Compass and Reticule Binoculars for vantage point surveys (1 Viewer)

[Binastro]

I'm not sure if it will work on flying birds or not.

I have the LE ICA seven times laser rangefinder that works up to 1200 yards or 1100 m switchable.
But it depends on the target sometimes it will only work on lesser distances.
In addition, if a leaf of a tree gets in the way you measure the distance to the leaf rather than to the target.

However, the target small square that you use for range finding might target a bird if you are able to follow it.
I don't know much about birds but some like magpies seem to fly in erratic ways where others fly direct.
I would think it possible to follow birds individually that fly in straight lines but ones that are erratic might be impossible.
However, flocks of birds at similar distances from you might give good results.

I may try to follow say a pigeon with the seven times rangefinder and see what happens.

This laser rangefinder has been most useful but may be hard pressed to follow a bird.

 

[u10ajf]

Hi Guys, thanks for your further comments! I'll reply in turn:

James - It's interesting to hear from someone doing the same kind of work in Canada and I see that you are tracking the same taxa of birds as we do in the UK. We also work according to height bands although there is some variation between consultancies depending upon the turbine designs being considered by their clients. I agree that with time you definitely do develop a good eye for this stuff and it gets easier with experience.
I've only been doing this for a bit over a year now (brief experience in 2004 and more recently for about a year till now). Guesstimation is a word I use a lot! I am yet to be involved in post construction evaluation and this reduces the potential for using wind turbines themselves as guides to heights lthough previously developed sites often abut undeveloped ones. I aknowledge that flight lines across sites will vary according to wind conditions, visibility, species and the purpose of the flight and that there is an element of effective randomness to each trajectory and hence some arbitrariness. Nonetheless I'm interested in finding out what kinds of clues
different observers use in their work and find it strange how little discussion there
is. I suspect that this is partly because observers don't want to emphasize the potential of error in their work to seniors who may not have the experience to appreciate that it's quite a difficult and skilled job. I also think that different vantage points have different kinds of problems. Varied terrain can make it harder to estimate heights, an homogenous skyline can make it harder to see where a flight is pasing through your binoculars, elevated vantages make it harder to judge elevations etc - all things that I'm quite sure you will be well aware of as a considerably more experienced fieldworker than I am. Thanks!

Brock - I was drooling over some Leica Geovids in a hunting store only 2 days ago. They are beautiful and amazing but very expensive. The man in the shop hung around suspiciously waiting for me and my rather awful beard to leave! In the end I bought two washers from him coming to 2p which must have been his smallest transaction in the last year

Hans - I had never heard of Vectronix but I have now! Thanks for the link! I have bookmarked this for me to drool over later! It sounds like they're really pushing th3e boundaries with these (and the Leicas etc) but I'd like to see something cheaper and more traditional - some porro prisms with a digital compass and inclinometer perhaps a stopwatch would be amazing.

Binastro - thanks again for your recommendations - will check them out!

Dalat - I share your scepticism regarding laser ranging but have not experienced them personally. I believe that the Leica rangefinders have some of the best beams in the business - a dispersion of 0.5mil (i.e. 50 cm over 1 km) which is amazing but could lead to false readings or non-readings on distant flying birds. Stabilising aim at that kind of range (2km is the limit to what we consider within our viewsheds) must be very difficult or immpossible although similarly traditional methods with graticules will also be problematic at that range because of the tiny angles subtended by target birds.

As for consultancy budgets it's more a matter of personal convenience - they might be willing to print these things but I like the idea of removing extra detail because I think simplified view diagrams allow you to focus in on the really useful details like your eye-level line and major peaks in view etc.
Also, in fairness, nobody asked me to do this research but I am interested in learning what I can and making information available to other people if it can help them in their work.

To that end I'd like to link you to some files in my drop-box for criticism:

- A word file about the use of reticule optics for distance estimation
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4fuocjjmf1wh8bn/Flight Line mapping method.docx

A spreadsheet to do some trigonometry (also contains other information, tailored towards terrestrial UK EIA in upland areas)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dzeey4jgokvks22/Ornithology.xlsm

A word file describing use of this spreadsheet
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lnqpec00c72q85f/OrnithologySpreadsheetDescription.docx

 

[Binastro]

. There are some rather low-priced GO-TO astronomical amounts for both telescopes and cameras and also some are bit more expensive.
These give very accurate azimuth and elevation readings and I think they can be connected to a computer to give full readouts.
If one was using an autofocus lens of say 600 mm I think this could give accurate distances although these lenses are expensive if you don't already have them.

Some other very new mounts are very capable.
This system might be able to give accurate data

 

[Binastro]

I was also thinking of police speed guns being used to get the speed of the birds and mounting these on a mount to give accurate elevation and azimuth.

Then I remembered a story from about 15 years ago.
The police in Scotland had the bright idea of setting up a speed trap on a remote road.
Things went quite well until one of the motorists was recorded as travelling at 450 mph.
The police thought their equipment must be faulty and gave up.

A couple of days later the Royal Air Force contacted Scottish police and informed them that a tornado swing wing aircraft had locked onto a threat and its automatic equipment had been ready to fire an antiradiation Missile to eliminate the threat.

Luckily the Tornado aircraft has a two-man crew and their weapons officer was very fast thinking and had overridden the missile launch system.

The police were advised in no uncertain terms not to set up speed traps near the live fire training ranges.

The policeman at the speed trap were very fortunate.
Some might think that they would have got their just desserts.

 

[Ruff]

I was also thinking of police speed guns being used to get the speed of the birds and mounting these on a mount to give accurate elevation and azimuth.

Then I remembered a story from about 15 years ago.
The police in Scotland had the bright idea of setting up a speed trap on a remote road.
Things went quite well until one of the motorists was recorded as travelling at 450 mph.
The police thought their equipment must be faulty and gave up.

A couple of days later the Royal Air Force contacted Scottish police and informed them that a tornado swing wing aircraft had locked onto a threat and its automatic equipment had been ready to fire an antiradiation Missile to eliminate the threat.

Luckily the Tornado aircraft has a two-man crew and their weapons officer was very fast thinking and had overridden the missile launch system.

The police were advised in no uncertain terms not to set up speed traps near the live fire training ranges.

The policeman at the speed trap were very fortunate.
Some might think that they would have got their just desserts.

Seems a bit harsh to me....

 

[Binastro]

. Regarding computerised mounts.
Look at the sky watcher all view multifunction computerise mount with dual encoders which has an accuracy of five arc minutes and costs £349 or less.

There are also cheaper versions.

It might be possible to mount a laser rangefinder or other rangefinder device to these mounts.

 

[Binastro]

regarding the Tornado aircraft I think we were at war at the time and live ammunition was being used.
The aircraft were being flown at very low level and the police speed gun unknowingly picked up an aircraft rather than the car it thought it was monitoring.

Britain is a crowded island and we don't have remote ranges.

Also during the Cold War we practised with terrain following aircraft again at extremely low level.


The Canadian Avro CF 105 Arrow was a world beating aircraft and was cancelled controversially by the Canadian government and destroyed Avro.

Similarly, the British TSR 2 was cancelled and broken up despite being many years ahead of its time.

Governments spend enormous sums of money making world beaters and then just scrap them.
This is not joined up thinking.

 

[Mono]

I'm afraid the speed gun/aircraft story is an old chestnut.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/radar.asp

As regards the using reticules to measure distance of flying birds that must rely on getting a good identification of the bird so as to estimate size. The quoted lengths and wingspans can have quite large ranges plus the angular size visible will depend on the aspect of the bird presented. I have attempted such calculations with fins of cetaceans and the results rarely tie in with laser range finding.

 

[Binastro]

thanks Mono for that correction.
I was certainly not on the Internet then and I read the article in a respectable newspaper.

As regards autonomous military machines there was a whole discussion on that a couple of days ago on the television.

According to these discussions exactly that is now happening, i.e. the firing of military weapons being totally out of the control of humans and being left up to the machine.
The ethics of this was being discussed as well as who would be responsible for the deaths incurred.
Would it be the programmer of the machine or who?

It mentioned several advanced countries who are militarily now building such autonomous weapons.
And it is realised that in the future these will become more sophisticated.

I don't think these reports are fictitious as it described which weapons can now be made to make their own decisions.


As regards the computerised mounts mentioned above some of them have a manual override so that you can move the scope, camera or binocular and it will still record very accurate positions for elevation and azimuth or for astronomy right ascension and declination.
These mounts are getting more clever and cheaper every year.
they can also be programmed ahead.

 

[Hans Weigum]

Generally if you're using those items someone else is definitely paying the tab and it's not birds you're after. Where can I get a price list for them, just out of curiosity? .

http://www.eurooptic.com/vectronix-vector-iv-7x42-rangefinding-binocular.aspx

 

[Ruff]

http://www.eurooptic.com/vectronix-vector-iv-7x42-rangefinding-binocular.aspx

Ah yes, quite the bargain. I assume that is the most affordable pair, for civilians or something. Back just a few years ago, you actually had to look at things and practice estimating ranges, but now all you need is the price of a used motor vehicle!

Thanks Hans!

 

[u10ajf]

Hi Guys, thanks for the continued suggestions!

Binastro - I enjoyed the Tornado story but the debunking supplied by Mono was very intersting too!
As for computerised mounts - sounds awesome. It had crossed my mind before as I have considered getting a GOTO mount and doing a bit of astronomy. It's cool that there are ones that you can over-ride which then log your bearings and elevation when you move them, that's really neat - question is how to adapt the for binoculars, would want a wide field of viewand to be able to follow birds in flight. On the other hand I don't imagine portabillity would be great but it's an interesting idea!

Mono - I'm very interested that you've tried the method on cetaceans and compared it with laser range finder results! Where you doing surveys from land or at sea? It sounds really interesting. I've done a bit of volunteering with the Whale and Dolphin conservation society before and enjoy it. They organise land based watches and get volunteers to record how many reticule divisions below the horizon any observed cetaceans are. I know this is a slightly different method - I'd suspect that it would yield more accurate results than estimates against sizes of bits of cetaceans but I also suspect it'd only really work for onshore watches, the higher the viewpoint the better presumably. I certainly concur that you have to get a good id of a bird to estimate its size - this can be tricky at range but our viewsheds are limited to 2km (flights further than that are discounted from collision risk models as per guidance from Scottish Natural Heritage). I regard the angular size/aspect problem as one of the main ones in the method. I would suspect that cetacean sizes would be harder to estimate because they can grow through all kinds of lengths whereas birds do much of their growth in the nest and stay more or less the same size thereafter. Definitely sexual dimorphism in hawks (genus accipter, not buteo which americans call hawks and europeans call buzzards!) and falcons could complicate the issue.

Hans - those vector binoculars... is 13,200 a real number?! I'm not from an astronomy background!

 

[Binastro]

I guessed before the price was given that the vector binoculars would cost £10,000.
I fancy the ones that range up to 25 km but I suppose they would be £20,000.
It is likely that you need an end user export licence as per image intensifiers and they may not be available to ordinary folk.
Years ago I wanted an image intensifying eyepiece from the USA but they were only available for a few months before they were banned in the UK except for universities etc.
They were reasonable price then for what they did.

I think the only way to afford a vector would be as I said second-hand at an ex government auction. Although even here some items are banned at least for several years.
nice though if you can get it.

 

[Hans Weigum]

If Leica Geovid, total station or the Vectronix rangefinder, the question for all is if the laser range finder works on flying birds.

Not yet having systematically tested my laser based rangefinder binocular on flying birds, I think its suitability might less be a matter of the laser system itself, than its software requiring too long a lock on time on target possible to be achieved on flying objects.
A modification in the software might help.

 

[Hans Weigum]

Hi Guys, thanks for the continued suggestions!

Hans - those vector binoculars... is 13,200 a real number?! I'm not from an astronomy background!

Even if you lack the background to understand this astronomical price, that's what the toys of our military cost. The Vector IV being only basic in its line, the other versions having even higher prices, those really wanting this type of binos obviously are prepared to pay.

Such examples also explain, why consumer and military optics technologically (and price vise) further drift apart and are dealt increasingly by companies now separate, previously under the same roof.

 

[dalat]

Not yet having systematically tested my laser based rangefinder binocular on flying birds,

Hans, does that mean that you actually tested it (non-systematically) on birds and it can work? If yes, I think that could indeed be a solution for the discussed application.

Can this vetronix thing store measured data and the measurements be retrieved later? If yes, it would be the ideal tool. You look at the bird, press the button, follow it and 15 sec. later press the button again. Later in the evening you retrieve the data and quickly compute the coordinates.

Surveying equipment certainly can do this, but this will be less comfortable (though not impossible I think) for aiming at birds with the typically higher magnification of their telescope.

I don't think that automatic data recording works with hunting rangefinders, as I understand you would need to note down the measured angles and distance.

13000 is much for private use, but for professional use, if leading to better quality work and real time saving, I don't think that it is necessarly unrealistic. Surveying equiment is not much cheaper I think.

 

[Hans Weigum]

Hans, does that mean that you actually tested it (non-systematically) on birds and it can work? If yes, I think that could indeed be a solution for the discussed application.

Can this vetronix thing store measured data and the measurements be retrieved later? If yes, it would be the ideal tool. You look at the bird, press the button, follow it and 15 sec. later press the button again. Later in the evening you retrieve the data and quickly compute the coordinates.

My own testing was that rudimentary so far, that I only can say, that it should work in principle.
According to Vectronix, there are at least two ornithologists known to them, having worked with Vectors successfully. One measuring mainly (individual) storks, the other swarms of migrating (smaller) birds.

Vectors have a RS232 interface allowing connection to GPS and/or computers.

I shall inform here about additional information on this subject I shall getlater.