[ATM] binoviewer question

[Dave Smith <smithersscope@yahoo.com>]

Greetings y'all!
Just pulled the scope in after being slaughtered by
moonbeams. Was enjoying some open clusters prior to
that. Oh well.
So while the moon was out I decided to try out my
latest dumpster find--a nice pair of binoviewers with
24 mm Leica optics (0.9625", but useable. ;o)   )
As the image comes in a prism bends it approx 120
degrees and passes it to a second prism that splits
the image to two additional prisms that bend the path
90 degrees into the EPs. These last two prisms slide
left and right to adjust for interoccular distance.
Eventually I want to remove the first prism and make
them "straight thru" binoviewers. This prism is glued
to a small metal plate that is bolted to the
binoviewer housing; should be straightforward to
remove at some future date.
Using it in it's current state I had to retract my
truss poles to get the image to focus. When I finally
did get it to focus the image seemed not to want to
align. No matter how much I tried to adjust the focus
or the centering of the housing on the top of the
drawtube, it strained my eyes. The brain is trying to
compensate, but there's definitely something amiss. I
had to expand the oculars almost to the maximum (set
wider than my eyes) in order to get the 2 images to
merge. Why is this? 
Can anyone suggest the best approach to fixing and
using this viewer in my newt? I'd like to add a 2" EP
tube to the current housing so that I can drop it into
my 2" draw tube/focuser. I'll have to remove part of
the metal housing in order to do this. Once I start
sawing (it's cast metal--not aluminum), there's no
going back.
All comments and suggestions welcomed!
Thanks!
dave

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
_______________________________________________
ATM mailing list http://www.atmlist.net/