Seeing your Infrared Laser

[RoyWalker]

Can you see an 1064nm 220mW Infrared Laser beam with night vision?

 

[diachi]

It would depend on what you're using for "Night Vision" - Could you provide a little more detail?

 

[RoyWalker]

Any of these. . . Shop Night Vision Binoculars & Night Vision Monoculars at Binoculars

I'm suspecting night vision enhances the spectral range and that it can indeed see it - i.e. a much higher range than 1000nm.

 

[Trendkilla254]

I'd recommend being very careful with anything that magnifies directly into your eye. I have seen old school camera hacks that remove the IR filter and seem to work well for recording nightvision in black and white. They were using it for "Ghost Hunting".

 

[Sigurthr]

It depends greatly on the amount of particulates in the air, as infrared is even less susceptible to rayleigh scattering than red light, which is why red beams are much less intense than blue beams. That being said, yes, most IR scopes can see 1064nm.

There is no direct optical path in a nightvision scope by the way, even the ones that claim they are "not infrared based" and "optically magnify ambient light" are actually functional in NIR and low IR ranges. The confusion comes because people associate any/all infrared with thermal infrared in the 3.5um and deeper range. Anyway, IR technology basically uses a Photomultiplier tube (PMT) which converts incoming photons into electrons which are then amplified in signal strength and then converted back into photons for our eyes to perceive, typically around 550nm. The optical path stops as soon as light enters the PMT. However, exposing a PMT to bright light of any kind, especially a laser, will often result in permanent damage.

You can simply take a cheap digital camera, remove the infrared-stop filter (aka "hot mirror" or ICF) and it will see 1064nm just fine.

 

[joeyss]

It depends greatly on the amount of particulates in the air, as infrared is even less susceptible to rayleigh scattering than red light, which is why red beams are much less intense than blue beams. That being said, yes, most IR scopes can see 1064nm.

There is no direct optical path in a nightvision scope by the way, even the ones that claim they are "not infrared based" and "optically magnify ambient light" are actually functional in NIR and low IR ranges. The confusion comes because people associate any/all infrared with thermal infrared in the 3.5um and deeper range. Anyway, IR technology basically uses a Photomultiplier tube (PMT) which converts incoming photons into electrons which are then amplified in signal strength and then converted back into photons for our eyes to perceive, typically around 550nm. The optical path stops as soon as light enters the PMT. However, exposing a PMT to bright light of any kind, especially a laser, will often result in permanent damage.

You can simply take a cheap digital camera, remove the infrared-stop filter (aka "hot mirror" or ICF) and it will see 1064nm just fine.

My samsung camera sees 980 just fine and when i put it in darkness mode its just like any other laser except white.

But no beam since it hardly gets scattered. it also picks up the IR from tungestun black lights when i run it at like 30 volts the bulb looks white to the camera.

 

[DashApple]

I removed the IR lens from my camera and even with 7W of 940nm light the beam wasn't picked up very well , fog dose help abit .

The spot is very visible : P

 

[Teej]

When calibrating night vision shooting ranges, typically, the IR dot is VERY visible, but the beam itself tends not to be.