First report on the Yukon Digital Night Scope for UFO chasing.

Evening y'all, I have posted some of this on another thread but though I would start a new one devoted to the Yukon Ranger Digital Night Vision scope.

I opened my Yukon Ranger last night and I was delightfully surprised. I'm on the edge of the city so there is a lot of light messing up the view of the stars but when you look at just one through the NV, you see it is surrounded by unseen stars. Stars everywhere!

Now I found out what they mean about blowing out one of your eyes looking through it so I hooked it up with the video cable to my Canon GL2, put the scope on a tripod, and sat back and viewed through the LCD on the cam which was perfect. The whole family could watch a crisp clear picture with a very sharp image. The range on the ground was awesome for a hunter with the 5x focal length it will see with a bright IR light for a couple city blocks. When it comes to recording the video, it is great in Black & White instead of green with a square picture instead of a round hole to see through.

Now for UFO spotting, it has one draw back, the telephoto or say, 5X lens captures only a small part of the sky. The Yukon digital would be perfect if it only took optional lens so you could have a wide angle to capture a larger piece of the sky for long term recording. Now once you see something to look at, then you love the 5x lens where most other NVs top out at 4X. You just have to see it first and then focus in on it and track it. Now in real terms, like a telescope, unless your looking at the moon or planets, even with a large telescope, the stars are still just dots of light so what you are after is to see strange movements that tell you a star isn't a star but something else because of the movement, unless you are blessed with a rare up close shot of a UFO. So you set it up and start recording and hope something flies through your picture. I will say, if something is up there and it gives off any light at all, your going to see it if you are looking that way.

www.christianseidler.com...

Here is a shot from my canon still with an area high lighted showing the field of view of the Ranger. You will note it is quite tight and the trees give you a good feel on just how tight.

The best thing is that with a video cam LCD, you can share the view with friends and family, make it a party while you set in the field or yard and watch the skies. If anyone sees something move, you can zero in on it and group debate. I'm going to record some video test tonight but I have never posted a video so if someone here can, I can email the video test if they will post it here for us all. I am going to mix shots from the video camera with a wide angle and then with the NV and diagram on the wide angle shot exactly how much of that image is captured in the NV image to get a good example of the portion of the sky that can be viewed through the NV. I am also going to see how long of a video cable that can be used so to set the NV on a tripod in the back yard and thread the cable through the back window to my back room office so to pipe the image directly to my computer desk. If that works, I can let it record for hours and then view it on high speed to see if I capture anything while doing other things. I suspect about 15 feet is the maximum length cord that can be used.

So, at this point, the Yukon Digital Ranger is an impressive toy, and for 370 bucks, it most certainly rivals a gen2 NV and maybe close to a gen3 for a fraction of the cost. Add to that the fact it is the only NV version that you can pipe directly to a recorder via a cable, this is the UFO hunters dream on a budget.
Least that is my first impressions. We're cloud covered here tonight but I will post some shots and video from from the scope, my video cam, and my still camera when we get a good night so I have plenty of images for you to get a good handle on just how good or bad the Ranger performs.

please do...i am very interested on getting myself one...

One question, what type is the video output? ntsc/pal/digital?

many thx, good ufo hunting!

As an added note, just made a comparison of the 5x lens in the ranger and it covers the same field of view as a 300mm telephoto lens on my Canon still frame. That is one heck of a range for a NV device.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


www.christianseidler.com...

The phone jack goes into the NV and the female RCA jack goes to the camera. This cable is only about 6 inches long and you hook it to the cable that comes with your cam or one that will go into it. Mine came with one that had its own custom plug for the Canon that went into it and had 3 male RCA jacks on the other end for sound and video so I just connect the video jack to the female on the NV cable. They don't explain that issue well in the descriptions of this process.

If would be great to see a ufo. and if you did, you are going to want to talk about it and show some proof so being able to record it is important, especially if you are going to spend serious time looking. I walked out last night for just about 10 minutes since is was cloudy and when I stopped and went back inside, I was totally blind in one eye for a few minutes. The ability to view through your video cam is extremely sweat. In fact, I don't think I would even try to spend a lot of time viewing through the NV, it would be rough on your vision. This may make the digital NVs the only way to go for a UFO hunter.

Even all, I just put a little set of images together to show people what the Yukon visual range is like.

It was impossible for me to see how the NVs worked before buying from Amazon and the distance it would see and how much of the sky it would take in.

This will help those in the future with the lens rating of these scopes. I have linked to a jpeg and a video of the view through the scope. The jpeg compares a 28mm and 300mm on a 35 mm digital camera and the Yukon is rated 5x and if you wanted to know how that 5x works out compared to regular camera lens, this will help. The Yukon Ranger is actually close to a 400mm telephoto lens in a 35 mm camera. Great for getting close to what you want to see but for star gazing and capturing the sky for movement, I would want a 1x or a 2x lens to capture movement over a long exposure video shot. Course as soon as you see something, you want that 5x power. I did find I could capture far more that I can see through a long exposure photo shot, picking up as many stars as with the NV but you cannot see nearly that many with the naked eye. Tried to shot the stars with my video cam but it sees only black when pointed to the stars. I need to read the book on it to see if it has special settings for night time but I doubt it. Hope this helps those of you thinking about an NV for UFo hunting.

Jpeg www.christianseidler.com...

Yukon Video www.christianseidler.com...

Happy to see you finally got it

Any chance of removing the current lens or making an adapter to increase the range of field.

Its gonna be a tight squeeze finding something with that.

Poppa D

I was just looking at the ranger and maybe one could tap the inner plastic rings of the lenses and fit a filter/adapter so that you might attach wide lenses.


Possibly though, this would throw off the inner working of the digital NV.

Just a thought... was hoping these things had a bigger ROV. Looks like its gonna be an expensive gen3 toy day soon.

Poppa D

Well, if you wanted to set it up and just record for hours, this isn't the tool. But if you are going to set and watch, then this is great when you spot something to look at. I can look were I see one star and then through the Ranger, I can see 30 around the bright ones. Next I need to spot some air craft to see how they look for reference. See how much of the craft comes out if it does through the lights. It was too cool to stay out long tonight so that's for a warmer night when I can wait for a plane to come along.

I know now that a generation 4 is what you would want if you can afford it and want to spend that kind of money for UFO hunting. Not me, I'll wait for others to post their sightings on youTube. One thing, you can see a deer with these at a distance way to far for the average fire arm to hit accurately. I tried placing some wide glass in front of this and nada, won't focus and this one is hard wired in, you turn it to focus, not a ring. Must be a reason, for their non digital versions have different lens you can change to.