Ok, FLIR finally came in last week, weather has been too hot and buggy to do much outside with it but I did go out at twilight one evening to see what things looked like. I have not figured out all the computer controls yet to set it up to my AR for sighting and video and pictures. But I read the instruction manual, which is 22 pages and pretty easy to understand until you get to the point where you want to adjust settings for extreme environments. Think I will just leave it in default at this point.
Came in a large fitted case about 10"x12" about 6" deep.
The round spin off cap with the cable on it is the battery compartment, spin open and drop twin battery cassette in, spin close.
Anyway, with nothing to compare it to, I liked how I could see birds flying around in the sky at the end of the day, bright white spots zooming around out to about 80 yards, there may have been some further out, but depth of view is a bit different in infrared. I could see my chickens walking around in the pen quite clearly at 100 yards, their heads stood out mostly as there are few feathers there and most of the heat was coming from that, but could still see there bodies for clear ID. Temp out was bout 78* when I was doing this, and I was using it like a handheld not on a weapon. Could see across one of our fields about 300 yards to a corner post that was steel, it stood out brightly as the sun had been on it all day. Cars at 500+ yards going down the road were easy to see outlines as well as houses at that distance with well defined outlines. There wasn't any other animals out like deer or racoon yet so I don't know what ranges I can expect to be able to ID other animals.
I am sure cooler weather will let warm animals really stand out. Hope to thin out our resident coyotes this fall. I will try to do an update when I get the gun sighted in with this scope.
