A bumpy road

[Ganymede12]

When going to Blaenavon, I am always shocked at how violent the speed bumps are and I am blaming them form knocking my telescope out of collimation, making me spend 6-7 hours trying to collimate it!

How does everyone else keep there scope collimated going over those speed bumps?

(I never had to worry about that with my refractor! )

[Moonshane]

go slower

to be honest my scope does not really get much out of collimation even my 16"

[stevetynant]

When going to Blaenavon, I am always shocked at how violent the speed bumps are and I am blaming them form knocking my telescope out of collimation, making me spend 6-7 hours trying to collimate it!

How does everyone else keep there scope collimated going over those speed bumps?

(I never had to worry about that with my refractor! )

. 6-7 hours ant I'm assuming that includes dinner breaks, shower breaks and a healthy selection of tv soaps as well?

[Mr Q]

When going to Blaenavon, I am always shocked at how violent the speed bumps are and I am blaming them form knocking my telescope out of collimation, making me spend 6-7 hours trying to collimate it!

How does everyone else keep there scope collimated going over those speed bumps?

(I never had to worry about that with my refractor! )

Ant - Why all the trouble with the collimation? If this manual MANUAL is for your scope, then it's collimation section will get you to a point where any closer to "perfect" will not be worth the trouble (you won't notice the improvement visually). Or am I missing something?

I have a 250mm fast (f4.5) newt and I rarely have to tweek the collimation . I take the scope to a dark sky site with the last 2 miles being rough dirt roads and often the scope OTA can be seen bouncing off the rear seat in my rear view mirror but the collimation never goes out (I do a star test at each time out and it stays right on). You have to really bang the scope bad for the collimation to go out , at least in my scope. Could these newer scope be that sensitive to transporting (mine is 28 years old)

Anyways, glad you got it done and all you have to do is wait for those to go away

[Ganymede12]

. 6-7 hours ant I'm assuming that includes dinner breaks, shower breaks and a healthy selection of tv soaps as well?

The first time I tried I was collimating for 3-4 hours (non stop). I decided to leave it for another day and yesterday It went from being way out of collimation to as near perfect as I can get it, in 3 hours dead (my dad was timing me) and that includes breaks (where I came on SGL for advice)

Really the collimation only took the 3 hours yesterday, but I spent an extra 3-4 hours trying to collimate it and not getting anywhere.

Part of the problem was I had the Primary Mirror's locking screws and adjustment screws mixed up (bad idea) and yesterday I realized that the focuser needed to be drawn out as far as it can go so I could see all of the secondary mirror.

Lets call it a 180 degree learning curve

[stevetynant]

What are you using ant? Collimating cap, Cheshire, laser or a combination

[Ganymede12]

I am using a Cheshire Collimator.