After sunset, most of what happens outdoors is invisible to you. A flashlight shows a small bright circle, flattens everything behind it and tells every animal within a hundred yards exactly where you are.
Human eyes need visible light, and on a cloudy or moonless night there is almost none. A regular monocular or pair of binoculars does not change that: it magnifies the light that reaches it, so when there is no light, it magnifies darkness. That is why most people simply stop looking once the sun goes down.
Lumescope takes a different route. A 3 W infrared illuminator sends out light your eyes cannot see, and a high-sensitivity infrared sensor picks up what bounces back. The result appears on a 2-inch HD screen behind a rubber eyecup: a clear black and white view of the field, the treeline or the water, out to about 300 yards. Nothing around you is lit up, so the raccoon at the edge of the lawn keeps doing what it was doing.
In daylight the same device works as a color monocular with 16x digital zoom, so it is just as useful at noon on a boat as it is at midnight on the porch.
Who is Lumescope for?
Anyone who spends time outdoors after dark, or who wants to know what moves around their home at night. Six groups get the most out of it.
- Backyard wildlife watchers. Foxes, owls, deer and raccoons are most active at night. Lumescope lets you watch them from the porch without a light that sends them running.
- Campers and hikers. Scan the campsite perimeter, check the trail ahead or find the noise behind the tent before you step out.
- Anglers and boaters. Spot buoys, channel markers, docks and other boats on dark water, and keep an eye on your lines after sunset.
- Rural homeowners. Check fences, barns, driveways and livestock areas from a window or the truck, without walking the property in the dark.
- Stargazers. Move around a dark-sky site, find your gear and watch the horizon without switching on a white light that ruins everyone's night vision.
- Hunters on scouting trips. Observe where game crosses and beds down at dusk and dawn. Lumescope is a handheld viewer made for watching, nothing else.
The common thread is simple: you want to see what is out there, from a distance, without announcing yourself with a beam of light.