Baader Laser Collimator

[George]

Nice online manual with detaled pictures cane be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/ypqczg

[Grant]

Hope you don't mind upgrader but the forum was messing up the link because it had [ and ] characters in it, I've fixed it by using http://tinyurl.com

[George]

Thanks had me scratching my head

[SteveL]

From the Bob's Knobs FAQ

What about using a laser collimator?

Laser collimators generally work well on Newtonian-style telescopes with a flat secondary mirror. On Cassegrain-style telescopes, which have a curved secondary mirror, a laser collimator will work properly only if the secondary mirror is perfectly centered above the primary mirror. Unfortunately, telescope manufacturing tolerances are such that slight secondary mirror offset is inevitable. Under these conditions, the laser collimator may give a false indication of collimation. Using a star is much more accurate. Note, however, that a laser collimator can be used to speed the process of rough collimation after Bob's Knobs are first installed.

[alchy]

Hi All a very interesting point. Where should you Collimate your scope inside or outside?

Well that really depends because if your house is 25c and outside at midnight is 15c then collimating outside will be good for using the scope at 15c or there abouts only.

For example I have air conditioning inside and temperature is constant 24c. However I go out on a hottest summers night and it is 28c.

I collimate it outside to 28c.

Now when winter comes or 2 weeks later when the outside air is 10c it will be slightly out and collimating it inside would have been better in this situation.

So the answer is best temperature to collimate is the average temperature of where the scope is going to be used all year round.

Or the other answer is to collimate it everytime the temperature shifts more than 5c.

Just a thought:)

Kindest regards David

[Andrew]

I see the Baader collimator comes with the laser pre-aligned.

Does anyone have experience of how good this alignment is?

I had to adjust my laser collimator (not from Baader) - which was a bit of a pain and difficult to get absolutely spot on.

[Greg]

Very good Andrew...

[FLO]

Have used two and both were spot-on.

Andrew, I often pass your place and would be happy to drop one in for testing..... when they arrive!

[saturn5]

Andrew,out of curiosity i took my meade laser to work

and put it in a collet chuck on a lathe and shone it through the headstock onto the wall about 15ft away.

When i turned the chuck the beam only deviated about 3mm,tweaked it and is now spot on,

3mm over 15ft is a lot less over 4ft and probably wasnt worth the bother,but hey when these light nights get darker at least i'm collimated and ready(i think )

[peonic]

Mine arrived from Steve yesterday - so as it was cloudy as hell, and I had the day off work, I thought I'd have a play.

Never having collimated a newt before, I was a smidge apprehensive - but the Baader instruction manual is well written (compared to some of the badly-translated-from-Chinese stuff I've had to work out lately).

Took about 10 minutes with a towel over my head to get everything spot on. Will have to do it again with the scope outside now, as the conservatory was quite warm yesterday - but now that I've been through the procedure in daylight, I think it should be a breeze.

£50 well spent!

Chris

[jakey]

I do not wish to be a kill joy but what guarantee do you get that the laser is in itself collimated? I had a terrible experience in collimating my scope and an off squiffed dammed useless laser that has since been confined to being utilised as a cat scarer was the main cause.

Anyway rant over.

If an astro dealer can supply me with a laser collimator that is 100% guaranteed to be collimated I will buy it. Until then, I will stick with my 6 quid colli cap.

[Andrew*]

I do not wish to be a kill joy but what guarantee do you get that the laser is in itself collimated? I had a terrible experience in collimating my scope and an off squiffed dammed useless laser that has since been confined to being utilised as a cat scarer was the main cause.

Anyway rant over.

If an astro dealer can supply me with a laser collimator that is 100% guaranteed to be collimated I will buy it. Until then, I will stick with my 6 quid colli cap.

try it out, check it over with your 6 quid colli cap, check it again with a star at night. If it's off, send it back.

or, turn it on axis and if the dot moves it's off and you send it back.

Andrew

[FLO]

It is a good point Jakey and is the reason FLO only stocks £50ish lasers. Without mentioning names, I have seen two 'cheap' lasers that were useless. The spot was actually oval, like a grain of rice, and was not correctly aligned from day one.

Baader align the laser in the factory and seal the collimation screws with paint to prevent tampering. My advice to anyone buying a laser is to star-test the scope after collimation. If its not ok, return the laser for a refund/replacement. To date, nobody has.

[George]

Just ordered mine.....another bollocking off her indoors for spending dosh

[peonic]

I also picked up a coli-cap to double check things - and to my eye it's absolutely spot on. Of course, the only real test is a star-test but the Cloud Gods must be REALLY angered by my recent spate of purchases :/

Chris

[beamish]

Without mentioning names, I have seen two 'cheap' lasers that were useless. The spot was actually oval, like a grain of rice, and was not correctly aligned from day one.

Sounds a bit like the ANTARES I bought, co**ed up my scope recently.It now firmly resides in the bottom draw. It's colly cap for me from now on !!

I've had cats run themselves ragged trying to catch the point though - so entertaining at least .

Karlo

[Whippy]

Chris, you may well find that you'll get you collimation nice n' tight with the laser and then put your colli-cap on and it looks off, it happens everytime with mine. This is probably due to play in the eyepiece holder and therefore the laser is 'on the wonk' so to speak (quick thought: do compression rings on 'posh' focusers eliminate this?). What I normally do is get it tight with the laser or colli-cap (my laser tends to get it closer) and do a quick star test and if it's slightly off, I'll live with that as I'm only doing visual, you might want to get it spot on for your imaging. Oh yeah, and do it with your OTA mounted.

Tony..

[jakey]

Without mentioning names, I have seen two 'cheap' lasers that were useless. The spot was actually oval, like a grain of rice, and was not correctly aligned from day one.

Sounds a bit like the ANTARES I bought, co**ed up my scope recently.It now firmly resides in the bottom draw. It's colly cap for me from now on !!

I've had cats run themselves ragged trying to catch the point though - so entertaining at least .

Karlo

That is the laser that caused me so much grief. I had to get Barry watts from beaconhill to sort the scope out afterwards.

He is as nice as guy as his collimating skills are. A "spot" on chap.

I have read a bit about the glattor barlow style collimaiting laser. it may be an option for me.

I also looked at the cats eye system but after reading the how to, I felt confused. (which I admit, for me, is not difficult.) :?

[James]

I also looked at the cats eye system but after reading the how to, I felt confused. (which I admit, for me, is not difficult.) :?

I ordered some Catseye collimation tools several months back but either the Royal Mail or Her Majesty's Revenues and Customs (or whatever they are now called) decided to lose the package. I have another set coming over though I think... It doesn't look too bad/too difficult (he says...) but the bit I'm worried about is that the Catseye autocollimator is so precise that there's a risk I'll be worrying about something not being quite right when actually its as good as it needs to be.

We'll see...

I've also got a Baader laser and will still use it as it offers a very quick way to tweak the collimation.

James

[supernova]

Hi Has anybody had a go at using a Barlow collimater with a baader laser IT works

[zootlewurdle]

I was intrigued by this little device so I just picked one up. I tried to collimate my 10" LX200 with this this evening, 'scope had been outside for about 90 mins. I tried collimating using the laser and, according to the laser, got spot on. I then put in an eyepiece and the collimation was clearly miles off. So then I collimated with a star and got that spot on, popped in the laser and the return path wasn't even visible on the screen.

I followed the recommendation with regard to lining up the on/off contact with the single clamp screw. The device was straight in the visual back of the 'scope, no diagonal mirror used. If I did something wrong I'm not sure what! But other people on here seem to have had success with this device in SCT 'scopes?

[FLO]

The Baader laser, and just about any other laser, is not suited to collimating SCT scopes. (We had a discussion on this some time back, if I find the thread I'll post a link here). If FLO supplied it please contact me for a refund, otherwise best have a chat with your supplier.

HTH

[supernova]

I have noticed that when I take my 16in dob outside if I put my baader colli in to check it, it is way out almost 3/4 inch on the primary and almost off the scale with the secondery so I always leave it with the fan on to cool down for about an hour at least.

Then check again and it is always very close, just a little tweek and then a star test.

Its ok setting up at daytime but let it cool and always try to do collimation in the attitude that you will be observing.

Bernie.

SN.

[thing]

I bought a Baader LC a couple of weeks ago to do my Newt. I'm a total beginner to scopes and found it a doddle to use. The star test afterwards is always spot on. I usually check the collimation every time I use the scope, but I keep it in the garden shed so it's at ambient temperature anyway. It's the best piece of kit I've bought so far.

[MontyUK]

On FLO's website it says "

Please note, for any laser collimator to be effective it needs to be fitted to a well-made focuser. The regular rack-and-pinion style focuser fitted to many beginner/intermediate telescopes lacks precision and rigidity. If in doubt please contact us for advice. "

I have a Skywatcher 200 dob with the supplied focuser. Is this going to be a problem?

Is there a better collimator?