Optic Nerve

Ooh yes please put me down for one of them.

I've found it a bit unreliable. It's sometimes accurate but other times I've been out in the garden with completely clear skies above while Clearoutside assures me there is 100% cloud cover. I prefer the Met Office cloud cover map (UK)

Hey so the clouds finally cleared and I got a good look at the moon tonight. I'd say the view I had was a bit better than before, but definitely no worse. Not sure if that is due to the attempted improvement of the collimation, or the fact the moon was higher in the sky when I looked tonight, I've read that objects do look better when higher up. But then I didnt give the telescope proper time to cool down to the outside temperature tonight whereas I did the other night so I was dreading worse views but ended up pleasantly surprised. I do need to get the secondary mirror right at some point but I've decided to hold off on doing it until I'm more familiar with the scope. For now I just want to get more comfortable using it. Will looking through the cheshire and realigning the doughnut on top of the black dot every few sessions keep the collimation at roughly its current quality?

No it just wouldn't sit nicely, it was sort of like I was chasing it around the dot.

Couldn't quite get it bang on but https://imgur.com/a/DJDjZUq

Yeah probably, that seems to be the consensus in everything I've read about collimation. A massive headache to start with then it just clicks in your head and becomes straightforward. It hasn't put me off the hobby, although I've decided that if the view I have now ends up being about as good as what I had before, I'll just leave it at that for now. Spend time familiarizing myself with the scope and observing what I can, and then return to collimation after studying the guides until I'm more confident in what I'm doing. I'm in the north of England

Thats what I'm going to do. And yeah I'm not too bothered about getting it exactly right, I thought the views I had initially (with the secondary way off) were actually good. By the way now that ive reangled the mirrors will my aim be off? I struggled to get my finder scope precisely aligned, the red dot had to be pointed to the moon and then about an inch to left. Will I maybe find its not in the right spot now, maybe instead its a bit to the right/down/up from the red dot?

Do you think the image through the cheshire now is better than what it was?

Its clear skies tonight so I'm going to have another look at the moon and see what difference my tinkering has made, hopefully I wont have made it any worse, I'd take that as a win at this stage. I try to read through these guides but they are really confusing. I get the feeling collimation is a bit like tying your shoes or learning to ride a bike, difficult to actually talk someone through it but straightforward once you understand. My only worry there is I fell on my bike loads when learning! If the views I have tonight are similar ish to what I had before I'll be ok with that and then leave a proper collimation until ive gone over the guides again and again and it clicks. Its a bit of a frustrating start to the hobby, but it hasnt dampened my interests in looking up to space, its just a bit of a blow to my ego that I am basically being outsmarted by a mirror

Yes in UK. Does what I have now look better or worse than what I had before? Waiting for tonight when theres clear skies to see for myself. At this stage I'm just hoping for something like what I had before. I think everything looks a bit closer to what it should be but I've a bad feeling I missed something, if the secondary is rotated/tilted I guess that means any object I look at will appear tilted too?

This is way to complicated for me. Sorry if that sounds stupid and I appreciate that people have put in the time to reply and try and help, but when it comes to altering the secondary mirror I mucked it up before and struggled to get things back to, I couldn't see either of the mirrors at one stage. I'm worried sick that tinkering with it much more and I'll end up mucking it up completely. I was ok with the views I had before, so at this stage I'll happily settle for an alignment that's about as good as that. Is it possible to look at what I had before, and what I had now, and say if I've at least made some progress in the right direction? First two images are what it was before, through the Cheshire and also through the focuser with no eyepieces attached. This gave a view of the moon that I thought was quite good. https://imgur.com/a/YvShjOV https://imgur.com/a/H0joaLO The second two images are what I have now. https://imgur.com/a/uDitdAO https://imgur.com/a/lEm1CZj

That's with a sheet of A4 covering the primary mirror, as well as a look down the focuser when there's no eye piece or cheshire in it. https://imgur.com/a/lEm1CZj Am I going in the right or wrong direction from what it was initially? Part of me is concerned I may have totally mucked it up.

I wasn't sure, it did seem to look more aligned than the first couple of pics and certainly that last one where the mirrors are totally out of view. The couple of things that concern me is that I can't see the three clips for the primary mirror although I do seem able to see the mirror itself completely in the frame now. And also, that picture was taken with the cheshire put into the viewer and screwed into place. But it's not firmly in place, the cheshire can move a bit if pressure is applied which makes it look a bit less aligned than that.

Does this look any better https://imgur.com/a/uDitdAO I can't see the three mirror clips for the primary mirror though. Sorry about the image spam by the way. I know this should be simple enough and I dare say it will be eventually, after enough attempts it will just "click" and become second nature but it's a bit confusing right now.

https://imgur.com/a/QzvYuXi Tried fixing the secondary mirror but just made it a lot worse The mirror was loose at one point and I accidentally moved it so its probably off-kilter now. Maybe I should have gone with a refractor, this is frustrating

Yes. There's 3 knobs at the base of the scope to move it, I can reach them while still looking through the Cheshire so I've been doing that in trial and error trying to centre it.

Tinkered a bit with the primary mirror screws at the bottom of the scope not sure if I made it better or worse https://imgur.com/a/XIpxJpL

Cheshire arrived today, taken a few pics https://imgur.com/a/YvShjOV This may be a stupid question but is collimation an incremental process where a small improvement to the alignment results in a corresponding small improvement in the view, all the way up to a perfect alignment resulting in the best view you can get from that scope? Is there some margin for error for example if I get it from being “way off” to “a little bit off” will I still benefit from a much better view?

I've ordered one of these https://www.firstlightoptics.com/other-collimation-tools/astro-essentials-cheshire-collimating-eyepiece.html will post an image through that. Are there any "before and after" photos showing how objects like the moon look with poor collimation versus properly collimated?

Bought it online. That's a shame it's off, I have to say I'm not looking forward to tweaking the secondary mirror. Primary seems straightforward enough when I get my cheshire. I've actually been quite impressed with the views I've got so far, of the moon. Once I've got the mirrors properly aligned will I see things even sharper?

Here's a couple with the viewing cap taken off. https://imgur.com/a/H0joaLO I can see the primary mirror and the three mirror clips but should all of it be further "up" on the secondary mirror? There's a lot of empty space up there

Hey everyone. Recently bought myself a Sky Watcher Heritage 130p flextube and have a few questions, as I understand that as a reflector telescope it will sometimes need to be collimated. How often is it likely to need collimated? I have heard everything from "I collimate it every time" to "Not collimated in months and it's been fine". I don't move it a lot, just take it out into the garden when its a clear night and then bring it back indoors when finished. When it first arrived I tried (perhaps foolishly) to try and "collimate by eyeball", training it on the moon and then turning the collimation knobs of the primary mirror in a trial and error fashion, checking the view to see if it got any better or worse. I stopped eventually as I wasn't seeing much change either way. I know that was probably a silly idea, at least until I'm more comfortable and know what I'm doing, but hopefully as there wasn't a noticeable change in quality of the view it's not a massive problem. At this stage, I'm only interested in observing fairly local objects, mainly the moon and Jupiter and Saturn. Does this make collimation more or less important than if I was observing nebulae/galaxies/further away objects? Or is it the same? I know the scope works by having the mirrors concentrate the light into a smaller area, so I wondered if the fact the moon is a lot closer than some random nebulae, there is more light available for the scope to pick up even if the alignment is not perfect? Will I need to align the secondary mirror often on this particular scope? The primary seems easy to adjust and I've read that's where 90% of collimation issues are, but the secondary seems a bit more complex. Is poor collimation something that gets worse over time or does it just stay at that same "level" of poor until properly aligned? I've ordered a Cheshire collimation tube. Here's a picture of what I see when I look into the viewer at the moment https://imgur.com/a/MXkEvAV Does collimating the primary mirror basically consist of putting the cheshire in like I would normally put an eye piece in, then I'll see crosshairs on top of that view in the picture, and then I just need to move the collimation knobs on the bottom of the scope until the grey doughnut is in the middle of the crosshairs? I'm very much a beginner at this, only had my scope for a week but I am really enjoying it so far. I can spend ages just looking around the various lunar mares. I live in an area with quite a bit of light pollution and don't drive, so very limited opportunity for truly "dark" sky viewing. But even so, I'm still quite impressed with the views I'm getting. If this is going to be a long term hobby I will need to get familiar with collimation at some point, even though it seems a bit daunting to me right now!