collimation?

[Wattsy]

excuse my ignorance but what exactly is collimation?

cheers

matt

[themos]

In an optical system of lenses and/or mirrors, all these elements must be at the correct angle and position to each other ("square-on"). Otherwise, the system will not perform as it was designed to.

[Moonshane]

in telescope terms it mainly rears its head with newtonian reflectors which (in my view) need to be (or at least should be) collimated before each use (in some cases before each area of the sky is observed).

it's an easy process once learned and I can do my scopes now in about a minute or two.

google 'astro baby collimation' and you'll see an excellent guide.

[Astro_Baby]

excuse my ignorance but what exactly is collimation?

Its something to do with the scope when its cloudy

Its also the route for people to start to suffer obsessive compulsive disorders, general insanity and a world of confusions and pain

Serioulsy though its basically lining up the mirrors or lenses in an aoptical system. It looks scary and it causes beginners no end of heartache but its really not that hard witrh a bit of patience. The firts time you do it you curse the Gods of astrononomy and wonder why you didn't spend your money on something else. After the firts time its gets easier and after a few times you wonder why you ever found it hard at all.

[Doc]

It is a procedure which alot of people are scared off but really is very simple if performed on a regular basis.

[mark7331]

Yup. I agree with all of that.

I collimate my newts every time I use them. When I first had a newt it was scary as I thought I would mess it up but when you've done it a couple of times it's actually not a big deal. It's now part of my routine and is really very easy.

Mark

[beamish]

Its something to do with the scope when its cloudy

Its also the route for people to start to suffer obsessive compulsive disorders, general insanity and a world of confusions and pain

Serioulsy though its basically lining up the mirrors or lenses in an aoptical system. It looks scary and it causes beginners no end of heartache but its really not that hard witrh a bit of patience. The firts time you do it you curse the Gods of astrononomy and wonder why you didn't spend your money on something else. After the firts time its gets easier and after a few times you wonder why you ever found it hard at all.

Sooo true !!

Although you can't help but learn a vast amount in the process