Bino Tripod Parallelogram mount vs mirror

[BSirius]

G'day all,

Just got some AOE 12x60 binos and was going to have a crack at an aluminium parallelogram mount to ease the neck angle.

I've seen a couple of mirror mounts aswell, which seem pretty neat and civilised.

Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on pros and cons for each.

(Hope this doesn't cover old ground too much...)

Cheers,

Ben

[Astroman]

Parallelogram you can build yourself very cheaply, less than $50

The other method using the mirror will be much much more as the mirror needs to be alumanised on the front face of the glass, not the rear like on a bathroom. This cuts out the double reflection caused by the two surfaces of the glass.

One good thing about the mirrored one is that you dont need to move your neck that much. Most people go the parallelogram way because its cheap and can be made simply with backyard tools and can be any design you wish.

[erick]

A tangential comment - I don't see that any form of mount changes the neck angle as such - the binoculars still have to point at the object in question. If you cannot change to 45 deg or 90 deg eyepieces (and most of us cannot) or use the mirror option (I'll have to try that one day) - and these methods will invert your view, defeating a benefit of binoculars, namely WYGIWYS (what you get (to view) is what you see in the sky) - then the secret is to change your body's location - hence the need to design mounts that you can slide yourself under or lie under.

[JohnH]

I believe cheap front face mirrors of good quality can be extracted from old photocopiers...there was an article on this in an Astro Mag a while back by a couple of guys who used this method to observe the recent eclipse....

[Astroman]

Thanks John, I was unaware of this...

[okiscopey]

... and from old overhead projectors. I have one from a Bell & Howell 360 which measures 180mm x 110mm (but the corners are cut off a bit).

Rescued it from a thow-out at work intending to use it with binos, but haven't got a round tuit yet.

Optically not sure how OHP mirrors would perform - this one looks OK (by looking at objects with the mirror tilted nearly edge-on).

[BSirius]

Cool, thanks guys.

Think I need to learn a bit more about mirrors. (Thought it couldn't be as easy as snapping the corner off the bathroom mirror).

Will try the parallogram to start, just to get the binos away from the tripod and closer to the sun-lounge...

Cheers,

Ben

[Dennis]

Hi Guys

I promised Mike I would write up an article on how I made my wooden parallelogram mount. I should have it completed in a week or two, after I have finished the observing hutch “how to”.

Here is a sample photo with Pentax 9x63 bino’s mounted.

Cheers

Dennis