Any body collimate by laser ?

[astroeddie]

Guys,

My mate ( Darren Bushnell on here ) has just been around and showed me how to collimate using the laser/barlow method.

A doddle, especially with the open tube system

Any boby else on the forum use this method to collimate your newtonians ?

Eddie

[haitch]

I get the barlow out on it once in a while. It is so much more accurate for aligning the primary and in my f4.5 14" it does make a difference.

[astroeddie]

Yes,

I have read about its benefits before. Visited Darren a couple of weeks back. He told me how easy it was, so bought one for my new scope. Collimated it today precisely in 30 seconds no longer.

There is a tutorial on the net, but very long winded for a 30 seconds job.

I'll have to see how the mirror is affected with moving back and forth whether I need to collimate every time.

Eddie

[Adz]

I just bought a barlow, to try some planetary imaging. But mainly to get a great collimation since I bought the scope.

Does anyone have any pointers on the method, or a thread somewhere?

Thanks

[astroeddie]

http://www.optcorp.com/pdf/Kendrick/BarlowCollimatingNewtonian.pdf

Does this help out

[John]

This is the barlowed laser method I use. Works really well:

Rear View Barlowed Laser Method

I do also do the final tweaks using a star test which is even more accurate I feel.

Collimating with a laser on it's own all seems so straightforward ............ until you find the collimator is out of collimation

[Adz]

Thanks loads John, any advice for a laser that isn't producing a dot. It is more of a rectangle... ?