Testing a refractor with an artificial star (laser)?

[buzz]

It's all sitting in my study, the new scope, focus motor, Maxim DL, Focusmax and I cannot do anything for the poor weather.

I was wondering - I recall someone using the sun reflected off a ball bearing to see Airy disks - which would appear as a dot at infinity.

Now the sun is a bit shy at the moment - so I'm wondering...I vaguely recall that lasers are collimated flat wave front beams - so appear as if from infinity? For a more repeatable test setup - could I fire a laser at a ball bearing and focus the scope on that - to set up autofocus routines etc?

It's either that or take up meteorology. (that isn't the study of meteors ! )

regards

Chris

[andrew s]

Yes you can Chris - you need to have the ball bearing far enough away but infact you don't have to use a laser as the ball bearing if forming the image you focus on. Andrew

[sgazer]

Not sure about using a laser if you are doing it visually, could damage your eye. I actually used a small piece of fibre optic cable with a red LED shining through it, produced a nice small dot of light at the other end of the optical cable.