b IR night vision monocle

[mastreb]

My ship in the Navy was one of the first to receive a mast-mounted forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera which at the time was valued at something like $20M. During the gulf war we used it routinely to do battle damage assessments, and (mortifyingly) to determine whether bodies in the water were alive or dead. We did a night rescue once where we likely would never have found an overboard sailor without it, but had him back aboard in 30 minutes with it.

It's important to know that FLIR cannot look through glass; glass is reflective to the the long-wave infrared detected by these cameras. In fact glass looks like a mirror through the FLIR. You cannot use them through glass windshields.

They were expensive then, and they're expensive now. I'd been looking at the FLIR handheld units for a while, but couldn't justify the $3000 expense (they start at $2000, but you don't get to what I consider useful resolution until $3000).

I've done a number of night moorings in both well lit harbors and marinas (San Diego Bay, Hudson River) and in very dark, small harbors with few aids to navigation (Oceanside, Newport Beach). San Diego, my home port, is also subject to frequent marine layer fogs of various densities, and I've had to make numerous returns to marinas in pea soup.

Using the 4th of July fireworks boating outing as my excuse trigger, I bought the MS-324b handheld FLIR monacle a few days ago. Having recently struck a channel marker at dusk, I reasoned that the high price was cheaper than my insurance going up permanently. But mostly it was an excuse.

It's an hour in complete darkness from the mooring field where we were rafted up with my brother-in-law to our marina in the south bay, and there were going to be more drunken boaters on the bay in the dark than at any other time.

So we set off at 10:00 p.m., in a dense cloud of smoke and seeded haze from the fireworks across San Diego bay in the dark. The admiral was on FLIR watch, my other brother-in-law was on visual watch, and I was on the helm.

The FLIR could easily detect boats more accurately and at greater distance than by visual alone. It could also more accurately determine size and bearing of targets than by visual means alone. Furthermore, it was easier to tell how far they were away than my looking at light-points in the dark. In one case, a powerboat without Nav lights was identified by my wife coming towards us about 2000 feet away, and I couldn't see it until it was 50 feet away. We were able to keep well clear of him despite his seeming efforts to remain on a collision course with us.

There were four or five other incidents where she pointed out boats that neither I nor the visual watch saw until she pointed them out, but seemed to be "right on top of us" once we actually saw them. This speaks to the difficulty of discriminating hundreds of different light sources in the dark.

Once we were out of the fray, there was little use for the FLIR. In the quiet and empty south bay, the chart plotter was by far the more useful instrument for keeping track of the shoreline. While you could see the short line better with the FLIR than visually, it wasn't any more recognizable than usual. San Diego bay also has a comprehensive system of channel marker buoys that make it hard for any competent sailor to get lost.

Did it work? Yes, it does what it says it does. It's ability to look through haze and pick out boats in the dark is pretty amazing. It also clearly recognizes dinghies, kayaks, and paddleboarders in the dark that you are unlikely to see until you're on top of them. In the busy harbor at night, While we wouldn't have had an incident anyway, it was definitely a value.

Was it useful? In this case, we didn't have an incident that I felt would have occurred without it. My estimate is most boaters might have one or two fewer accidents in their lifetime with a FLIR. That might be similar to the number of extra accidents caused by mucking about with tech toys while driving. You definitely want to have someone other than the helmsman on watch with this device, as it is distracting and switching between visual and FLIR lookout is not instantaneous. You can watch visually with one eye and using FLIR with the other, and mentally switch between images, but it takes brain power you should be using to concentrate on the helm.

Was it worth it? Nope. The price point needs to be about $500 before the risk/cost curve meets in my opinion. Yes, it can be a lifesaver if you have someone go overboard in the dark, but the likelyhood of that happening to a careful boater is about nil. People responsible enough to buy FLIR for lifesaving purposes are also responsible enough to have everyone in lifejackets, not get drunk in close-quarters events, and to stand a proper watch in the dark. People dumb enough not to do these things are also not going to have equipment like this. If you routinely come into a busy but dark harbor, and you have trouble discriminating boats in the dark, you should consider one of these. But a chart plotter is a much better instrument for determining where you are in relation to the shoreline. The only real purpose of the FLIR is finding and identifying objects in the water.

It does have other, non-marine uses that are interesting, but I would call this a tool for people who know they need it and can derive revenue from using it. If it's not going to make you money, it's not worth the price in my opinion. I'll keep it because I'm a nerd and will be fitting it to my DSLR to do some fun photographic stuff, but I wouldn't buy one solely for marine purposes.

[Crikey]

Matt, would you consider a 500 cp remote operated floodlight a usefull item by comparison. They're fairly affordable and could be mounted on the pulpit or mast.

R.

[Russ]

Yea, $3k for night vision is a bit steep for most casual boaters.

Santa placed a "Night Owl" night vision monocular under the tree this Christmas.
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Owl-Lightwe ... 19&sr=8-13

It's probably not as nice as your MS-324b, but for under $200 it's pretty cool. I haven't used it on the Mac, however we took a cruise out of New Orleans in February and during the 8 hour trip at night down the Mississippi was fun to see stuff on the shore and in the river. It's pretty cool to see stuff in pitch darkness.



They make a "marine" version that floats and is waterproof. However, this thing is well made (in Russia).
Santa also included a Long Range Infrared Active Illuminator
http://www.amazon.com/Streamlight-88704 ... 203&sr=8-2&
This is supposed to supplement the built in IR on the monocle. I haven't tried this yet, but will the next night on the boat.

--Russ

[mastreb]

Matt, would you consider a 500 cp remote operated floodlight a usefull item by comparison. They're fairly affordable and could be mounted on the pulpit or mast.

R.

I'm not sure. We were lit up by two or three larger powerboats that had these floods on the way in. They looked to have a useful range of only a few hundred feet, and they're pretty annoying for the people being lit up. They also really only work directly forward, so it would be quite a hunt to find a person in the water. But they're only a few hundred dollars, so they're certainly easier to justify.

Honestly I think the FLIR would be more useful in just about all cases except docking, where a flood would be a big help.

[Catigale]

would you consider a 500 cp remote operated floodlight a usefull item by comparison

The problem here is your night vision is destroyed unless you instruct the watch to close eyes while you light paint. Ive actually done this on the Cape.

Using the 4th of July fireworks boating outing as my excuse trigger

A well developed skill indeed..

t also clearly recognizes dinghies, kayaks, and paddleboarders in the dark that you are unlikely to see until you're on top of them

..at the risk of being harsh, these activities in a traffic area are frankly, Darwinesque...

[mastreb]

t also clearly recognizes dinghies, kayaks, and paddleboarders in the dark that you are unlikely to see until you're on top of them

..at the risk of being harsh, these activities in a traffic area are frankly, Darwinesque...

I'm absolutely baffled by it. We had a gaggle of unlit paddleboarders cross in front of us, and at least a dozen kayaks out, some lit with flashing bicycle LEDs (actually worked best) and two or three with correct portable NAV red/green flashlights suction cupped to them. We were passed by three completely unlit Jetskis doing >40 knots as well.

The powerboat without any lights on at all was the winner for the darwin award IMHO.

The other baffling thing? The two dozen or so people fighting at the launch ramps to pull their skiffs and jetskis out at 11:00 p.m.

Now that I think about it, we should have just stayed rafted up and slept aboard 'till morning.

Somebody at Pier 32 has been stealing NAV light covers from MacGregors. When I checked my lights after turning them on my bow light was white. 3rd time this has happened this year. Fortunately after theft #2 I ordered a spare and was able to put that on. I put a tie strap around it this time so at least the bastard will have to have a tool with him.

Walked past two other MacGregors at the pier yesterday. Both were missing their nav light covers. Gonna have to have words with the Mac that isn't...

[mastreb]

It's probably not as nice as your MS-324b, but for under $200 it's pretty cool.

Night Vision devices are actually a completely different and complementary technology. They amplify available visible light and near-IR to the point that you can see in near-darkness--but some light is required. Basically they are very light-sensitive camcorders without the 'cord. In regular cameras and camcorders the manufacturers actually put IR filters over the sensor to reduce Near-IR sensitivity so you don't have reds and yellows over-saturated in low-light conditions.

Standard CCDs and CMOS sensors in digital cameras and camcorders pick up IR that's near the visible light spectrum. You can point your TV remote at your camcorder and push buttons--you'll be able to see the IR LED blinking in your camcorder viewscreen, even though you can't see anything visibly. This is because these sensors pickup near IR readily. It's a nifty way to test your remotes.

Night-vision devices like yours are probably more useful for most purposes than FLIR, because it includes both visible and near IR light. But they do require some ambient light and don't work in total darkness. Outdoors, I don't think that's ever a problem.

IR is a __very__ wide band of light though, much "wider" than the visible spectrum. The FLIR device is picking up "Medium wavelength" IR well below the range of Near IR, that consists of no visible light at all, just heat. All objects "glow" in the IR spectrum just the way cinders glow in visible light. However warm an object is, it glows in infrared at that level. This is what FLIR picks up.

This makes warm bodies "pop out" in contrast, but you can't see objects that are at ambient temperature at all because the device cannot discriminate them from one another. It's not that the objects aren't glowing in IR, it's that they are all the same temperature and therefore all the same "brightness".

It's very useful at sea because temperature differences between cold-water and everything else are pretty extreme, but in warm land environments, it's much less so.

It's useful for things like finding heat leaks, seeing through fog and smoke, determining which objects are absorbing power, finding bodies in the water and seeing boats at a distance, but there are plenty of things you will not see at all so it cannot be relied upon as the only means of vision.

Matt

[Catigale]

Outdoors, I don't think that's ever a problem..

Certainly not near any population center where there is lots of light pollution and scattering from dust down

However warm an object is, it glows in infrared at that level.

Optical trivia

The human body happens to radiate at 32 THz or about 9.5 um - about 20x longer wavelength than green light. I doubt the FLIR can pick up 32 THz but it probably is sensitive at the shorter wavelengths that are also radiated following the Black Body Radiation Law. This isn't a civil rights issue, its called that because it was first observed by Plank at a Southern Baptist Church in Germany.

The woman who says 'Futbol' on the commercials radiates at considerably shorter wavelength.

[mastreb]

Outdoors, I don't think that's ever a problem..

Certainly not near any population center where there is lots of light pollution and scattering from dust down

However warm an object is, it glows in infrared at that level.

Optical trivia

The human body happens to radiate at 32 THz or about 9.5 um - about 20x longer wavelength than green light. I doubt the FLIR can pick up 32 THz but it probably is sensitive at the shorter wavelengths that are also radiated following the Black Body Radiation Law. This isn't a civil rights issue, its called that because it was first observed by Plank at a Southern Baptist Church in Germany.

The woman who says 'Futbol' on the commercials radiates at considerably shorter wavelength.

That's the center frequency around which the FLIR's thermopile is designed is 9.5um. It shows humans radiating from a long way away.

[Catigale]

Duh, I forgot that system was actually designed for POB retrieval, so one might think the design would be sensitive to that frequency ......

[Wayne nicol]

what do you guys think of the 3G and 4G solid state radar setups.
supposed to be a lot "better" for you. radiation less than a cell phone apparently!!
i bought the setup, and plan to set it up when i build the new tabernacle... it interfaces with the chartplotter/ depthsounder- with the nmea 2000 setup
would like to hear you techno wizards thoughts on this

[sirlandsalot]

I Flew around Edmonton a few nights on the FLlR in the helicopter........blew my mind the accuracy, like shooting fish in a barrel. Almost comical watching crooks thing they are hiding from the chopper. One guy we found running from the copers hiding in a dumpster...we could see his body heat through the steel wall from 1000 feet. Others trying to hide under an ease trough of a roof after a break and enter. Cars escaping through hay fields with their lights of outside off the city..clear as day on the FLIR!

David

[seahouse]

Finding the Boston bomber boy hiding under a boat tarp at night is a recent use that would make most people familiar with this technology.

Question: if he had smeared himself with Preparation-H would it have thwarted the thermopile (?)

-B.

[mastreb]

what do you guys think of the 3G and 4G solid state radar setups.
supposed to be a lot "better" for you. radiation less than a cell phone apparently!!
i bought the setup, and plan to set it up when i build the new tabernacle... it interfaces with the chartplotter/ depthsounder- with the nmea 2000 setup
would like to hear you techno wizards thoughts on this

Whoa!

The video is not going to flow to a chart plotter of NMEA2K, it's Marine Ethernet. Did you get the SIMRAD 4G Radar? If so, you will need a Marine Ethernet chart plotter such as the B&G Zeus T7 or the equivalent Simrad. I >think< the Garmin 740S might work. In any case, the video does not flow over N2K, so I'd expect compatability issues.

But yeah, the technology is friggin amazing. 26nm on less than 1W output? That's bananas. Imagine a 1 Watt LED--bright, okay--illuminating something 36nm away and detecting return? Hard to believe. If I didn't know it worked I wouldn't believe it.

The SIMRAD 4G radar will be the radar I put on the new boat when I do it, but I'm not going to do it until I'm blue water cruising in a few years. Great price for the functionality though at $2500.

Let me know how it works!

[mastreb]

Finding the Boston bomber boy hiding under a boat tarp at night is a recent use that would make most people familiar with this technology.

Question: if he had smeared himself with Preparation-H would it have thwarted the thermopile (?)

-B.

Problem is the P-H will come to temperature very quickly, and the contact patch is small. Maybe you're thinking of BENGEY? Or Icy Hot?