At its simplest, a sight typically has two components, front and rear aiming pieces that have to be lined up. Sights such as this can be found on many types of devices including weapons, surveying and measuring instruments, and navigational tools.
On weapons, these sights are usually formed by rugged metal parts, giving them the name "iron sights",[4] as distinct from optical or computing sights.[5] On many types of weapons they are built-in and may be fixed, adjustable, or marked for elevation, windage, target speed, etc.[3] They are also classified in forms of notch (open sight) or aperture (closed sight). These types of sights can require considerable experience and skill, as the user has to hold proper eye position and simultaneously focus on the rear sight, the front sight, and a target, all at different distances, and align all three planes of focus.[6]
Optical Sights
A view through a 20× power telescopic sight
Optical sights use optics that give the user an enhanced image with an aligned aiming point or pattern (also called a reticle) superimposed onto the target image, preferably at the same focal plane.
A telescopic sight is a refracting telescope equipped with some form of referencing pattern (reticle) mounted in an optically appropriate position in the optical system to give an accurate aiming point. Telescopic sights are used on a wide range of devices including guns, surveying equipment, and even as sights on larger telescopes (called a finderscope).
Another type of optical sight is the reflector (or "reflex") sight, a generally non-magnifying optical device that allows the user to look through a glass element and see a reflection of an illuminated aiming point or some other image superimposed on the field of view.[7] These sights have been around for over 100 years and have been used on all types of weapons and devices.
Reflector sights were first used as a weapon sight in German aircraft towards the end of World War I. Over the years they became more sophisticated, adding lead computing gyroscopes and electronics (the World War IIGyro gunsight)[8] radar range finding and other flight information in the 1950s and 1960s, eventually becoming the modern head-up display.
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects show a larger parallax than farther objects, so parallax can be used to determine distances.
A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD or head-up guidance system (HGS), is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of the name stems from a pilot being able to view information with the head positioned "up" and looking forward, instead of angled down looking at lower instruments. A HUD also has the advantage that the pilot's eyes do not need to refocus to view the outside after looking at the optically nearer instruments.
The Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG) is a series of prismatic telescopic sights manufactured by Trijicon. The ACOG was originally designed to be used on the M16 rifle and M4 carbine, but Trijicon has also developed ACOG accessories for other firearms. Models provide fixed-power magnification levels from 1.25× to 6×. ACOG reticles are illuminated at night by an internal tritium phosphor. Some versions have an additional daytime reticle illumination via a passive external fiberoptic light pipe or are LED-illuminated using a dry battery. The first ACOG model, known as the TA01, was released in 1987.
A reticle, or reticule also known as a graticule, is a pattern of fine lines or markings built into the eyepiece of an optical device such as a telescopic sight, spotting scope, theodolite, optical microscope or the screen of an oscilloscope, to provide measurement references during visual inspections. Today, engraved lines or embedded fibers may be replaced by a digital image superimposed on a screen or eyepiece. Both terms may be used to describe any set of patterns used for aiding visual measurements and calibrations, but in modern use reticle is most commonly used for weapon sights, while graticule is more widely used for non-weapon measuring instruments such as oscilloscope display, astronomic telescopes, microscopes and slides, surveying instruments and other similar devices.
Iron sights are a system of physical alignment markers used as a sighting device to assist the accurate aiming of ranged weapons (such as a firearms, airguns, crossbows, and bows, or less commonly as a primitive finder sight for optical telescopes. Iron sights are the earliest type of sighting device, as it relies completely on the viewer's naked eye, and is distinctly different to optical sights such as telescopic sights, reflector sights, holographic sights, and laser sights, which make use of optical manipulation and/or active illumination.
A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope informally, is an optical sighting device based on a refracting telescope. It is equipped with some form of a referencing pattern – known as a reticle – mounted in a focally appropriate position in its optical system to provide an accurate point of aim. Telescopic sights are used with all types of systems that require magnification in addition to reliable visual aiming, as opposed to non-magnifying iron sights, reflector (reflex) sights, holographic sights or laser sights, and are most commonly found on long-barrel firearms, particularly rifles, usually via a scope mount. Similar devices are also found on other platforms such as artillery, tanks and even aircraft. The optical components may be combined with optoelectronics to add night vision or smart device features.
A collimator is a device which narrows a beam of particles or waves. To narrow can mean either to cause the directions of motion to become more aligned in a specific direction, or to cause the spatial cross section of the beam to become smaller.
The Sight Unit Small Arms, Trilux, or SUSAT, is a 4× telescopic sight, with tritium-powered illumination utilised at dusk or dawn. The full name of the current model is the SUSAT L9A1. The sight is not designed as a sniper sight, but is rather intended to be mounted on a variety of rifles and to be used by all infantrymen. A similar device is the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG).
Boresighting is a method of visually pre-aligning a firearm barrel's bore axis with the target, in order to more easily zero the gunsight. The process is usually performed on a rifle, and can be accomplished either with the naked eye, or with a specialized device called a boresighter.
A finderscope is an accessory sighting device used in astronomy and stargazing, typically a small auxiliary refracting telescope/monocular mounted parallelly on a larger astronomical telescope along the same line of sight. The finderscope usually has a much smaller magnification than the main telescope, thus providing a larger field of view, useful for manually pointing the main telescope into a roughly correct direction that can easily place a desired astronomical object in view when zooming in. Some finderscopes have sophisticated reticles to more accurately aim the main telescope and/or even perform stadiametric measurements.
EOTECH is an American company that designs, manufactures, and markets electro-optic and night vision products and systems. The company is headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan.
A gyro gunsight (G.G.S.) is a modification of the non-magnifying reflector sight in which target lead and bullet drop are calculated automatically. The first examples were developed in Britain just before the Second World War for use during aerial combat, and more advanced models were common on Allied aircraft by the end of the war.
Sir Howard Grubb was an optical designer from Dublin, Ireland. He was head of a family firm that made large optical telescopes, telescope drive controls, and other optical instruments. He is also noted for his work to perfect the periscope and inventing the reflector sight.
The following are terms related to firearms and ammunition topics.
A red dot sight is a common classification for a non-magnifying reflector sight that provides an illuminated red dot to the user as a point of aim. A standard design uses a red light-emitting diode (LED) at the focus of collimating optics, which generates a dot-style illuminated reticle that stays in alignment with the firearm the sight is attached to, regardless of eye position.
A reflector sight or reflex sight is an optical sight that allows the user to look through a partially reflecting glass element and see an illuminated projection of an aiming point or some other image superimposed on the field of view. These sights work on the simple optical principle that anything at the focus of a lens or curved mirror will appear to be sitting in front of the viewer at infinity. Reflector sights employ some form of "reflector" to allow the viewer to see the infinity image and the field of view at the same time, either by bouncing the image created by lens off a slanted glass plate, or by using a mostly clear curved glass reflector that images the reticle while the viewer looks through the reflector. Since the reticle is at infinity it stays in alignment with the device to which the sight is attached regardless of the viewer's eye position, removing most of the parallax and other sighting errors found in simple sighting devices.
A holographic weapon sight or holographic diffraction sight is a non-magnifying gunsight that allows the user to look through a glass optical window and see a holographic reticle image superimposed at a distance on the field of view. The hologram of the reticle is built into the window and is illuminated by a laser diode.
A collimator sight is a type of optical sight that allows the user looking into it to see an illuminated aiming point aligned with the device the sight is attached to, regardless of eye position. They are also referred to as collimating sights or "occluded eye gunsight" (OEG).
A sight magnifier is an optical telescope that can be paired with a non-magnifying optical sight on a weapon to create a telescopic sight. They work with the parallel collimated reticle image produced by red dot sights and holographic weapon sights. They may synonymously be referred to as a red dot magnifier, reflex sight magnifier, holographic sight magnifier, or flip to side magnifiers.
A prism sight or prismatic sight, sometimes also called prism scope or prismatic scope, is a type of telescopic sight which uses a reflective prism for its image-erecting system, instead of the series of relay lenses found in traditional telescopic sights. The use of prisms makes it possible to construct a shorter and lighter sight, or with an offset between the eyepiece and objective axes.
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