Are you looking to make a mount from timber or aluminium?
I've recently made a parallelogram mount from timber (see pics).
I've removed the temporary counterbalance weights pending installation of something
more adjustable. This is in a vice in the workshop so I could take a photo.
Did you use a plan to create your parallelogram? I am going to investigate making one, if I can't buy one from somewhere.
Just roughed one up out of some standard bits of aluminium tube from the harware shop.
Cut and folded some flat pieces up to bolt them too, and it works well, still needs a little refinement though. Got some ideas from http://home.wanadoo.nl/jhm.vangastel...ocs/binocs.htm but didn't follow them too strictly.
I can post a pic and draw out some dimensions if you're interested, but it's not as sophisticated as some of the other designs I've seen around IIS. It's probably cost me $25. The survey legs I'm trying are borrowed, so still have to buy those yet...
Are you looking to make a mount from timber or aluminium?
I have a very sturdy tripod, I just need plans for the parallelogram itself. I can see from your photograph that it is basically timber strips, with holes drilled, bolted together with a wingnut and bolt assembly.
You see, I am the most un-handy person in existence, the only reason I build the dew shields so successfully was because every single step was clearly outlined and displayed in both words and images. I need this type of step-by-step detail, so I can follow it. I need to know the lengths of the timber, the diameter of the screws and so forth.
Women would call me the most perfect example of an 'MM' (Mere Male)
I can see this project taking off very soon, I am mustering up confidence all the time, with each new link, examples and description, I am one step closer to trying my hand at making one. This is akin to someone with arachnephobia being asked to sleep in a cage full of tarantulas, me and DIY should never been seen in the same sentence.....but I am warming to the idea
Hi All
Just read the bino's articles. I have a pair of 25X100, a cheap pair I guess ($500). I built a motorized chair for about $100 with Junk I had and a couple of purchases. The most expensive part was the Matress in the chair $40.
I will put some photo's together and a brief explanation and send to Mike for the projects section. I just looked for the photo's and can't find them quickly as they are amongst my hundreds on several drives. I must sort them sometime.
I'm looking at building a second bino chair with larger binos, but am not sure if the 45 degrees on the binos will be a problem with a chair. Mine are straight through.
Cheers
Geoff
I had a few good hours observing last night with my binoculars, it ended up I had 5 highlights, firstly Saturn was as clear as a bell, and I could easily see the rings, it was fantastic, I stayed on it for 20 mins, then I saw a very faint globular cluster, it was a perfect example and only that the sky was so dark and because I had my new dew/light shades on, I could see it at all.
I then saw a really nice cluster, much larger and brighter, it was not globular but sort of a round shape but not circular (if you know what I mean). I don’t know the names of these clusters because I have no real way of telling and I did not take my lap top out with me. I find the planisphere is really only good for very large stars and constellation names.
I then hit the jackpot, the mother load (well for me anyway), there she hung in all her splendor, Jupiter and surrounded with four moons who were standing guard protecting her J
This was the clearest I have ever seen Jupiter, she was almost on fire, bright and large and the moons were spectacularly clear, Io & Europa were at 11 o’clock as I faced the planet, they were close together, and not far away from the planet. Then at 10.30 o’clock but much further out and in a different angle to each other were Ganymede & Callisto. These two moons were 2 to 2.5 times further apart from each other than Io & Europa were.
This was so amazingly clear, I believe I may have experienced two things happening, firstly the seeing was especially good for me right at that time, and secondly, it’s the first time I have used my new dew/light shields which I also baffled the inside with absorptive black felt.
Then I had my mystery, I saw something at first I thought this was way too big to be a star, however it was so blazingly bright I doubt that it could have been a planet, it was almost halfway between Saturn on my left (north-west) and Jupiter on my right (south east), but it was not as high in the sky in terms of degrees. I checked out the planisphere quickly, but didn’t really come away satisfied that I knew what it was, of course by this time I was sure it was a very large star.
I went inside and switched my computer on and turned Stellarium on and as soon as I pointed it in the right direction it revealed to me that it was Arctaurus, I made some notes about the night in my observation diary and resolved to learn more about Arctaurus today. So all in all I have a pretty spectacular end to my day. I can’t wait till I get better gear and learn how to use it all, I wish I was 30 years younger and had all that time over again to observe the universe.
Jupiter is a bloke and according to Wiki, Ganymede is the only Galilean moon of Jupiter named after a male figure.
I thought about that as I was writing, I saw a doco on TV where they say King Jupiter, so I thought Jupiter might have been male, but because it was so awesome, I thought it had to be female, now I really am confused is there an 'official' outside of Wiki, gender convention for celestial bodies???
Off the top of my head, from tales of lore and general mythology, I have always understood the following:
Mercury – male (winged messenger)
Venus – female (goddess of love)
Earth – female (mother Earth)
Moon - female
Mars – male (god of war)
Jupiter – male (king of gods)
Saturn – male (god of time)
Uranus -male
Neptune – male (sea dude with a trident)
Pluto – male (deceased)
Off the top of my head, from tales of lore and general mythology, I have always understood the following:
Mercury – male (winged messenger)
Venus – female (goddess of love)
Earth – female (mother Earth)
Moon - female
Mars – male (god of war)
Jupiter – male (king of gods)
Saturn – male (god of time)
Uranus -male
Neptune – male (sea dude with a trident)
Pluto – male (deceased)
Cheers
Dennis
What about stars in general, are they gender neutral, or do you give them the gender of whom they were named after if that was a person (mythical or real). What about non-humanoid things, as in Canopus, which is probably named after the ancient Egyptian city of Canopus. We do give gender to our cities as a rule, they tend to be females
Hi Ron, sounds like you had a great session. How did you make your dew/light shields? Do they cut out much light pollution?
Cheers,
Ben
Alan Sheehan wrote a top DIY project which I followed to the letter: http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=63,321,0,0,1,0
I added the baffle myself after advice from several forum members. I got the self adhesive black felt from Spotlight and stuck it inside the shields. Yes it has improved my elimination of both dew and extraneous light form street lights etc. Do it, you won't look back
One word of caution, Alan's binoculars were AOE and mine are Andrews, both of these are identical in their physical size dimensions, if you have other larger or smaller sized binoculars, you will need to measure very precisely and match up the PVC pipe if possible, I suspect that there will be some binoculars that simply don't fit a PVC pipe size. In that case you would need to source out some other suitable material.
is there an 'official' outside of Wiki, gender convention for celestial bodies???
