Night vision goggles having enlarged field of view and interchangeable

Abstract

Night vision apparatus, particularly night vision goggles, having a wide field of view. The apparatus includes an objective optical system having a selected field of view for collecting visible and/or infrared light from an object to be viewed and for providing an input image of the object; image intensifying and magnifying means for receiving the input image and for providing a visible, intensified and magnified output image of the input image, and an eyepiece optical system for receiving the visible, intensified and magnified output image and for presenting a visible intensified image of the object to an eye of a user at unity magnification. The image intensifying and magnifying means preferably comprises an image intensifier tube having a fiber optic bundle beam expander therein. The image intensifying and magnifying means permits the eyepiece optical system to have a longer focal length and, hence, to provide greater eye relief than would otherwise be possible. The goggles of the present invention can be provided in both see-thru and non-see-thru configurations and can be constructed in modular form to provide for interchangeability of objective optical systems providing varying fields of view with eyepiece optical systems providing either see-thru or a non-see-thru capability.