IGEN 20 20 Help?

[pinebushufo]

Hi all,
Greetings and good morning. I am a newbie to this forum but not a newbie to Night Vision. I am looking for someone to help me with extending the range and depth of the IGEN 20 20 designed by IGEN. The monocular is spectacular and in my eyes superior to the Gen 2 and Gen 3 however it does NOT have an attachment for a zoom or telephoto. The IGEN 20 20 does have a "screw on" cap at the end that is 42mm. With that I am looking to add a telephoto lens or possible zoom lens. I talked with the manufacture and they told me if I "tinker" with it, anything is possible. Now, with that I took my SONY ALPHA lens that is a telephoto and overlapped the IGEN 20 20 lens and it will magnify so it is possible to add a lens to it but I am just not that savy with the 42mm lens. Has anyone other then myself used or tinkered with this monocular? I am trying to get deeper and deeper into space, I was also thinking along the line of a telescope lens but again this is where I lack the "know how" to put this together. There are no camera stores in my area and if there were I am sure they do not have the old school lenses they once had. Anyone have any ideas?

Here are the specs straight from the manufac...
http://www.igen2020.com/

http://www.igen2020.com/files/specs1.pdf
http://www.igen2020.com/files/specs2.pdf
Thanks,
Vincent Polise
http://www.pinebushufo.com

[IHJ]

Hello Vincent, I think you are going to be kind of a pioneer with this unit! (I doubt if anyone else has one, on here at least).

Well, to start that 42mm screw/whatever sounds promising as that is the main dimension of a T-mount lens system but from my experience with other digital NVDs the best approach is to remove the original front lens completely then offer up your replacement(s) with the new lenses' focal length being the critical area. If the Igen front lens does not unscrew then it does get a bit 'hit & miss'. Try winding the front lens fully out then continuing that anti-clockwise 'force' ... WITHIN REASON, obviously - the lens might have a retaining pin or screw.

Its a great shame there are no camera shops near you as they regularly make 'Stepping Rings' so that differing threads &/or size mounts can be fitted, also a source of fairly cheap lenses would be good, (plenty on E-bay, I suppose).

Here's a British company with a vast range of fittings etc, you might also get some ideas from some of their other stuff...

http://www.srb-griturn.com/

[cj7hawk]

Hi Vincent,

Although those scopes work well up close, you may find that they lack gain to do any deep star gazing, or even UFO chasing.

Gen2 and Gen3 are in the order of 100x more gain.

To the manufacturers credit though, they advertise that model as 650 gain, which is a very believable figure and not that bad either.

Anyway, what you have is just a video camera with a display. If you unscrew the lens you will find that there's a normal video camera element beneath.

As Ian said, make yourself up an adjuster, convert it to CS mount and then you will be able to get off-the-shelf telescope adapters for it.

David.

[IHJ]

Dont be frightened of removing the front lens, as long as its done in a clean, dust free environment you have nothing to lose (there wont be any Nitro purging).

I would look out for the simplest lens system that will answer your needs ie. what's called a 'normal' camera lens - there should be plenty of s/hand SLR lenses for sale quite cheaply, (the lower the f number the better, of course).

One great advantage you have is you can do your experiments in daytime