I had the opportunity to briefly try out a Gen3 night-vision monocular
(1x) thursday night (Oct. 23). It's amazing how well these things work.
Of course, I couldn't help pointing them at the pristine night sky.

At about 10:30PST in San Jose, CA, I trained them on the Pleiades. The
image is noisy, as expected, because of the high amplification level.
There appears to be quite a bit of blooming on the bright stars, but
it's amazing how many more stars can be seen. I didn't have star
charts, so I didn't do any limiting mag. guessing. For some strange
reason, I also forgot to look at the Andromeda galaxy.

The most amazing thing, though, is the ability to see shooting stars. I
tracked quite a few of them with both eyes open (one using the monocular
and the other unaided), and couldn't see any of them with the unaided
eye. I was able to see about one or two per minute with the monocular
in the direction of Pleaides. Has anyone else tried night-vision
binoculars or monoculars during meteor showers?

Daniel
-ZZZ (hint: there are no z-'s)