Finally
finished painting with oil base primer, white porch paint and oil base flat
black on tube interiors. Added stick on
vinyl letters. Nice to be done. The scope is easy to wheel around and can be
“parked” on the ground board, pivoted and then rolling resumed to negotiate
tight turns and narrow hallways.
Altitude and azimuth motions are smooth with no backlash and there is
very little vibration due to good damping via the tubes, vanes and plywood
parts. Routine magnification from 50x to
250x is very pleasant at the eyepiece.
The x/y knobs provide fine control of image fusion and are intuitive to
use while viewing. I was careful to keep
paint out of the waxed surfaces of the rotating upper tube and the inside of
the lower tube in the area mating to the upper tube, insuring the upper tubes
would continue to rotate with a smooth tight fit.
oil based paints
applied with brush applying vinyl 3” letters
================
Weight
of paint (one coat of primer on wood and tube outside, then one coat of porch
white on wood and tube exteriors plus one coat flat black on tube interiors)
equaled the weight of the finder scope – may remount it at center of cradle –
also forgot to attach Rigel Quickfinder
for these pictures. Scope is well
balanced without any counter weight at either end. Note ¼” masonite
braces added to both tube coupler brackets – these spread out the coupler
forces over a larger tube area, precluding any deformation of the tube –
original brackets were just too short where they mated to tube.
“NITELITE” ready for dusk
Anyone
attempting a binocular scope might consider this design – although not “fancy”,
it relies on tested simple mechanics and materials and provides awesome
views. The entire project, after
assigning a $48.00 value to the free ugly plywood, List
of Materials totaled just over $1500. I have no drawn plans --- the
“design” evolved, dictated by practical issues, as we went along. I spent 22
days on the project and never worked more than about 4 hours per day, taking my
time to figure out “what came next” and to take digital images all along the
way. If I were to do the same scope, now
knowing how to proceed, the project wouldn’t exceed 60 hours.
I
would recommend first time ATM’s attempting a binocular scope first build a
small dobsonian telescope and practice collimating it
– the knowledge gained will make building and collimating the binoc much easier
Clear
skies!
Jim
Lawrence
Rio
Rancho, New Mexico