Collimation Blues ??

[Telescope40]

Hi All. Purchased a 2nd hand SW200p OTA bout 6 weeks back. Lovely conditon. Got a bargain for sure. No first lite for me as yet due to the lovely weather. Finally got a Cheshire last week and have attempted to collimate it using Astro Babys guide.

Think I have got somewhere near but hope to find out later if any gaps apprear overhead. Read lots of posts / guides re collimation and its does seem to be a deep pit of varied opinions.

John

[Tinker1947]

Its not a Black Art, gets easier as time goes bye....

[Nova]

Yeh, is a little daunting to start but once you get your head around what your trying to achieve it does get easier. Different opinions arise probably because evryone finds there own way of doing it which is slightly different to the next person. Practrice is the key and not being afraid of it

[bottletopburly]

i got the sw 200p and collimated it the other week don`t be afraid its not rocket science ,i made a collimation cap first out of an old 35mm film canister to rough collimate useful to align the three clips that hold primary mirror ,then final collimated with the astro engineering cheshire collimator didn`t find it that hard to be fair give it a go i`m sure you will be fine

[Telescope40]

Cheers guys for the encouragement. Like I say. Dont think I'm a million miles away but pretty sure I can do better. Cloud aint movin tonite either. First light is postponed Ho Hum John

[Spec-Chum]

You only bought your scope 6 weeks ago, you've got another 4 weeks of clouds yet.

Rules are rules, I'm afraid.

[paul schofield]

Hi John there are some good collimation guides on YouTube, some of them make it seem a lot less daunting. Hope you get it sorted. And clear skies when you do.

[umadog]

here's some reading material: http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~raac/collimationLinks.shtml

[ggreene1]

Hi All. Purchased a 2nd hand SW200p OTA bout 6 weeks back. Lovely conditon. Got a bargain for sure. No first lite for me as yet due to the lovely weather. Finally got a Cheshire last week and have attempted to collimate it using Astro Babys guide.

Think I have got somewhere near but hope to find out later if any gaps apprear overhead. Read lots of posts / guides re collimation and its does seem to be a deep pit of varied opinions.

John

I am also a beginner and had a lot of trouble trying to collimate my Celestron SE 8" when I first got it. I found the best way for me was in daylight with a 5mm ball bearing used as an artificial star. I epoxied the ball bearing on the end of a dowel rod that can be stuck into the ground. I was told that you should be at least 100 feet away. In bright Sunlight (which you guys don't seem to be getting a lot of lately) you can un-focus your scope to get your airy disk to allow you to collimate. Worked well for me. Good luck.