collimating 140 mak

[nightfisher]

can any one give any advice for collimating an orion omc-140.....

god i hate scopes with mirrors!!!

[GazOC]

Is it out of collimation?

[nightfisher]

Is it out of collimation?

Dont know to tell the truth, just trying to make sure its spot on, how would i know if its out, i bought it second hand and had one night viewing with it but could not get it to focus with higher power eyepiece

[vince 66]

That could of been seeing conditions.

[samtheeagle]

Having just purchased my first Mak this is something I'm interested in too... A quick google came up with this: Daylight Collimation

No idea if that's a good way of doing things, but it seems simple!

I've got a laser collimator that I use with my newt, will that work with a Mak too? Feels like it should, but like I said, I'm new to Maks and not yet up to speed with their internals.

[JohnC]

I have an OMC 140 and they hold colimation very well.

It is critical that they are allowed to cool fully to get the best views.

Do a star test to determine the state of colimation, you are looking for nice concentric rings when the star is defocused.

But i would think that your problem is more to do with cooldown and seeing conditions.

[nightfisher]

interesting about seeing conditions as i had that in mind as a possibility, i know about cool down, omc-140`s seem to have up to an hour cool down! i guess im to used to refractors!

[Mr Spock]

This used to be mine. Collimation was starchecked a week last Tuesday and was spot on. At the same time Jupiter was revealing a lot of fine detail, more than my 250P - but not at high powers. This was due to seeing conditions.

This scope must be kept cool when not in use to keep cooldown times to a minimum.

Also bear in mind the large back focus - I used the barlow with the lens screwed out as an extention tube to get my 7mm Nagler to focus (x286).

It's most likely seeing conditions though. My C9.25 is very fuzzy at x181 right now. Last week I had brief glimpses of sharpness on Jupiter, followed by complete 'fuzz outs'.

[JohnC]

I agre with Mr spock's post. Sums up nicely my own wxperiences recently. Knock the power down a touch and details seem to show better. it is always tempting to go too high with magnification.

My mak takes at leest 2 hours to really stabalise.

But when seeing allows the OMC delivers stunning views!!

Stick with it and you will be pleasantly suprised

[beamish]

Having just purchased my first Mak this is something I'm interested in too... A quick google came up with this: Daylight Collimation

No idea if that's a good way of doing things, but it seems simple!

.

IT DOES WORK !!

[nightfisher]

yes it was mr spocks, and i do agree that seeing conditions more than likely caused a problem as low power was very good but higher power fuzzed out though i did manage to view jupiter at low power and very impressed, just got to get used to running a mak, planning to get a 102 or 120 startravel to use while mak cools down, the idea of using the barlow as extension is a good one