Scope Prototype II

I finally got my newest lenses and worked out a mount for the huge 80mm objective. Here's what I have now:

I'm still working on a better eyepiece mount; I need to get some Forstner bits if I'm going to follow Astronomy Boy's directions on creating a wooden housing. However, the rest of the scope seems to be working rather well. I went with this peel-and-stick cordoroy fabric I found for the sliding focus part, which both helps me get finer focus and really cuts down on those little felt fuzzies that were inside the barrel of the first prototype. Not that my focus in photos was so good as to be obscured by said fuzzies, but hey, I can dream.

So here are the first digiscoped photos using Prototype II and the Nikon CP 4800:
Mrs. Cardinal, eating her blackoil sunflower. I cropped this down to eliminate most of the vignetting, but I also got a red flare from the old wooden eyepiece's light-colored wood reflecting back flash. I then put a black ring around the whole thing and kept snapping:

Here's Mrs. Cardinal again, though what's with the slanted view? Well, without having secured a real tripod yet, I had to get creative:

And with this little set-up bungeed to my Adirondack chair (no photo--too embarassing) I set out to digiscope. Insert laughter here. I had to lean it forward and back, all kinds of crazy ways, to get it aligned with the subject, so that's why the photo is taken at a weird angle, though cropping kinda minimized that.
A sweet little mourning dove came to the feeder after Mrs. Cardinal took a break. By this point, it was getting pretty late and a thunderstorm was blowing in, hence the rather poor quality (at least I hope that's why it's so bad). I'm guessing that because it became harder to get a good image through the scope as the sky darkened.

Wish I had some great shots of the lightning, but I was busy making dinner for Kat and me.