I'm an amateur astronomer since I know about.
I got my first binoculars only in the summer of 1999 at Methuselah's age of
45.
This was a 10x50mm Tasco binocular
of doubtful quality which shortly after was replaced by a 7x50mm Fujinon Mariner binocular of excellent quality .
Since then I always had at least a pair of binoculars.
For the amateur astronomer who begins to observe the
sky with the naked eyes , binoculars are great tools because they extends in a great way the innate vision.
You just take your binoculars to a corner away
from artificial lighting.
The simple gesture of rising your binoculars up to the starry sky, seems to be a sign of recognition, or a very powerful secret password entered in the ancient mechanism of the world.
Suddenly the cover of the daily cellar disappear and the panorama of the Universe unfolds before your eyes.
You feel the heavenly scent of Queen of Night flowers, you hear in your ears the distant barking of dogs , but your look has already
The simple gesture of rising your binoculars up to the starry sky, seems to be a sign of recognition, or a very powerful secret password entered in the ancient mechanism of the world.
Suddenly the cover of the daily cellar disappear and the panorama of the Universe unfolds before your eyes.
You feel the heavenly scent of Queen of Night flowers, you hear in your ears the distant barking of dogs , but your look has already
took you over there. At the same time you here and beyond .
But the mobility of binoculars is
followed by their largest, maybe the only, disadvantage: shaking images induced by the weakness of our body.
By 2007 or 2008, I found on the site of
''Sky&Telescope'' magazine an article which presents the
solution found by Alan M. MacRoberts to stabilize the binoculars.
His ''image stabilization device'' is simple and
inexpensive, is made of wood and some screws and by using hand tools within
everyone's reach.
You find the entire article at the link below :
I become interested and started thinking about the little project of building such a device.
The first amateur convinced by this idea was my friend Csillag Attila from Arad, whose version of a stabilization device is shown below.
MacRoberts image stabilizer
with a ''Sakura'' 9x60mm binocular, built by Csillag Attila in Arad
|
Soon ,Serban ,a student in Deva , built a device that
belongs to this category, even if it failed to ensure all degrees of freedom of
the MacRoberts's image stabilizing device.
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Image stabilizer built by
Serban ,student in Deva
|
Dan Vasiliu in Bucharest made a collapsible version of the MacRoberts device, using components from a discarded tripod . Dan's collapsible version is very suitable
for
amateur astronomers living in big cities and who have to travel
a distance to their
place of
observation.
Moreover,''the shoulder mount for binoculars'' of Dan Vasiliu is part of a kit called
''the
minimum setup for observations'' which includes: binoculars,
shoulder mount, a
compass, a star map
and a flashlight with red light.
 |
Shoulder mount for binoculars,
built by Dan Vasiliu, Bucharest
|
Dan Vasiliu testing his
shoulder mount for binoculars
|
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''Minimum Setup for
Observations'' according to Dan Vasiliu: binoculars, shoulder mount
collapsed, compass, star map and flashlight with the red light
|
A beautiful version of the MacRoberts device was made by Dan Nicolcioiu aka
ZENDOW.
 |
The MacRoberts device nicknamed Li-zooka, built by ZENDOW in Targu-Jiu, wearing his Revue 10x50mm binoculars |
Tavi Blagoi aka Erwin is my friend and felow member
on www.astronomy.ro’’ forum and on ''60mmtelescopeclub''
Yahoo group.
Next day I posted this article ,Tavi let me know about
his version of a MacRoberts image stabilizer made of Aluminium profiles.The
counterweight is a piece of door frame filled with sand.
Tavi's device have shoulder cushions and is a work
under development,in the future he intend to add a swivel.
 |
Aluminium image stabilizer
built by Erwin / Tavi in Timisoara
|
10x50mm binocular on Tavi's Aluminium device ,notice the shoulder cushions
 |
Sand filled counterweight of Tavi's device |
Below I present some pictures of my MacRoberts image stabilizer ,nicknamed Bizooka ,on which I can mount three of my binoculars.
 |
Myself, my
MacRoberts image stabilizer holding the 7x50mm Fujinon Mariner binocular
|
 |
My 10x50mm
Baigish binocular mounted on the device
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Details of the Fujinon
Mariner 7x50mm binocular on the ''Bizooka'' device
|
Overal Imperial dimensions of the frame of my device are: 1.6’’x 9’’x 42’’.
Sides are made of laminated plywood 12.7 mm / ½ ‘’ thick and the two spacers at the ends are made 30x40mm or 1.2 ‘’ x 1.6’’ solid wood.
Pivot plate of solid wood has dimensions of :30x150x205mm or 1.2’’x 6’’x8’’.
The arm supporting the binoculars is 3mm/ 0.8’’ thick , made of a sandwich of two layers of 1.5mm / 1/16 ‘’ steel sheet.
The hole for the 1/4 inch
screw holding the binoculars to the steel arm at their hinge, is located at a heigh of 225mm or 9 ‘’ from the
bottom of the frame.
The handle of the swive plate is made of 12.7 mm or ½ ‘’
plywood.
Here are the results of the testing of my ''Bizooka''/MacRoberts device on May 13, 2011:
,, Last night until from 23:30 to 1:00 I tested the functionality of my MacRoberts image stabilizing device.
On average each binocular was used approx. half an
hour.I observed in the same order, with each pair of binoculars , star fields
of Gemini, Leo,Virgo, Ursa Major, Coma Berenice but also the Moon,Saturn, Lyra
, Cygnus and Scorpio, Libra and Serpens Caput.
Of the Deep-Sky objects I observed Mel111
, M13, M92, M57 and Stock1.
The order of using the binoculars was: Fujinon Mariner
7x50mm, Sakura 9x60mm and Baighish 10x50mm.
The device performed well with all three
binoculars.The Sakura 9x60mm binocular is just the weight limit for objects
near the horizon, probably I have to add a few hefty screws to the
counterweight to compensate for this configuration / situation.
After more than an hour and a half of varied observations with binoculars mounted on the device, I returned to normal observation with handheld instruments: horror!
It is as if you swap the first class armchair on a
high speed ''Intercity'' train for a ride on the buffers of the same train.
Great surprise, and actually a double one, came
from observing the double stars .
Last year, when I managed to resolve in binoculars the
double stars 16 - 17 Dragon and Nu Dragon , Zeta Lyrae, 61 Cygni or
Albireo,I had to sit on a chair, and, excepting the first two mentioned stars
of Draco, all the rest of stars had to be near the meridian.
During this testing of my MacRoberts device,
although Lyra and Cygnus were at 30-50 degrees altitude, all the stars like
Zeta Lyrae,61 Cyg or Beta Cyg have been resolved in all binoculars. Wider
stars like Alcor-Mizar, Epsilon Lyrae or Zubenelgenubi in Libra are too
easy to be split to be added here. ''
If you access the original article by Alan MacRoberts
on the ''SkyandTelescope'' site and you take the time to read the comments, you
will find my comment in which I proposed the nick-name of "bizooka''
for this device.
The equation is:
Binocular+ Bazooka =Bizooka
I 'm sure after you build such a device, you will join me saying: '' Thank you Alan MacRoberts'' !
BIZOOKA FOR EVER!
Mircea
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