AN/PVS-4 Starlight Scope Night Vision Sight, Individual Served Weapon

Got this as a basis for developing a battery adapter. This night vision scope uses the same BA-5567/U battery as the PVS-5 Night Vision Goggles, but the cap threads on this scope are male and also different from those on the PVS-5 so they require different battery adapters.

Wiki lists these variants: AN/TVS-5, AN/PVS-8, AN/PVS-20, NVS-700, NVS-800, Auto NVS-1, Auto NVS-2, NVS-T 700, NVS-T 800, IWS NL-84, NL-87, NL-89, Star-Tron, MVM-4, ITT F4960. I don't know if these have the same battery cap?

When the 95mm objective of the PVS-4 replaced with a 155 mm objective it's then called the TVS-5. Note the larger objective has more than twice the area so the ranges for the TVS-5 are more than double those of the PVS-4.

WARNING

Many optical devices, including the Starlite Scopes, made use of Thoriated glass (Wiki). This can be a severe radioactive hazard for anyone exposed to it for prolonged periods of time. For most applications, like objective lenses, this is not a problem. The problem comes about with prolonged exposure to flesh, like the case of an eyepiece made of Thoriated glass that emits alpha, beta and gamma rays. also see Radiation Detectors.
Ref 1: Eyepiece Lens of Army Starlite Scope Found to Contain Thorium, Night Vision Sight Sub Assembly MX-7833A/PVS-2 - NRC: ML063530621.pdf
Ref 2: Eye Exposure from Thoriated Optical Glass, US Army (W3B_13.PDF) - This 1968? survey started out looking for radiation related to the high voltages used in many devices since Cathode Ray Tubes generate X-rays (Wiki), but they found instead that the glass used in some eyepieces was radioactive.

MX-7793/PVS-1

The first in the PVS- series was the MX-7793/PVS-1. Photos courtesy of Clint.
Also see: - "Fight at Night" U.S. Army Night Vision, 1945-1980 -

Fig 1

Fig 2

Fig 3 What battery, BA-5567? Let me know.

Description

This is a early version made for use in Israel. It has provision for 2 batteries to be mounted. One of them is fitted with an add-on double AA battery adapter.
The night vision tube works.

The optics appear to be of the Cassegrain reflector (Wiki) design. This has big advantages when working with visible light in addition to infrared light because there's no chromatic abberation (Wiki) which is a problem associated with using glass for a lens. The other advantage is that the physical length is much shorter than a prime focus telescope because of the folding.

I'm thinking of adding a Picatinny rail (Wiki) = MIL-STD-1913 = STANAG 2324 to the PVS-4 to make it more universal in application. Then with a rail mounted on a camera tripod this scope would be good for astronomy. Although first used just for mounting scopes it's now used as a general purpose mounting system.

Note that when you press your eye against the rubber eye cup the central two flaps will open. This way when no one is looking through the scope and the power is on it does not act like a green light flashlight.

The rearmost (smaller diameter) ring is the diopter adjustment. Just in front of it is the (larger diameter) objective focus adjustment.

Mounting brackets were available for:

Model	Caliber
M16A1	5.56 mm
M14	7.62 mm
M79	40 mm
M203	40 mm
M72A2	66 mm
M60	7.62 mm
M67	90 mm

It's not clear if the simple bracket shown on this scope is a standard part and all the other brackets attach to it, or if this tripod mount is removed to allow other brackets to be installed.

I've read, but not yet checked, that when looking directly into the objective that IR light is being radiated if the reticule is illuminated. The PAS-6 IR viewer would work for this.



Carry Bag: 80063-SM-D-850482-1, MFR. 2S308

Image Tube

The stock image intensifier tube is the MX 9644 and the 3rd generation replacement tube is the 11620 UV, both are 25mm diameter tubes.
See Wiki: PVS-4 Design Details
The same MX-9644 is used in the VVS-2 Tank Drivers Night Viewer.

Reticule

The reticule and it's lamp are located at the front center behind a cap.

Lamp The reticule lamp is a red LED mounted behind the front lens center cover. Testing the three unit assembly showed an open circuit. But after separating the three parts and testing the LED it tested good. After reassembly the lamp is now working. This is a very common problem with old equipment caused by oxidation. See: Hints & Tips - What Goes Wrong
Insert Even though the LED emits red light when viewing through the eyepiece the reticule appears as green. At the top it says: 7.62/5.56. It does not match any of the reticules shown on the Wiki page.

Mount

This mount is a simple bar with the common U.S. 1/4-20 tripod threads. So this particular scope probably was used for night surveillance rather than on a weapon.
No need to fit a Picatinny rail since it now fits my existing photographic tripods. Most likely to use on the Arriflex tripod because it's very sturdy can can carry the weight.


FN FAL

Manuals

PVS-4 Battery Caps

The PVS-4 Night Vision Sight, Individual Served Weapon (Wiki) has female threads on the sight and male thread on the cap, opposite of the PVS-5. Also the thread pitch is different.

To develop a battery adapter for the PVS-4 I will need a PVS-4 (the model that uses the BA-5567 battery) so that the battery compartment can be measured.
It does not need to work or even have the image tubes.

	Stock PVS-4 Cap
	Top Hat CR123 Batt Adapter
1XEP3 Battery Adapter 2 AA	Marked: Adapter Battery U.S. 80063 A300 9873 SP0920-04-V-4124 M.F.G. 1XEP3

Optics
M227 M-227 Signal Lamp Equipment SE-11 - Gun shaped flashlight, trigger, relay, IR Filter option
M18 IR Binoculars - near IR not hot people or car engines
PAS-6 Metascope IR viewer and source
T3C - Russian monocular Image Intensifier (star light scope)
TVS-2 Crew Served Weapon Sight
MD-1 Automatic Astro Compass - also can see stars in the daytime
Astro-Compass for sighting Sun & stars
Periscopic Aircraft Sextant - Sun & stars
NextStar60 - cleaver microcontroller telescope using DC motors and shaft encoders
Orion - 9x63 binoculars - When the objective diameter (63 mm) is divided by the power (9X) if the exit pupil size (7 mm) is around 7 mm then the binocs are designed to be used with night adapted eyes, like for looking at the stars or to see things on the ground you could not see with bare eyes. I once watched a dear swimming while being chased by a dog just after Sunset. Although I could not see anything with my bare eyes, I could see fine with a pair of 7X50 binocs. See my Binoculars page for more on star gazing binocs.
Celestron 8" Telescope with Equatorial wedge and tripod- This model has a clock drive but no computer control. It's big and heavy, not something you pull out for a quick 5 minute look up. Would be much better if used with a permanent pier. It takes quite some time to do a Polar alignment, but when done you can find about anything just using the hour angle and declination scales.
Cloud Detection - used as part of an automated observatory
Hughes Probe Eye far IR viewer
PVS-5A Night Vision Goggles
UAS-4 Infrared Surveillance System, AN/AAS-14 Infrared Detecting Set, MK-898/AAS-14A Optical Filter Kit
VVS-2 Tank Driver's Night Viewer

AN/PVS-4 Starlight Scope

Night Vision Sight, Individual Served Weapon

Background

WARNING

MX-7793/PVS-1

Description

Image Tube

Reticule

Lamp

Insert

Mount

Manuals

PVS-4 Battery Caps

Related

Links