Full disclosure. I bought an ATN off amazon 6 years ago and use IR illumination (love it). I used to be FLIR Level I thermographery certified (it’s a one week course :-) but very informative).
Couple of things to think about.
Purpose. If you’re a regular night hunter then you’ll need some type of night vision device.
Thermal is really nice (day and night use) but there are a couple of limiting factors: Resolution and re-calibration. The best thermal imager resolution I’ve utilized was 640x480. FLIR also recommends you have your imager re-calibrated annually (not cheap). You can’t put a scope in front of your thermal because it will reflect short and medium wavelengths (like looking in a mirror). Commercial thermal rifle scopes are designed to see longwave IR. It’s a cost issue. Short and medium wave imagers are very expensive.
Light intensifiers (night vision scopes) are nice. Especially if you don’t have a problem with adding IR illumination. Most of the commercial night vision scopes (like ATN) will work with 980 nano-meter (nm) illumination. This is nice because most critters (and people) cannot see wavelengths longer than 880nm. They can be used during daylight with the lens cap on (the cap has a pin hole allowing enough light in for utilization).
Thermal is nice... you see hogs resting that you may not see with a low light intensifier. The flip side is cost, maintenance and resolution.
If I had the bucks (pun intended), I’d have both. If I didn’t have the doe (sorry), I’d get an image intensifier.
Good luck and tell us how it turns out!
r
toad
Thank you!
Hog hunting with a .300 Blackout.....