[ATM] front surface mirrors for binoculars

["David Margrave" <david.margrave@gmail.com>]

I like binocular viewing but hate having my neck craned at abnormal angles.
I know that one option is to get a reclining lawnchair and parallelogram
binocular mount, but I was thinking of another scheme.  I got a couple front
surface mirrors salvaged from overhead projectors.  I'm thinking that I'll
make an arrangement to hold these mirrors in front of the objectives,
rigidly at a 45 degree angle to the optical axis of the binos.  I'm
envisioning something that could still be mounted on a normal tripod, sort
of like a standard bino tripod mount with another 'leg' extending out
infront of the objectives and holding the mirrors.   I'm comfortable with
mechanical part of this (threaded mounts, etc).  No problem, as opposed to
the optical aspects.

I'm wondering about the variables and how critical they are?  IF the planes
of the two front surface mirrors are not perfectly parallel is this going to
work?  How much can the human brain accomodate to merge separate images that
may be slightly off-axis?  Am I going to have to painstakingly ensure
perfect parallelism, or make provisions for having one of the mirrors
adjustable?   It would be nice to have just one large front surface mirror
that would span both objectives, but I haven't come across one yet.  I know
there are commercial products, but I am a  cheapskate and I'm trying not to
spend real any money on this.

thanks,

dave
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