Does anyone sell "glasses made to see infrared lasers"?

Im looking for a pair of glasses that you wear in order to be able to see infrared wavelengths. Do these glasses exist? Im kinda nervous cause the hous across the street behind my house always has a very faint red-ish, and a very faint violet-ish light turned on(for who knows what reason). But its aimed at my house, or at least thats what i think. I want to see if its some sort of spying devie or something. Maybe its just me getting paranoid, but i wouldnt mind having the glasses themselves. If anyone knows where to buy them, or if you have a pair, please tell me

I have seen filters somewhere that can be used to set up and focus IR lasers. I just can't remember where.....maybe It'll come to me. :thinking:

rocket689 said:

I have seen filters somewhere that can be used to set up and focus IR lasers. I just can't remember where.....maybe It'll come to me. :thinking:

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Well, i wouldnt want to be the one to physically "make" the glasses, Cause my hands are usually shaky(which is why i cant be a doctor sadly) when it comes to working small scale. But if you do remember, be sure to tell me

I believe they were like the size of a slide projector slide or a diffraction grating. I'll keep trying to remember where I saw it. :beer:

There are no passive glasses that let you see IR, you need some sort of active glasses to "convert" the IR light to some visible WL that you can see on a LCD screen/CRT tube etc. A cheap webcam with the IR filter removed, an old cell phone with no/poor IR filter, night vision glasses, etc...

There are IR detector cards but those are just covered in a powder that fluoresces under IR light. They won't do much good in your application.

Well, i wouldnt mind active glasses, as long as they're lightweight and not bulky..

Try using your camera ! I tested it and it works even with the ipod nano camera !

A tip ..... if you want to use a camera, and want to be sure to see ONLY the infrared part, you need a IR pass filter ..... professsional ones are usually high cost, but you can yse "diapositive" photofilm ..... i mean, the developed "queue" that usually remain unexposed and that the labs still deliver with the dia frames, that looks totally black at normal light, will block visible spectrum, but left pass almost totally the IR part, so a piece of it in front of the objective, will work almost as a professional filter, and usually for free (asking some photographic shops if they gift you that part, that usually they throw away).


EDIT: i just remembered ..... there was some studies about using zinc sulfide activated with lead, cobalt and praseodymium dopants, for generate luminescence in presence of IR, but they was at experimental range, and the difficulty to obtain the needed purity of the elements will turn it just in a lab curiosity, probably ..... not like the "James Bond orange glasses for reveal IR beams" from 007 films, anyway

I think it is possible to see "passively" IR by combining the red (blue tinted) and green (red tinted) lasershades. (ones I used were from WL). In any case, I cannot guarantee that this is safe, and it probably isn't.

Guys..you are thinking like way out of the purpose lol. I only wanted the glasses so that i could see if there were any infrared lasers around. I wanted them to be glasses so i could just put them on anytime instead of having to use a camera or some image processor of the sort. Im not going to use them to look at some bright flashlight or direct into some 2W laser or something..

@Helioplasma: sorry, but that don't work (except if your eyes can see IR )

IR are not in the "visible" range of the spectrum (humans, at least ), so you still need something that convert them in visible light ..... regardless if active or passive "upconverters", you still need a conversion.



@zdarkazn: no need of specific devices, in most of the cases, also the cam of your cellphone can show IR

Even with a digital camera without an IR cut filter, and an IR-pass filter, I haven't been able to see the beam of IR emanating from any laser. Maybe my lasers were not powerful enough to really scatter light enough to create a a beam effect.

You would, however, be able to see IR sources and spots with such a camera.

HIMNL9 said:

@Helioplasma: sorry, but that don't work (except if your eyes can see IR )

IR are not in the "visible" range of the spectrum (humans, at least ), so you still need something that convert them in visible light ..... regardless if active or passive "upconverters", you still need a conversion.

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While indeed you cannot see much (it looks completely dark from the outside), you can actually see something but I doubt very far in the IR in any case (you probably wouldn't see 1064nm in any case). Someone needs to spectrometer what goes through these two combined, I'd like to see what these shades are worth.

BB, that's normal ..... same as other color lasers, the visibility of the beam depend from smoke, fog or mist/dust in the air, and from the power of the beam ofcourse ..... if you're referring to normal IR lasers used for alarm fences, i think they are maybe 5 or 10 mW in total, not more, for safety reasons.

You can easily see the spot, and the source, but probably not the beams themselves, with these powers (except, maybe, if there's enough fog, but still difficult)



EDIT: Helioplasma, if you're referring to the faint red color that you can usually see from IR illuminators for safety cameras, they are normally using cheap 780/790nm leds ..... very near to the "invisible" part of the spectrum, but STILL in the visible range, also if very faint, and still visible also in daylight (if not too much light around that "blind" your vision).

If you use 980nm or over emitters, as professional systems do, you cannot see anything.

Do they make glasses to allow me to see microwaves?

I think HIMNL9 already explained all about it. To convert IR to visible, you'll have to use some equipment like these: Night Vision Goggles, Night Vision Scopes, Night Vision Binoculars, Night Vision Accessories - Equipment by ATN.