Watching Wildlife with the Yukon Ranger Digital Night Vision
Buy the Yukon Ranger or Ranger Pro Digital night vision at Scott Country.
Introducing the Yukon Ranger and Ranger Pro Digital Monocular
Yukon's Ranger and Ranger Pro are hand held night vision monoculars designed to permit viewing in complete darkness. Complete with a built in IR illuminator the Yukon Ranger has a detection range of up to 250meters, with the Ranger Pro being able to detect up to 600meters.
What is Digital Night Vision?
Until recently Night Vision was available as Gen 1, Gen 2 and Gen 3 devices, with Gen 3 being the most recent NV tube available offering unrivalled viewing at extended distances.
Instead of using a NV tube that emits a green picture, Digital Night Vision uses a optical lens twinned with a highly sensitive CCD sensor. The lens views the image which is then recieved by the CCD, processed and emitted through the eye piece, in crisp clear black and white. This next generation of night vision offers an image of such clarity it has never been seen before in traditional night vision optics.
With the best edge to edge resolution on the market the Yukon Ranger units rival the effectiveness of Gen 2 and Gen 3 monoculars at any range, and at a fraction of the cost.
Simply look through the Ranger, day or night, and you will see a crisp clear digital image of the scene in front of you. At night the device uses processing and IR to enhance the image, allowing you to view clearly in complete darkness.
We can power up a Ranger in our large warehouse, turn off the lights, and walk around as normal with complete ease, seeing everything like daylight in front of us, albeit as a black and white digital reproduction of the view.
The same applies out side in the wild at night.
Viewing at night under the stars or complete cloud cover.
The Yukon Ranger's are designed with two built in Infra Red illuminators.
One of these is the high power IR emitter which is controlled via the device roof mounted buttons and can be lowered or increased in intensity. The onboard central IR operates when you first power up the unit and is designed for close range illumination or for indoor use.
The Ranger will use ambient light sources such as stars or moonlight to enhance viewing at night, however under complete cloud cover or a very dark night, the high power IR can be used to scatter harmless and invisible infra red light which will illuminate the area for some distance in front of the device.
This is perfect for watching wildlife, as by activating the IR you bathe the wildlife in a bright band of light, so that you can see clearly, however the animal or person will never know he/it is being watched as the IR is invisible to the naked eye.
Unlike traditional tube type night vision, the Yukon Ranger series cannot be damaged by bright light sources such as a torch illuminating in your path, or a car coming towards you. This means that you can even use the Ranger or Ranger Pro during the day as a daytime monocular.
Recording what you see!
The Yukon Ranger has a built in video out facility, to allow you to connect a mobile personal recording device such as a DV camcorder (you need an AV in connection on your camera) or the Yukon MPR Mobile Personal Recorder.
At Scott Country we use the Yukon MPR as it is compact, and has some great features. The built in high resolution screen is great for using as a viewing display, and is also perfect for video playback. It has 2GB of internal memory and this can be expanded by using a high capacity SD memory card, giving you unlimited recording capacity.
Connect your recording device to the Yukon Ranger using the supplied AV cable and you can remote view the image the user is seeing, which is handy if there are two of you using the device, and simply press a button to record what you see.
You can then play back the footage on the MPR, or connect it to your PC and download the footage to watch at home or even upload to You Tube.
We have created many test videos using our demo Pulsar Digisight N550 rifle scope, this uses similar technology to the Ranger Pro, and the recorded results we have had are very impressive.
What can i use the Yukon Ranger for?
We have provided Yukon Rangers for many different applications including hunting, wildlife watching, security, police observation, ufo hunters, and for airports checking runways for bird activity before fast jets land.
The most common use for the Yukon Ranger and Ranger Pro however is wildlife observation, and we have supplied nature reserves, individuals and government agencies with these devices to keep an eye on endangered species, or simply for people looking to watch nocturnal wildlife movements such as badgers or fox cubs in their garden.
Sitting in a hide watching a river for movement of the elusive otter is also a common pastime that the Yukon Ranger is used for, as it provides a stealthy way of watching in silence, without the animal ever knowing you are there.
We recently had a customer who was going to work in Africa, and wanted to watch the african lions from his jungle hut at night. We spoke to him afterwards and he said that everyone in the lodge wanted to use them as they were so effective in an area with zero light pollution and completely pitch black skies.
The Truth is Out there?
A pastime that has become increasingly popular is UFO watching and a whole genre of internet forums and discussions have been spawned from people using Night Vision to watch the skies.
UFO watching does not necessarily mean people are out looking for little green men, but there are lots of goings on in our skies that are unexplained or "unidentified" and its fantastic to sit and watch the skies, you never know what you might see.
One of the best forums discussing this topic is UFONV.com where you can find example footage and discussions on using the Ranger to watch the skies.
For further information check out UFONV's hints and tips on filming the skies with a night vision device.
Recording what you see through a Night Vision Device
Unlike traditional night vision that uses tubes to amplify light entering the lens, the Yukon Ranger series uses a CCD sensor and a processor to process images and display them on the lcd display as a night vision image. With traditional NV tube devices the only way you could record footage was to attach your DV cam or camcorder to the eyepiece of the unit. Immediately this means a reduction in quality as the camcorder is viewing a processed image, and then reprocessing it for display on the disc or screen. This worked but it was not ideal.
Recording what you see using Yukon Ranger Digital Night Vision
As the image processed is digital it is possible to output the video feed to a mobile recording device such as a Yukon MPR, DV Cam or to a PC or television.
This is great for remote viewing as you can set up the Ranger as a CCTV camera, and view the live night vision feed from your television, assuming you have a long enough cable of course.
Wireless video sending is an option and a few people on You Tube have done this.
Not only does this mean you can share what you see with others, but by attaching a recording device (we use the Yukon MPR) you can record footage for evidence or for playback at home.
Great for safaris, hunting trips, wildlife observation and for security and court evidence etc.
Simply attach the MPR to the video out port on the Ranger, hit record and you can capture all the footage you need using the MPR's internal memory of 2Gb which can be upgraded using a SD memory card.
You can then view the footage as you record on the Ranger eyepiece or MPR display, and download to your PC at a later date to save the footage.
We have created many demo videos using Digital Night Vision which can be seen on our You Tube site.
Visit our website for more details or to buy the Yukon Ranger or Ranger Pro.
