The Story of Binofloat

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In 1995 I was having trouble using my 11x80 binoculars for stargazing. They were much too heavy to hand-hold for more than a minute or two. I was unhappy with the tripod or parallelogram mounting options in existence. They didn't provide enough freedom of movement.

One day while experimenting with other options, I had a vision of the binoculars and a counterweight moving in opposite directions, keeping the whole assembly perfectly balanced. I realized that this could be accomplished using a parallelogram framework, but in a slightly different way from other parallelogram mounts.

I built a support framework along the lines of my idea. It worked very badly. It didn't balance right. There was too much friction. It was mounted on a tripod and the parallelogram frame kept bumping into the tripod. The binocular attachment was very clumsy and didn't allow enough freedom of movement.

Over many years I thought of ways of solving the many problems. Several years ago, on the fourth rebuild, I finally had it working right. I kept it a secret, with thoughts of obtaining a patent and starting a company to sell it. Things moved very slowly and late in 2024 I turned 77 and decided that if I didn't do something soon my idea would die with me.

I posted some pictures on the Cloudy Nights astronomy forum under the topic "Not Just Another Parallelogram". The response was enthusiastic enough to motivate me to get busy and build and market the thing.

And so Binofloat was born!