Binocular Mount


Some of the best advice I received as a beginner was to start with binoculars while I decided what kind of scope I wanted. I bought a pair of Orion 10x50 binoculars but was not able to hold them as steady as I would like. After searching the net and seeing the commercial and ATM binocular mount designs I decided to make a parallelogram style mount. After seeing other people chase the binoculars around the tripod I decided I would try something different. I added an extra pivot point giving the mount another degree of freedom. As shown below you can stand in one place and see more than 180 degs. of sky
In retrospect the design was over engineered and had some shortcomings. One problem was that to support the extra pivot I needed about 10 lb of counterweight. This made the unit a chore to transport. The parallelogram unit is built heavy enough that I could use larger binoculars if I wanted but when the binoculars are swiveled off of centerline it causes the mount to twist excessively. The larger binoculars can be used by taking off the extra pivot but then you are back to chasing them around the tripod.