Collimation question

[Candice]

Hello, please forgive me Im a complete noob!

I now have a laser collimator and have started the process of collimation on my skywatcher explorer 130m, heres a link to the the youtube vid that I have been following :

on there it explains that I need to align the laser with a black dot on the primary mirror... only problem is that mine doesnt have a dot , has anyone else successfully collimated a skywatcher 130 and please if anyone can advise me I'd be very grateful

many thanks

Candice

ps: Im in the teesside area, is anyone else from round here that could offer any assistance?

[umadog]

You will need to add the marker, I'm afraid!

There are various ways of doing this. Some making a tool out of paper, others use a ruler. Those are free. However, the best method I know of is to use the template produced by Catseye. These are cheap and *very* accurate and are used even for very fast optics. You can buy one here: CATSEYE TEMPLATES & CENTER SPOTS Whilst you're at it, I'd recommend you buy the Catseye reflective centre marker as well. These are very much superior to the ring-binder you see on mass-produced scopes and will only set you back a couple of quid for two of them (it's worth getting a spare). In the future you may want to use a Cheshire instead of your laser and the Catseye marker will help there. Just make sure you buy the marker with a hole in the middle so that it works with your laser. You can e-mail Catseye for sizing questions.

[Candice]

Thank you very, very much for your help and advice umadog - much appreciated, now I know what needs to be done.

It looks very daunting, please if anyone is in my local area (Teesside), and is willing to help me do this (would hate to make mistakes), I would be very grateful.

My partner has bought me a new eyepiece for Christmas and the collimation tool, nothing would make me happier than to be able to have this set up ready for Christmas so I can get the best out of my scope, please pm me if your in my area and can help me. Dont mind paying / travelling locally for some help from someone who has done this before.

Once I know the exact centre, I think I will be confident with collimation.

Many thanks

Candice

[umadog]

Centre spotting a mirror is freaky the first time but the second time you are more confident. It's worth blowing dust off the mirror and cleaning it before you start so that you can't scratch it. When I use the template I place it over the mirror and support it on two sides with books, stacked so that they are the same height as the mirror. On one side I place another book on top of the template so it doesn't move around too much. The spot can be placed reliably to within 0.1 mm using this template.

If you mess up and place it incorrectly then the spot can be removed with acetone. It doesn't matter greatly if you scratch the mirror in the area around the spot whilst removing the spot as this region sits beneath the shadow of the secondary.

[Voliton]

FAQ about Collimating a Newtonian telescope

FAQ about Collimating a Newtonian telescope

Special situations and DIY section

These three pages are very clear and should get you off to a good start

Regards Gary