Re: collimating tools

On Dec 27, 11:32 am, "Jan Owen" <janow...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
"brucegooglegroups" <brucegooglegro...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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On Dec 27, 2:03 am, jerry <j...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jan Owen wrote:

http://www.catseyecollimation.com/

Cool, gotta get me one of those.

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail
address...
Latitude: 33.6
Longitude: -112.3
http://community.webshots.com/user/janowen21
"brucegooglegroups" <brucegooglegro...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Suggestions for good collimating tools other than a collimating cap?
Clear Skies.
Bruce

Kind of pricey- costs more than my scope. Perhaps I should go for the
tectron tools.
Bruce

I have the Tecton set and I like them a lot...  The Cat's Eye set is superb,
too...

You could get by with a Cheshire eyepiece from Orion or others.  I even have
an old Telescopics collimating eyepiece, which is simply a black anodized
plug that fits in the focuser, and has a hole precision drilled in the exact
center (and to which I used a Dremel Tool to machine in a bullseye-like ring
around that hole)...  But these simpler tools have you adjusting the optical
train through one pass through the optical train; the autocollimators are
double-pass tools, so the accuracy is substantially better.  The Cheshire
and autocollimator go hand in hand, and, in fact, the autocollimator will be
hard to use WITHOUT first getting close with the Cheshire...

Buying a complete kits, which also generally come with good instructions on
how to USE the tools, mostly depends on how tight you want to take your
collimation.  With a Cheshire, you can get close enough to move from there
directly to high power final collimation using a star like Polaris, just out
of focus, then IN focus...  The auto-collimator is handy, because it can get
you VERY close to critical collimation...  Close enough that you can
probably get your scope better collimated on a night with just fair seeing
than might be possible with the star test (because you may not be able to
pump up the power enough to do a very critical star test on a fair to poor
night)...  The Cheshire and autocollimator don't care much about the
evening's seeing...  The sight tube is more than just handy; it allows you
to get everything aligned to a high degree of accuracy, which ultimately
will help make the steps that follow more straightforward when you're
starting from the beginning with a new scope (or one you've disassembled and
put back together), and aligning ALL the components...

Maybe a good preliminary step, before buying ANY collimation tools, would be
for you to join the Yahoo Group *Collimate Your Telescope*http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Collimate_Your_Telescope/?yguid=94...
The amount of data that's covered there is all you'll ever need to know
about collimation, and probably even more...

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.6
Longitude: -112.3http://community.webshots.com/user/janowen21- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi Jan,
Catseye doesn't sell a complete set of tools for a 1.25 inch focuser,
so I may have try another vendor. Thanks for group link.
Bruce
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: collimating tools
    ... Kind of pricey- costs more than my scope. ... You could get by with a Cheshire eyepiece from Orion or others. ... and autocollimator go hand in hand, and, in fact, the autocollimator will be ... directly to high power final collimation using a star like Polaris, ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: collimating with a Cheshire
    ... collimate telescopes. ... see Mel Bartel's or Nils Olof Carlin's comprehensive collimation pages. ... important to offset the secondary mirror in Newtonian telescopes. ... The cheshire will work, but you need to ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Cheshires and Laser Collimators
    ... I've started reading up on collimation assuming that it will need ... Cheshire with a LED. ... Ian Newham ...
    (uk.sci.astronomy)
  • Re: A little collimation
    ... Collimation is one of those things that may take a little, or a lot, of work ... thermal equilibration), you WON'T be rewarded... ... Latitude: 33.6 ... Longitude: -112.3 ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)