Hi to all, I have picked up on a few threads regarding current and past manufacturing of Binocular Telescopes. I must say I am most impressed with the skills I have seen displayed. However, I am the old new guy and have been lost in the woods for some years. So I have lots of catching up to do. I probably don’t have enough experience, time , money and storage space to build one of these large units. I have seen what has been described as reverse Binoculars ( same thing I guess ). This being where you are looking over your shoulders to space. Now this is where I need guidance. With running the risk of over simplifying this, it would appear to me that either a standard Dobsonian or Newtonian in a match pair either 6, 8, 10, or 12" could be paired together on a common mount ( specially designed ) , to effectively achieve something similar. Naturally, not as good but perhaps something useful, cost effective and transportable. Two things are obvious , 1. The scopes need to pivot in and out to adjust eyepiece centres to suit individual users. 2. Eye pieces and focusser may need some modifications to suit. This being the general scenario I believe I could design a mounting and tripod to suit. I stumbled across a website that had some interesting photos of something similar. homepage2.nifty.com/bigbino/summit04/report/report_reflector_twin-e.html - 9k -
I guess my question is, is it feasible to build such a unit using Dobsonian scopes ( relatively cheap ) and achieve a worthwhile result. Perhaps someone has achieved this and could comment on it and the pitfalls. One of the photos is a unit designed around a 50 litre plastic trash can.
The first design looks better. But trying to mount two seperate tubes together usually leads to problems with loss of co-collimation. Its probably better to mount your optics on one truss so they stay more stably aligned.
