Collimation With a Barlow and Laser

[froggy]

Hi,

I have read on various site that I can improve the collimation of my scope with a barlow attached to the laser.

As instructed i cut out a piece of white plastic and drilled a centre hole in it and then attached it to the front of the barlow. So far so good.

I then collimated the telescope without the barlow and once this was done I added the barlow to the laser.

Everyhing is now dime and blurred and I cannot see the reflection of the primary mirror centre spot.

What am i doing wrong.

Thank you for your help.

Vince

[Josh Wilson]

I've never heard of using a barlow but I do know that putting the laser as far as possible from the focal point is a bit harder to collimate but is much more accurate. How is your scope performing at higher powers?

Cheers,

Josh

[John]

I use a conventional laser collimator to adjust the secondary mirror and then the barlowed laser collimation method to adjust the primary mirror. My approach is similar to the one described here:

http://www.smartavtweaks.com/RVBL.html

[jabberwocky]

There's an astronomy shed video on YouTube showing how to collimate the primary using a laser and Barlow.