Night Vision Scuba diving with dtnvs

[jb313]

Looking at the specs on the Act in Black DTNVS, it says waterproof to 20 meters (65’) for two hours, I have dived 30-40 feet where visibility is nearly possible and not from the waters being murky,

any one here take a short dive with their night vision ?

 

[Evolution 9]

The idea has been discussed before, and theoretically it’s possible (special dive masks have even been made for the purpose).

Realistically though, you’d have to be a VERY accomplished diver to manage buoyancy, navigation, gauge checks, etc. with such a narrow field of view and shallow depth of focus.

I’m a rescue diver and do vehicle recovery and construction work in zero visibility conditions and swift water. At my level of experience I wouldn’t be interested in trying it. Task loading is one of the leading contributors to death for experienced divers, and I wouldn’t want the extra task of managing night vision equipment.

Not poopooing the idea, I just don’t imagine the juice will be worth the squeeze.

 

[jb313]

Not poopooing the idea, I just don’t imagine the juice will be worth the squeeze.

in no way did I think this would be an easy task

 

[diverdon]

I just use a handheld light in each hand at night.

 

[danatkins]

That would be a rough one. I don't even think special ops guys do that.

 

[bill_van]

Probably been tried at high levels but found to not work very well..... if there is no light due to the water or night conditions, there is no light to amplify hence the NV would not work without IR which would probably reflect back and render the NV useless.

 

[TheHebrewHammer]

Water has a refractive index of 1.3, therefore it wouldn't work well in terms of IR illumination.

 

[ljstack]

Underwater night vision is very doable. Here is an article with a photo taken by one of our low level light digital cameras - https://ilphotonics.com/photoniss-underwater-imaging-for-sustainable-aquaculture/. An actual night vision goggle also works well, with the caveat that "works" is environmentally dependent upon the factors present when your NODS are on underwater - in other words the amount of light available. At 20 meters there is plenty of light available (unless you're diving at night). If you're working deep or at night you can use supplemental lighting to assist, and you don't need a bright white light. A 350nm blue light will provide enough for the NOD to detect and amplify (for a Photonis tube). The photo in the article was taken at 231 feet (70m) with a Nocturn low level light digital camera with very low level additional lighting. We also have the iNocturn which is a Photonis 4G image intensifier tube mated to a CMOS. That one performs even better, and the best we have is our Ultimate Digital Night Vision Camera which we developed for the US military which is a true digital night vision camera with the same performance as an analog image intensifier tube equipped NOD (because it has an attached image intensifier tube).

 

[jb313]

Underwater night vision is very doable. Here is an article with a photo taken by one of our low level light digital cameras - https://ilphotonics.com/photoniss-underwater-imaging-for-sustainable-aquaculture/. An actual night vision goggle also works well, with the caveat that "works" is environmentally dependent upon the factors present when your NODS are on underwater - in other words the amount of light available. At 20 meters there is plenty of light available (unless you're diving at night). If you're working deep or at night you can use supplemental lighting to assist, and you don't need a bright white light. A 350nm blue light will provide enough for the NOD to detect and amplify (for a Photonis tube). The photo in the article was taken at 231 feet (70m) with a Nocturn low level light digital camera with very low level additional lighting. We also have the iNocturn which is a Photonis 4G image intensifier tube mated to a CMOS. That one performs even better, and the best we have is our Ultimate Digital Night Vision Camera which we developed for the US military which is a true digital night vision camera with the same performance as an analog image intensifier tube equipped NOD (because it has an attached image intensifier tube).

pretty impressive photo !

 

[Evolution 9]

If we’re talking about the rope photo, that’s from a couple feet away with supplemental light… there’s nothing impressive or even useful about that.

Maybe the system is actually usable, but that photo doesn’t help us know.

 

[TheHebrewHammer]

There are so many factors to take into account. Has the DoD spent millions testing it, probably. However, everyone I know that has been to CDQC or/and on a dive ODA has never mentioned diving with NVGs.

 

[Dogtown]

Ugh CDQC...at least Key West is nicer than Bragg.

 

[jb313]

DVS-110

 

[ljstack]

If we’re talking about the rope photo, that’s from a couple feet away with supplemental light… there’s nothing impressive or even useful about that.

Maybe the system is actually usable, but that photo doesn’t help us know.

Here's why the photo is at least useful. First the necessity of the capability as illustrated in the photo, and as the article infers, is the capability to conduct repair inspections without the use of high intensity supplemental light. High intensity lights bother the fish and illuminates the debris in the water resulting in cloudy pictures or video. Therefore, the fish farm industry required a low level light detection capability (low-level light and not true night vision to NL5), that could only be provided by such low-level light cameras that could detect low intensity lights - such as those that operate at 600nm or below. Also, the industry required a camera which could be used for close in inspections as well as looking at a scene from further away. The reason (or one reason) it's impressive is that this capability wasn't available before this particular camera capability was invented.