Skyscout on binocs

[Johnboy]

Hi folks,

A couple of years ago I bought a Celestron Skyscout which I have found very useful for not just helping me find my way around but also as a good learning tool. (It's quite nice to have a voice telling me about an object whilst I'm looking at it ).

For a while now I have been using the SS on a small tripod and my 20x80 binocs on a larger one. The idea was to use the SS to find the object and then 'home in' on the revelant part of the sky with the binocs. This method was a bit hit and miss so I toyed with the idea of fixing the SS to the binocs and using it as a fixed finderscope.

I already had a binocular bracket that allows me to attach the binocs or a camera to a pole (something similar to this: http://www.cameragrip.co.uk/acatalog/mini_clamp.html ).

The SS fits well using the central bar on the binocs and during daytime alignment seems OK. I've yet to use it at night but if it works then I'll report back. Here's hoping for the best!

Regards

John

[Astromart]

Great idea John! Does it add much to the weight of the bino's ? Keep us informed with nighttime trials

[Johnboy]

Great idea John! Does it add much to the weight of the bino's ? Keep us informed with nighttime trials

Thanks! I believe the SS weighs around 15oz. I'm not sure about the bracket but when testing it I didn't notice too much difference from when I use the binocs on their own. I tried tilting the whole set up in all different positions and everything stayed steady and firm. Obviously a decent tripod is needed, but if you are using a heavy pair of binocs then presumably you would have one anyway.

Regards,

John

[Johnboy]

Hi folks,

Well I tried the Skyscout/binoc set up last night and I'm happy to report it worked a treat.

With the SS attached to the binocs I firstly aligned both with Sirius. This was easily achieved as the ball head on the bracket allowed me to swivel the SS into place and line it up with view in the binocs. I then thought I'd test the accuracy by getting the SS to locate a well known object, so I chose M42. Using the direction arrows in the SS I moved the complete set up until the SS found the Nebula. I then took a look through the binocs and there it was - right in the centre of view. Spurred on by this success I tried M44, M31 and M45 all of which were pretty much centred in the binocs. So I'm really chuffed this worked.

Hope you find this of interest.

Best wishes.

John