How Do I Collimate These Binoculars?

[refractordude]

Hello There


I have these Orion ED 20x80 binoculars that came out of collimation. I emailed Orion for instructions/help who told me there was nothing they could do. I think Orion was saying they can not be collimated. That was about a year before Orion went out of business. Anyways here is an image of what they look like. Thanks to you all.

[bojan]

Have a look at this thread:
https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=203564&highlight=binoculars

[refractordude]

Hello There Bojan


Thanks for the reply.

[Leo.G]

That's very interested Bojan!
I'd often wondered whether a green laser would be optimal for this task, providing of course the laser module itself is centred accurately (I must chuck them both in the lathe one day and check, I can use the tail stock as an accuracy guage.

I always put my vision down to my lousy vision, maybe it's not just my eyes.
Though I very recently acquired a pair of early 70s 7x15-35 Hanimex binoculars, the zoom model, picked up from the local Salvation army for $20 in extremely good condition. I ummed and arghed, carried them around the shop for the 10 minutes I was in there then decided I'd bite the bullet and buy them.
I already owned 3 pairs of binoculars, one a cheap 10x 50 from Tool-King (from memory), OK for the low price, not great, one pair of Vision King 7x50 a fellow IIS member locally gave me, higher quality optics than the Tool King things and, a pair of field glassed owned by a former WWII Luftwaffe pilot and Major (WWII pilot field glasses), late friend and neighbour. I haven't compared them,

The little Hanimex however blew me away with the quality of the glass and from my research it seems I got very lucky.
One day I'd like a larger pair suitable for portable astro.

[bojan]

Yes, green laser can be used for binoculars colimation instead of sun, but you also need to have some sort of bench / jig which will allow the laser (or binos) to be moved sideways (preserving the parallelism), so the light beam can enter both objectives at exactly the same angle (roughly perpendicular) and through their centers.

When the projected images formed by each binos side hit the same point on the target (close to the centre) then the colimation is OK.

[By.Jove]

ATM volume 2 by Albert Ingalls describes the collimation of binoculars on a bench. You'll have a few things to make - well within DIY with some hand tools - and a laser pointer will help.