I thought the aperture fiends on the list might be interested to see a picture of a 22" Binocular commisioned in Texas last year.
The mirrors I made for it were going to go into a sister instrument in Melbourne but as the USA Opticians still hadn't delivered the optics, mine went to the USA based instrument Still I hope to look through them one day.
Wow - that is a terrific instrument, story and news. Congratulations on an incredible achievement. Texans say that everything is bigger and better in Texas, but this time Mark, you have completely outclassed and upstaged those Texans.
How do you view with it?? From the photo it looks like you stand in front of the scope and look down towards the mirrors into the eyepieces that are pointing forwards.... Is that right????
If so - how do you look at the zenith?!
Mark impresive work there, hope we see some of these lovely big binos in Aus with your optics.
Lee I am guessing that both focusers have diagnoals inserted in them so you can look down as you have guessed already. These diagnosl could be turned in the focuser so that when looking at the zenith the Diagonal EP's are turned parallel to the ground.
edit:
I wonder if one could make a 3d video using this setup. That would be really cool.
Great to see your mirrors exported to the United States.
Mai and I plan on being in Texas early next year, so who knows,
we may even get a chance to see the binos in action.
I notice that Fred appears in the far right in the photo and we
had the pleasure of meeting him in March this year up at
Coonabarabran whilst we were observing with the Texans.
Thanks very much for your interest and kind words, guys.
I'm too busy at the moment to reply individually , but I'm sure many of your questions would be answered on Bruce's webpage on his own prototype and pretty much identical instrument using Swayze mirrors.
Last night we tested Paul Shopis's 12" binocular with one complete and and one uncoated 12" mirror to test the system. They were very easy to collimate and use. A list of minor adjustments and fixes to be done so still a little way to completion .
If you stand in front of these binos what stops the thermals off your body from wrecking the view? We seem to spend a lot of time eliminating the thermals in our scopes and with the binos we put a hot body right in front of them.
If you stand in front of these binos what stops the thermals off your body from wrecking the view? We seem to spend a lot of time eliminating the thermals in our scopes and with the binos we put a hot body right in front of them.
Confused
Rob
Yes, I would recommend a shroud around any instrument as you can never be sure which way the breeze might be blowing.I also believe that with the reverse binocular design that each tube should have an extension hood going past the observers head, so that at most angles , heat plume from the head is directed away from and in between the two optical paths.
However , having spent some time in the past using a 20" F5 binocular , all I can say is that any occasional problems from a heat plume are on the balance overwhelmed by the advantages two discrete optical systems can give, namely 40% improved contrast and seperate seeing cells. Most larger telescopes are compromised by the atmospheric seeing a lot of the time anyway. Regardless, the brain seems to build up the best binocular image using moments of good seeing in each eye, and the view is always more detailed in both eyes than one. This selective process doesn't work with a beamslpitter viewer. When the view is lousy it is lousy in both eyes !
Thanks for that Mark. I thought it would be something like that BUT imagine, if you could eliminate the thermals somehow, what the views would be like.
Still I hope to look through them one day.
