Animation - Taking the chair for a spin:
Introduction:
Large binoculars for astronomy are now widely available at attractive prices, much lower than that of just a few years ago. In 2003, I purchased a pair of 25X100 binoculars from Apogee for $300 and have a review posted HERE. I've seen the binoculars for sale for even less recently. I have really enjoyed the stunning widefield views through these large binos that are not possible through any of my telescopes. The problem with large astronomy binoculars is their weight. For comets Hyakutake (1996) and Hale-Bopp (1997), I built a binocular parallelogram mount using directions published in an astronomy magazine. I oversized the parts so that I could use larger binoculars and be able to view from a reclining lawn chair. You can see it at the bottom of the page HERE. Although the parallelogram mount works well for observing a single object such as a comet, or a small section of the sky, it is not convenient when scanning a large section of the sky, because of the need to sit up and relocate the reclining chair. The solution is a motorized binocular chair. Such a chair is advertised in astronomy magazines at a very high price. I decided to build my own motorized binocular chair that would support heavy astronomy binoculars, such as my 10 pound 25X100 Apogee binoculars. My construction notes with construction details follow.
Disclaimer:
I built this binocular chair for my body size and weight. I am not responsible for any injury or damage if you decide to build one using my plans. These plans detail how I designed and constructed my motorized big bino chair and may be helpful to those who want to build their own.
Design Objectives:
All design objectives above were met with the additional advantage of the cordless drill being easily removed from the bino chair for use as a regular drill.
Main Components:
The project consists of building three main components:
1. Ground Board:
2. Chair Base:
3. Bino Mount:
Next Page - Page 2 - Construction of Ground Board
Big Astronomy Binoculars - Large Astronomy Binoculars