Worthwhile upgrade from gen 3 - ATN PVS14-4 1x27mm Night Vision Monoculars

I fly with NVGs every night. When these Generation 4 monoculars became available for private purchase, I got one for personal use. The upgrade from a Gen 3 is similar to when you first bought an HDTV. On a moonless night with Gen 3, you are only going to see a bunch of overlapping shadows unless you add infrared lighting. The Gen 4 monocular gives you the acuity to easily navigate in the same moonless conditions. Also, with the Gen 3 the lights of a distant town are going to cause everything else in your field of view to be blacked out. The Gen 4 enables you to clearly see unlit areas even with normal lights elsewhere in your view. In a dense forest it would probably still be too dark to see much with the Gen 4, but like the Gen 3 this monocular has a small integrated IR light. This model is MIL-SPEC, so it is just as tough and reliable as the goggles I have flown with for 20 years.
The Gen 3 monocular is suitable for most low-light situations. However the Gen 4, at a significantly added expense, offers a much higher level of visual acuity in super-dark conditions, making it worth the purchase for the serious user.