After some googling and fiddling around, I found a site http://www.astronomyboy.com/ that absolutely rocks. With instructions from his site, I was able to put together the three elements of my eyepiece, and I've started work on a wooden housing for it using his detailed instructions. Lucky for me, my other obsession is woodworking, so I figure I'll be able to do a bang-up job on the housing!
In the course of my research, I also discovered that my 50mm, 200mm fl objective lens will only give me about 8x magnification when paired with my 26mm fl eyepiece. I've decided to return the objective and purchase a slightly more expensive, compound objective lens that comes pre-mounted. The power on this baby is awesome. Here's the descrip from Surplus Shed: "Coated air spaced glass doublet objective lens, 70mm clear diameter by 800mm focal length. Plastic mount with threaded end. Mount is 74mm diameter. Threaded end is 70mm diameter."
Yeah, baby. I'll get a magnification of over 30x with this, PLUS a bigger field of view, which equals more light, which equals a better monocular! (at least, that's what my research so far indicates). As I've always been a "more is better" kind of person ("if two teaspoons of cough syrup will help me, then two TABLESPOONS will REALLY help!"), I figure this lens is definitely better. A little more pricey--$19--but I've also decided that maybe the PVC pipe idea is a little too complicated for me. I've discovered a source for FREE thick, hard cardboard cylinder of various sizes, and I'm going that route, at least for now. That keeps my total cost under $30, which was my original goal.
So--I'm returning the single 50mm lens today and ordering the big-daddy lens! Woo-hoo! Digiscoping, here I come!
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