All our products are designed, manufactured and assembled in our OVNI Night Vision workshop and design office located near Royan (Charente-Maritime, France). OVNI-M / OVNI-B benefit from the technical know-how and many innovations of OVNI Night Vision® such as « Intensified Eyepieces Technology » and « Astronomy Grade ».
Presentation movie
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« INTENSIFIED EYEPIECES TECHNOLOGY »
Designed, manufactured and assembled in France in our workshop and design office, the OVNI Night Vision range is composed of 2 night vision eyepieces. They are dedicated mainly for astronomers practicing visual observation. It is also possible to connect a smartphone, an astronomy camera or a DSLR camera to practice astrophotography, photometry, astrometry... and contribute to astronomical research.
★ the OVNI-M required 2 years of R&D between 2017 and 2019. It is a 26mm focal length monocular and 1.25" barrel. It fits into the eyepiece holder of a reflector or refractor telescope and you can observe through the glass part of the eyepiece. It can be associated with a focal reducer, a barlow, filters...
★ the OVNI-B was officialized in November 2020. It is a binoviewer with 1.25" and 2" barrels. It fits into the eyepiece holder of a reflector or refractor telescope and integrates 2 eyepieces with a focal length of 27mm. It can also be associated with a focal reducer, a barlow, filters...
OVNI-M and OVNI-B have been developed for astronomy and are optimized to be compatible with all refractor / reflector telescopes (from the smallest to the largest). And they benefit from the diopter adjustment to be adapted to the sight of all astronomers.
Note that they both have manual gain control features to reduce or eliminate scintillation (may be visible when using a filter).
For maximum contrast they feature anti-reflective blackened inner edges and multi-coated lenses that delivers high transmission from 390nm to 1000nm.
OVNI-M and OVNI-B can be used in 3 ways: :
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at the focal point, by inserting them directly into the eyepiece holder of a reflector or refractor telescope
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in afocal, by using them on a traditional eyepiece. This makes it possible to increase or decrease the magnification and the field of observation.
- hand-held (like binoculars) for very low magnification and wide field observations. It is possible to observe large structures such as the Barnard Loop, the California Nebula, M8, M20...
Many accessories are also available (included or optional).
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INTENSIFIER TUBE « ASTRONOMY GRADE »
OVNI-M and OVNI-B are manufactured in France with the most powerful intensifier tubes in the world, type " Astronomy Grade ". Designed in our workshop, these "Astronomy Grade" intensifier tubes are one of the many innovations of OVNI Night Vision. This means that they are specially manufactured for astronomy by combining the best performance of GEN3 filmless/unfilmed tubes with the extended lifetime of GEN3 thinfilmed tubes.
They are available in three versions : FOM 2200-2400, FOM 2400-2600, FOM 2600-2800. The FOM (Figure of Merit) is the main performance measure. A FOM 2200-2400 will have a real FOM between 2200 and 2400, a FOM 2400-2600 will have a real FOM between 2400 and 2600, a FOM 2600-2800 will have a real FOM between 2600 and 2800.
However, the FOM is not the only measure to be taken into account to define the performance of a tube « Astronomy Grade » and it is also appropriate to have the highest performance on other values such as EBI, Luminous gain, Luminous Sensitivity, SNR, Limiting Resolution... Each OVNI-M and OVNI-B is delivered with a tube data sheet measuring all its values and guaranteeing that each tube is manufactured according to our own criteria of performances perfectly optimized for astronomy.
A description of these measurements and an example of a tube data sheet are available in the OVNI-M / OVNI-B user guides.
In addition, OVNI Night Vision tube meets other parameters :
★ all our « Astronomy Grade » tubes are manufactured with perfect control of the cosmetic defects that affect all civilian and military tubes such as chicken wire, honeycombs patterns, bright spots, dark spots...
★ all our « Astronomy Grade » tubes have 2 essential features for astronomy. The manual gain control to reduce or eliminate scintillation (mainly when using a narrow bandwidth filter) and the autogated feature to protect the tube in case of high light intensity.
★ all our « Astronomy Grade » tubes have a white phosphor perfectly adapted to astronomy since it has a a neutral and natural color, much better than the green phosphor (delivering a greenish tint during observation).
★ all our « Astronomy Grade » tubes are sensitive to wavelengths between 390 and 1000nm, with a peak intensity at 750nm.
With the help of the video (to watch at the top of the page), the operation of the « Astronomy Grade » intensifier tube can be explained in 3 steps :
- The photons composing the visible and near infrared light (from 390 to 1000nm) are transformed into electrons by the photocatode.
- The MCP (MicroChannel Plate) multiplies electrons by thousands. About 70,000 times more.
- The generated electrons will hit the white phosphorus and be transformed into photons in the same original alignment before passing through the eyepiece.
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OVNI-M / OVNI-B eyepieces designed for astronomy are very different from terrestrial night vision devices. All the differences are detailed on our blog in the following publication : www.ovni-nightvision.com/en/blog/post/2-differences
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