Telescope Reviews: "Conditional Alignment" accepted by SPIE

Thanks, Mike:

Sadly, no; that’s part of the misunderstanding I find troubling. Early in our careers, Cory and I determined to keep things close to the vest, so as to provide job security. Now, as old turkeys, we’re doing all we can to teach those willing to use their heads as something other than hat racks.

The procedure is simple and offered in my paper. It does not offer as much fun as those who want to spend their lives in endless—and often useless—speculation seem to want. But I swear it’s not that hard to do it right. We have been sidetracked several times on CN, but if we could stay with logic, much could be done. Ask daniel_h; he’s been to one of Cory’s classes.

Then, too, people think you need expensive gear. I hope the following (from my paper) will clarify the point. I don’t want to speculate about why we don’t “just” build some device that is failed technology from 60 years ago and would cost a king’s ransom to build or a forklift to move.

12. The Mk 5: THIS TECHNICIAN’S CHOICE

For the sake of speed and efficiency, this technician would chose to collimate most hand-held binoculars via the Fujinon U.B.M.M. However, building such a device is beyond the capabilities of most who have an interest in collimation and used units are at a premium, with manufacturers vying for any that might become available
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The British Mk IV and the US Navy’s Mk 5 offer alternatives that are more in line with the average machinist’s capabilities. While not being as portable as the British Mk IV, the US Navy Mk 5 offers simpler construction, collimation procedures, and can address a much larger array of instruments. For those reasons, I propose the building of such devices by larger telescope making workshops around the country, as well as being built by or contracted for every dedicated binocular retailer or importer. The construction of such devises is not nearly as mysterious, complicated, or expensive as many think.

For example, the test stand can be made of plywood (I would prefer “apple ply”), a wooden dowel, a couple of strong rubber bands, a used industrial door hinge, 2 or 3 1/4-20 bolts, and some fixture to hold the binocular stationary during collimation. Everything except the last are probably in the garages of most do-it-yourselfers, already.

There is a tendency to think a 12 -inch objective lens would cost a fortune. If it were an achromat, it would. But remember, it’s two pieces of relatively thin convex-plano plate glass.

The ultra-expensive, full-diameter reticle? That can be a 1/4-inch piece of plate glass with a computer-generated transparency affixed to one side. The target need not be of any particular design. While making one, I had to go through several iterations in order to get the graduations (degrees and minutes) exact; but remember, a graduated cross is only a convenience—the middle of the target is just a point. And the superimposition of two points is the goal.

Finally, the auxiliary telescope may be purchased from any number of scientific and retail optical sources, leaving only the rhomboid prism to purchase and its holder to machine.