DIY 50mm finder construction

[timwetherell]

Much easier to buy one, but kinda fun to make a finder from an old binocular objective  5x 50mm with nice sharp 8.6° FoV

[spacegalaxy]

On 07/03/2022 at 01:07, timwetherell said:

Much easier to buy one, but kinda fun to make a finder from an old binocular objective  5x 50mm with nice sharp 8.6° FoV

That tube holding the lens looks like a bottle! Also, plain aluminium is the best tube material, it looks very nice!

(P.S. Can you add some more pics? I would like to see them!)

[maw lod qan]

Yes please! More images and details of the design. 

[timwetherell]

15 hours ago, spacegalaxy said:

That tube holding the lens looks like a bottle! Also, plain aluminium is the best tube material, it looks very nice!

(P.S. Can you add some more pics? I would like to see them!)

Thanks  yes will take some more pics. It's part of an overall upgrade to my setup. I had a 66mm that wat serving as a guide scope and a finder and doing a poor job of both so moving on to a dedicated 80mm guide and 50mm finder. Will post more pics as it comes along

[timwetherell]

11 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

Yes please! More images and details of the design. 

Will post some soon. Ultimate finish will be black but I need to work out the method of attachment to the main scope and machine up the necessary bits before any paint goes on

[markse68]

That's beautiful! Did you thread the end of the tube for the binocular objective? Did it have the eccentric collimation adjusters and if so what did you do with them? I've been thinking of doing this myself- would probably just use the bin ep as they are pretty decent really

Mark

[timwetherell]

20 hours ago, markse68 said:

That's beautiful! Did you thread the end of the tube for the binocular objective? Did it have the eccentric collimation adjusters and if so what did you do with them? I've been thinking of doing this myself- would probably just use the bin ep as they are pretty decent really

Mark

Thanks Mark  Actually the objective housing is a snug push fit into the tube I had so wasn't any real need to thread - happily! I've made a few fine threads on my lathe but don't find them easy. If it were a loser fit I'd probably just have a grub screw to secure it. It is an the usual eccentric binocular cell but that only pushes it about 1mm off axis and for 7x magnification, I just didn't worry about it. 

Now have to think about mounting it somehow