Has anyone built a binoscope using small refractors?
I've just gone and done it again. I've bought a second William Optics 66mm Petzval scope to match my original one. I intend to create for myself a binoscope from them. There are some good websites that describe what people have done, but they are all top-end and rather expensive looking. Has anyone ever made a set for themselves? Adjustment of interocular distance with two diagonals is going to be the hard part I think. You don't want any field rotation. It seems that there is a guy in Japan who manufactures a system using two 45 deg erecting prisms one on top of the other to allow the I/O distance to come right down. He also manufactures (or did) a system to allow parallel skewing adjustment between the two OTA's.
Hi Chris, I can see you in your 60's on your farm in Cooma with a big barn full of inventions and a "Back to the Future" style Land Rover
Cheers
LOL! Ric - the guy who lives next to us in Cooma is ex-Nasa, and he is just that. He's in his 70's, loves space, Apollo, astro gear and Land Rovers. Maybe he's rubbing off on me.... and costing me a fortune.....
Yep it would make a nice setup indeed.
Next best thing for me would be to get a bino-viewer instead and say a matching pair of EP's, probably a pair of 24mm panos.
CHris , I have a pair of Synta 6" F8 refractor tube assemblies here for the same purpose eventually.
I would recommend arranging rear mirror in the split amici arrangement. Only two mirrors required and it gives you 90 degree bend with erect image.
LOL! Knew you'd have those for this purpose Mark!
After looking up info on amici diagonals, it looks as though you need to spend a pile of cash to get a semi-good quality image though one. Am I right in assuming that the more complex design lends itself to poorer quality optics unless you spend big? Any idea where to get a set from in Oz?
Hi Chris.
I have been investigating possibility to build binocular telescope using two Celestron 102 wide field refractors for some time now.. But there is a twist in it. As I got very little vision in my left eye left, I want to build a binocular telescope for imagining. With two 100mm aperture scopes 250mm apart I think that I should get resolution similar to 18” scope. Of course, it would not have same light gathering ability as with 18”. But that would be to some extend compensated by using very sensitive GStar camera(s). Advantages of this scope would be that it can be used with average GE mount, reasonable portability and better resolution compared to single scope.
Problems. First I thought I could devise mirror and beam splitter (combiner) system and use one camera only. Unfortunately this is no go as the light path would be very long and I would not be able to achieve focus. So I settled on two cameras but I struck another problem. Synchronising two cameras without very expensive multiplexer is very difficult. Lately I tried security video multiplexer and thought it switches two cameras with 1second interval only it is sufficient for my application as GStar integrates images for 2.56 seconds. Collimating two cameras will be another problem, but some astronomical software packages can align and stack images on fly so even if the cameras are not align with pixel accuracy, the software may compensate for it.
I have done some testing with two cameras 100mm apart and two identical 8mm lenses. Done at night on terrestrial targets. I compared single image to combined image from two cameras and to two stacked images from one camera, and combined image from two cameras gave noticeably better resolution.
Whole thing may not work as I imagine at all, but when I get all the bits and pieces together I will have go and build it
The split Amici mirror system ( which actually uses 4 small mirrors was patented originally by Tatsuro Matsumoto who manufactures that rather expensive EMS mirror system you have seen at Binoscopes.com. You should be able to make one yourself.
Your best step would be to get hold of his original article in Sky and Telescope November 1983 Gleanings column. Its listed as a free PDF in the S and T archive but I think you have to pay a small fee to join.
Maybe someone on Ice in Space could help out ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omaroo
After looking up info on amici diagonals, it looks as though you need to spend a pile of cash to get a semi-good quality image though one. Am I right in assuming that the more complex design lends itself to poorer quality optics unless you spend big? Any idea where to get a set from in Oz?
Thanks Mark. After looking around it looks like these two scopes that I have may not work. The use of amici mirrors necessitates (in nearly all cases) the shortening of the OTA to regain back-focus. Given that petzval designs incorporate a rearward set of lenses, this becomes impossible.
Join the two with a pair of Binos with individual focus at the eyepieces.
If only it was that simple!,LOL. I do realise something would prevent this.
I'm opticly challenged amongst other things,LOL
