Possibly odddd thing to do - binoculars on NEQ6

[BrendanC]

Hi all,

Tonight I had the pleasure of imaging The Pleiades, M45, then realising I could see it with the naked eye, then getting out my 15x70 astronomy binos and seeing it through them too.

I got my binocular tripod out but then suddenly thought: is there any way to attach them to the NEQ6? For a much more solid mount, that happens to be pointing in the right direction already!

I already have my 130PDS on the mount, plus a guidescope attached to the finder shoe, but looked online for any means adding the binos and couldn't find anything.

The binos use this sort of adapter:

 

So, is this really such an unusual thing to want to do? I'd imagine some sort of dual 'thing' to fit into the finder shoe, with the guide scope on one side and the binos on the other, would do the trick. Or, perhaps a means of doing a double-decker arrangement with the binos on top of the 130PDS would work better, to aid stability of the guidescope in the finder shoe, while keeping the binos more upright. 

I've certainly got plenty of weight capacity to spare on the NEQ6 mount so that wouldn't be a concern.

It's not something I have to do, or need to do. I just want to do it! Would be nice for the occasions in which I can view what I'm imaging, for example clusters. The binos could also double as a finder scope if/when I need one.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Brendan

Edited December 5, 2020 by BrendanC

[Ricochet]

I think that you would run into problems mounting the binoculars onto the telescope in such a way that you could actually look through them when they're on the scope. You would also run into the problem of telescope rotation as the EQ mount moves across the sky. The binoculars would sometimes be on top of the scope, below the scope or the left or right of the scope. The yoga positions required to use the finder on an eq-mounted newt would be made even more difficult by the need to align both eyes to the binocular. I'm sure you could find a way to bolt the binocular adaptor to something that can attach to the scope,  but I'm not sure you could do so in a way that that allowed the binoculars to spin on said mount so that you could look through them wherever the telescope is pointing, and have them keep alignment with the telescope (or at least not easily and cheaply).

[BrendanC]

Yep, that's a very good point. I should have thought of that! I think that, as it's been a while since I looked through the scope or used the finder, I'd probably lost sight of the fact that, well, you can lose sight of things on an EQ mount!

Thanks for the sanity check.